PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
BOOKS.
Homes and Haunts of the most Eminent British Poets. By William Hewitt. The Illustrations by W. and G. Measom. In two volumes. Memoirs of General Pipi. Comprising the principal Military and Political Events of Modern Italy. Written by Himself In three volumes. Christ the .Desire of all Nations, or the Unconscious Prophecies of Hea- thendom; being the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1846. By Richard Chenevix Trench, MA., Vicar of lichen Stoke, Hants, Professor of Di- vinity, King's College, London, &c.
Margaret Percival. By the Author of " Amy Herbert," &c. Edited by the Reverend William Sewell, B.D., Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford. In two volumes.
[Margaret Percival, the heroine of this tale, is in danger of falling into the " gratification of a dreamy, self-indulgent spirit; wrapt in its own fancy, and heeding neither the pleasures nor the pains of the beings among whom it dwelt.' From this state she is rescued by the influence of her uncle, a pious clergyman; only to be plunged into difficulties through family misfortunes, and dangers by a friendship with a Romanist lady and her confessor, who, of course, are bent upon Miss Percival's conversion. By the end of the two rather ample volumes, the heroine is triumphant in both fields: her sister is reconciled to her husband, her brother supported at college; and she herself continues in the bosom of the An- glican Church, rather, it should seem, out of deference to the authority of her uncle, than from any critical study of the matters in dispute. The manner of this writer is that of the school of Miss Austen; a school which is perhaps somewhat passed, and which always required to be followed with dis- cretion, for the common character of its incidents and persons, with the full mi- nuteness of its painting, was sure to become insipid or at least tiresome as soon as it ceased to be felicitous. An elegant style, a feminine delicacy and quickness of perception, with a spice of dramatic power to develop a character and sustain dia- logue, being given, we can conceive no end to such kind of works; for every country-town or village will furnish subjects for this class of fiction. When, in addition to a transcript of the common events and persons of everyday life, the. reveries of contemplative minds, and discourses about religion, are introduced into a novel, we stand aghast at the floodgates of elegant mediocrity that may be. opened upon the world, should this style become fashionable. The religious topics, the approach to Anglican Tractarianism, the half mystical feeling, the re- ligious refinement of manner, and the nice delineation of common character, may render Margaret Percival as successful as its predecessor, Amy Herbert; but we' suspect the readers of this author are confined to a particular class. She seems to US too wire-drawn for this railway age.] The Shoes of Fortune, and other Tales. By Hans Christian Andersen. With four Drawings by Otto Speckter, and other Illustrations. [The principal tale in this volume is more ingenious in the design than happy in the execution. A fairy has received a pair of shoes as a birthday present; which shoes possess the property of transporting the wearer into any time, place, or cha- racter, that he wishes at the moment. The first person who puts them on is an old Danish gentleman, a great lover of the past. As soon as he gets into the streets at Copenhagen from an evening-party, he finds himself transported to all the darkness, dirt, discomfort, and coarseness, of the cities and citizens of the middle ages. After passing through several adventures, he awakes, by the re- moval of his goloshes, to an appretiation of the advantages of the present times; and " the shoes of Fortune" are passed on to several other individuals: but their ad- ventures seem forced, without the effects which ought to accompany force. The other tales are of a less marked character, and mostly rather fanciful than happy. The volume has plates, is prettily got up, and belongs to the class of gift-books.] The Railway Shareholder's Manual; or Practical Guide to All the Railways
in the World, completed, in progress, and projected. To which is added, a correct List of the Offices and Officers of existing and projected Rail- ways. Eighth edition, carefully revised and corrected. By Henry Tuck. [Mr. Tuck's volume seems to us to have grown considerably within the year;
indeed, almost "out of knowledge," but for a certain family likeness. Amongst the new matter is the Second Report from the Committee of the House of Com- mons, and the Act for constituting Commissioners, besides other information not in existence last winter. Several departments of the iron " interest " connected with their finances and foreign railways appear to us to be new, or they are pre- sented in a new and more compact form. Mr. Tuck also undertakes to support the railway demands for money against the economists. The Times and other people also have doubted whether so large a sum as the new railways require, estimated by Mr. Tuck himself at twenty millions per annum for four years, can be tar- nished by the surplua capital of the country without some derangement. In his answer Mr. Tuck falls into the error of confounding money with capital, like some practical men of the old school, who held that taxation could not be too heavy if the taxes were expended at home. According to Mr. Tuck, money spent on rail- ways is like the evil deeds in Manager Bunn's song: and the shareholder may chant, on the authority of this Manual. "Now I and that all my cash Comes back to me again." The argument is stated thus. Six millions only will be "called" for every three months: "when paid into the bankers, the money is weekly disbursed to labourers, who weekly expend every shilling with the tradesman, who monthly remits it to the wholesale dealer or manufacturer, who is thus enabled to meet the next call, (if he be a railway shareholder, and if he do not want the money to pay for the goods exhausted by this brisk demand): and the six millions of capital works round in a circle, until the entire operation is finished."] Address of Sir John Rennie, President, to the Annual General Meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 20th January 1846. [Sir John Renuie'e address contains a rapid survey of the history and present state of engineering in this country, with a passing glance at foreign affairs. Tracing British engineering from its commencement under Smeaton down to the present day, Sir John noticed in succession the different works that have been ex- ecuted in all the branches of the art, and the improvements in various manufac- tures connected with engineering: bridges, roads, harbours, navigation by canal, or improvements in rivers, steam in all its modes of application, cum meads alit's, are touched upon in their origin, history, and present state. In travelling over so vast a field, any one part of which is a subject for a book, Sir John of course can only touch very briefly upon any; but he exhibits a very complete outline of his subject, and occasionally goes rather deeply into some branches. His sketch of steam-navigation is curious, as showing that Felton was merely an introducer of the plan into America, without the slightest claim to the invention; which belongs to this country.] The Cream. of Scientific Knowledge; a Note-book of General Information. A new edition. Enlarged by the Reverend G. N. Wright. Illustrated by Diagrams, &c.
