27 FEBRUARY 1847, Page 18

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

MOORS.

Louis the Fourteenth and the Court of France in the Seventeenth Century. By Miss Parcloe, Author of "The City of the Sultan," &c. In three volumes.

George Lovell; a Novel. By James Sheridan Xnowles, Author of "-Vir- ginins," Sm. In three volumes.

Memoir of the Reverend Henry Francis Cary, ALA., Translator of %Us. With his Literary Journal and Letters. By his Son, the Reverend Henry Cary, M.A. Worcester College, Oxford. In two volumes.

Lives of Simon Lord Lovat, and Duncan Forbes, of Culloden. 'Prom Original Sources. By John Hill Burton, Advocate; Author of " The Life of David Hume."

The 2i:roger-Tongue; or Methodical Instruction in the Mother-tongue, in schools and families. Translated and adapted from the French of the Pare Girard. Edited by Viscount Ebrington M.P.

[When Lord Ebrington was at Geneva in 1844, he h;ard a good deal of the success which had attended the teaching of Pere Girard, in the neighbouring canton Of Friburg. His Lordship procured the Father's book descriptive of his sys

and was delighted with it; he bought copies to give to his friends, and they liked it too: finally, Lord Ebrington undertook the translation, in conjunction with his aunt, Lady Eleanor Fortescue ' • and here it is. It is sometimes difficult to account for liking; and extraneous circumstance% quite apart from the educational use of the book, may have stimulated Lord Ebrington's admiration. As an agreeable, earnest, truthful, and varied exhorta- tion on the human nature of children and the advantages of an education in which the virtuous feelings are cultivated, the vices sought to be suppressed, and religion presented in a Catholic and attractive form, The Mother-Tongue has great merit. We are ready to give in our adhesion to the principles of Pare Girard's system of instruction; if we rightly -understand it, as postponing the technicalities of-science (for grammar in its simplest form is a science) tam a late period, and instructing the Relit by appeals to his experience, and the visible forms of things with which he is familiar, rather than beating into him arbi- trary roles and dry abstractions. We also go with the good Father in his pre- ference to grammar over mathematics as a preliminary study for youth. But we do-not learn from this volume how the principles are to be carried out. It seems to us that anybody wishing to follow out the system of Girard must apply it for himself; and that if two or three undertook the task, each practical mode might differ from that of the others, and neither of them resemble the Swiss Father's, beyond a sort of family likeness. The book, in fact, is not an exposition of Pere Girard's system, but =account of its principles, and a defence of them. A good deal of his teaching seems to be oral; but that might be reduced to system. One secret of the success we fancy, is personal: a man might implicitly imitate Pare Girard's methods without effect, unless he could equal him in at- tracting the liking and exciting-the attention of his pupils.] Ireland, Historical and Statistical. By Georg! Lewis Smyth. Volumen [The review of the history of Ireland is completed in this volume; and two im- portant and timely subjects are begun and ended—Irish Public Works and Joint Stock Enterprises—Land and Landlords; but neither of them is handled with the power and thought that the occasion and subjects demand: the character of Mr. Smyth's mind has too much of the compiler or professional writer. Of the two Comm we- think the Public Works and Joint Stock Enterprises the most complete. In the way of remedy, Mr. Smyth has nothing new. The establish- ment of a tenant-right as regards improvements, a poor-law, and reform of the laws connected with land-tenure, are his leading recommendations. Colonize, tion he appears to overlook as a means of lessening "the huge dead weight created-by 3,968,996 persons who overlay the industrial energy -of the whole community"; though to that we must come at last, unless famine and fever quid anruption of paupers into Great Britain be preferred as succedanes]

Tardy's _Explanatory Pronouncing Dictionary of the French Language, :in French and English. A new edition, eorrected and much enlarged. By J. C. Tarver, French Master, Eton.

[This edition is-in effect a new work in its principal feature. Mr. Tarver has exhibited the pronunciation of the words by- French- elementary sounds, instead:10.f the Engliehlormerlrused; which he holds, and we think truly, could not correctly convey the pronunciation. . It may be objected that this unfits the-vcdume forA person who has not some knowledge of the sound of the French alphabet: bat what figure would such a person make in attempting French at all? When all is done that can be done, pronouncing dictionaries are guides for knowledgenot for ignomnce; and they must ever fail in conveying the niceties-of articulati rion. This 'book will 4111d-the-main purpose of such swork—klirection in doubtful and help in.difficult cases:] Aforceaux Moist:14es Atsteurs Modernes, aTusage de Is jennesse. Witins Translation of the new and difficult Words and Idiomatic Phrases which occur in the work. By. F.-M. Rowan. [The-feature of this French "reader" is, to select the extracts. from modern authors, confining the choice to prose, and carefully avoiding the improprieties of the new school in the few' novelists from whom the compiler draws a description or a character. Without absolute novelty, the volume is likely to be useful. A new edition might be made more so, by printing the translation of the idioms or pas- sages-of difficult construction at the foot of the page, instead of bringing them all together at the end of the volume.] Euclid's Elements of Geometry; the First Six Books chiefly from -the Text of Dr.Bimson, with Explanatory: Notes, &c. Designed for the use of the junior classes in public and private schools. By Robsrt Potts, 'ALA., Trinity College. [The earlier part of a larger work on geometry, which we noticed, and strongly recommend4 about a .tweivemonth since. In compliance with requests from

various educational quarters, Mr. Potts has republished the first six books, with much illustrative matter, for lower pupils and at a lower price.]

