PROGRESS OF PUBLICATION.
THE temporary flush of new works, which promised something but yielded nothing when submitted to the test, has subsided ; and the undertakings of the booksellers, however interesting to themselves and to certain classes of purchasers, have little ge- neral attraction in the way of' novelty. New editions, professional or technical books, translations, miscellanies, and so forth, are the nature of the publications before us,—all unquestionably very good to publish, advertise, and buy, but by no means fitted for current criticism. The only exception to this, is Attila, King of the Huns, by the Honourable and Reverend WILLIAM HERBERT. As MILTON chose the fall and restoration of Man for Paradise Lost, and VIRGIL the foundation of Rome for the zEneid, so our author has taken the triumphs of ArriLLA, arrested by death, for an epic poem commemorative of the arm establishment of Chris- tianity. The books are twelve in number, and the poem is fol- lowed by a prose history of Arms.. So much for form ; what substance or spirit is to be found in this attempt, we are not at present in a condition to say. We gather from a very friendly notice in the January number of the Edinburgh Review, that there is much poetry in the volume, but that it is not exactly an epic. The latter we believe ; the former we shall see about. And to Attila we must add, at the last moment, an elaborate work in three volumes, by Mr. WtaxtNsosr, on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians ; but Mr. MURRAY has sent two second volumes, and omitted the first.
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