First Lesson for the Blind in Hughes's Raised Characters; which are ap- plicable to the various studies 'of Orthography, Writing, and Accounts. [The primary desideratum, in type for the blind, we suppose, is distinctness to the touch: this quality appears to be well attained by Mr. Hughes. The letters are composed entirely of a rough dot and a smooth dot, with the aid of a short line in certain composite characters; embossed on the paper, and mul- tiplied, combined, and disposed in a variety of forms, which are simple, and appear to be readily distinguishable. The embossing is produced by an ivory instrument; which can be used by hand, so ‘that the type can be stamped in a kind of manuscript as well as printed. The fascicalus before us contains three specimens of the raised type,-one in which every letter stands in sequence, and this is accompanied by a printed version of the words in the usual type; the second is a sort of stenographic copy of the first; the third is a version of the type with the letters given in full, but compressed into closer groups, also with an interlinear copy in the, usual characters. The two latter have the advantage of -occupying less apace; which would appear to us to be of importance not only for-the mere saving of paper, but still more for the facility which it affords to the reader in getting over the ground.] The Novitiate; or the Jesuit in Training: being a Year's Residence among the English Jesuits. By Andrew Steinmetz, Anther of " The Jesuit in the Family." Second edition. [This new edition contains a preface' and a letter which Mr. Steinmetz wrote in answer to a notice of his book in the Dublin Review, insinuating charges of In- fidelity against him. The preface is chiefly, autobiographical, giving fuller par- ticulars of the author's parentageond early days, but not of his wanderings about the world in search of what it is very difficult to find-fortune: since he left Stonyharst he has married, and settled as a teacher, at Fakenham in Norfolk. The reply to the Dublin Review is not very full or clinching; but the reviewer's charges are vague. The accusation of Infidelity +Mr. Steinmetz distinctly-denies -he is a Protestant.] -A Voice in the Wilderness; or the Broad and Narrow Way.

[The author of this book considers that the present religions movement is all hollow; that people are struggling for something outward, while the inner man is going astray. 'Upon this conviction the author has lifted up his "voice in the wilderness," and sent forth fourteen short meditations, of the nature of sermons, but certainly by no means comparable with what we may assume to have been the-preaching of John the Baptist.]

The Christian Philosopher; or the Connexion of Science and "Philosophy with Religion. Illustrated with Engravings. By Thomas Dick, LL.D., Author of "Philosophy of Religion," &c. Volume IL

[The intermixture of science and religion by Dr. Dick is not more successful than is most other writers, unless it be that the Doctor generally reserves his remarks bathe end of his exposition. The book is a compilation upon natural science, revised and enlarged for this edition.]

Florentine Tales, -with-Modern Illustrations. [A revised edition of a flippant book which appeared some time since under a title whic' h we forget, but which referred to Boccamo -whose tales furnished the groundwork of the poems. `Besides rewriting and revision, there are four new pieces.] The Vision of Peace or Thoughts in Verse on the late Secessions from the Church of England. By William John Edge, M.A., Rector of Wald- ringfield, Suffolk. [The Vision of Peace is an address to the Tractarian converts to Romanism, descriptive of the assumed failure of their dreams of contentment in their new position. An amiable High Church feeling pervades the Vision; and the verse is agreeable, if not exactly reaching poetry.] Faust; a Dramatic Poem. By Goethe. Translated into English Prose, with Notes, Sze., by A. Hayward, Esq.

[One of Mr. Moxon's neat reprints, of the same form and price as Barry Corn- wall's Songs, Sic. There is no literary novelty in the edition.]

History of Europe from the Commencement of the French .Revolution in 1789 tolhe Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. By Archibald Alison, F.R.S.E., Advocate. Volume the Second. [Punctual as the day, or indeed before it, is the second volume of Mr. Alieon's History of Europe from the bibliotheque of Messrs. Blackwood. It commences with the opening of the State's-General, and ends with the dethronement of the King]

SERIALS.

"The Black Prophet; a Tale of Irish Famine. By William Carleton. (The Parlour Library.) [This is the first volume of. a new speculation, by the firm which undertook "The Parlour Novelist," but at less than half the price of that series, cheap as it was. The Parlour Library is to contain a series of novels and tales by distin- guished authors, at a ehilling a volume; being less than the cost of reading some fictions from the circulating library% few years ago. The undertaking opens with-a reprint, from the Dublin University Magazine, of Carleton's tale of The Black Prophet; in which, "turning diseases to commodity," the author makes the " famine " a vehicle for exhibiting the manners, characters, virtues, and vices of the Irish peasantry: and here it is, bound and all, for a shilling. This is to be followed by other works from authors of equal or greater name; one or two of whom have not held the pen of the ready writer. In future the paper might be improved.] O'Halloran, or the Insurgent Chief; a Tale of the United Irishmen. By James ItHenry, M.D. (Irish Standard Library.) The Hearts ofSteel; an Irish Historical Taleof the Last Century. By James -Mqlenry, -M.D. (Irish Standard Library.) [These two cheap though _rather coarsely-printed little volumes, form another Irish literary speculation' in-which the history, manners, and scenery of old Ire- land, are to furnish materials for fiction.]