[This little volume is a mixture of the dictionary and anecdote-book: it contains a vast variety of names of subjects, of which it gives a compendious view rather than the cream. Recent discoveries-such as the Bade Light, the Daguerreotype -are included in this edition.]
Orators of the Age; comprising Portraits, Critical, Biographical, and De- scriptive. By G. H. Francis, Esq., Editor of "Maxims and Opinions of the Duke of Wellington." [A revised reprint of a series of articles which have appeared in Fraser's Ma- gazine, with some additional subjects. The plan is not complete or systematic; for Cobden is omitted while Bright is inserted; and Brougham and O'Connell are left out, while the Dukes of Richmond and Buckingham, Mr. Wakley, Dr. Bow- ring, &c. are classed among the " orators of the age." These on:issions, however, would have been of no importance had the quality of the insertions been first-rate; but such is not the case. The papers are diffuse' with more than ordinary magazine wordiness: even with the lower subjects the writer is unequal to his theme, and as much space is occupied with his own opinions as with the charac- ters and qualities of the orators.] Memoirs of Benvenulo Cellini, a Florentine Artist. Written by Himself. Now first collated with the new Text of Guiseppe Molini, and corrected and enlarged from the last Milan edition, with Notes and Observations, of G. P. Carpani. Translated by Thomas Roscoe. (Bohn's Standard Library.) [The chief feature of this new edition of a book which Walpole pronounced more amusing than any novel," is indicated in the title. The new text of Molini is taken from a manuscript, said to be the original dictated by
It contains various additions, and corrects some inadvertencies.]
A School Geography. By James Cornwell, Author of " The Young Com- poser," &c. [This little book resembles some other publications we have seen, in packing up an immense number of facts into a small compass; which, by means of ques- tions for exercises appended to each chapter, may secure a knowledge of the facts to the pupil, if the exercises be properly carried out.] Verses Composed on Various Occasions. By Alexander Q. G. Craw-
- ford, M.A. [The verses in this brochure are slight in subject, and not very remarkable in execution.]
A Little Book of Christmas Carols, with the Ancient Melodies to which they are sung; including the celebrated Boar's Head Song, annually sung on Christmas Day at Queen's College, Oxford. Collected and edited by Edward F. Rimbaalt, LL.D. F.S.A. Nursery Rhymes, with the Tunes to which they are still sung in the Nurseries of England. Obtained principally from oral tradition. Col- lected and edited by Edward F. Rimbault, LL.D., F.S.A., &c.
SERIAL.
Vanity Fair: Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society. By W. M. Thackeray, Author of " The Irish Sketch-Book," &c. No. L [0 Who can control his fate? "-who can resist the fashion? Michael Angelo Titmarah has fallen in with the stream, and, like so many of his contemporaries, has started a novel to appear in monthly parts; which novel is intended to describe the incidents, characters, and manners, to be found in modern English society-chiefly, we infer, among the middle classes. This mode of publication may be profitable to the writers, but it is not con- venient to the critic; who, having a part alone before him, can only guess at the plan of the book, and is quite unable to judge of it as a whole. Neither do we Mink it advantageous to the work. We formerly observed that everything must be sacrificed to temporary effect. The reader expects an ever-recurring literary dram, and is disappointed if he does not get it. Such a plan is well adapted for a felicitous sketcher of scenes and characters, possessed of an ad captandum art of animating claptraps, but without enlarged experience to depict life, or art to conceive and sustain the whole of a first-rate fiction: his excel- lences are displayed in the best light, and his faults overlooked, by this piece- meal mode of exhibition. A more consistent and delicate artist is placed at dis- advantage: he must either fall into the coarser style; exaggerating his incidents, decking out his persons with theatrical glare and spangles, expanding his matter by literal description, sounding commonplaces, or disguised cant,-and doing this badly, as against the grain,-or, if he writes naturally, his more refined and finished treatment will fail of its full effect, while the merit of his entire design cannot be perceived. Something of these latter disadvantages strike us as being felt in this first part of Vanity Fair; and perhaps the necessity of giving a cer- tain quantity of letterpress has induced a rather more diluted mode of coin- position than is usual with Mr. Thackeray. Vanity Fair is " a novel without a hero." Of the two ladies, Amelia Sedley seems too amiable a girl to be plunged into difficulties, and there is besides a marriage in prospect: so the real heroine, as we take it, is to be Miss Rebecca Sharp, the " orphan" daughter of a loose fish of a painter, with wits sharpened by poverty. from her earliest years, and bent upon getting a good husband. The incidents in the present part are chiefly occupied with Rebecca's plans upon Joseph Sedley, the brother of Amelia; Miss Sharp, " the teacher," having been invited to spend her holydays with Amelia on the latter leaving school. The scenes as yet, areiss Pinkerton's seminary in " The Mall, Chiswick," and Mr. R Sedleyis house in Russell Square. The principal characters are, Miss Pinkerton, the stately head of the seminary, who was once visited by Dr. Johnson, and cor- responded with h Mrs. Chapone; Mr. Sedley senior, the goodnatured, coarse, prac- tical joker of the Stock Exchange; and his son, of the Indian " Civil Service, who has been banished to an up-station since boyhood, and is now stout, middle-aged, and bashful in the company of ladies. The manner has much of the humour and nice observation upon society which distinguish this author; and the style has his wonted neatness and point. The text is interspersed with wood-cuts, some- times mere scratches, but idways with more expression than the Boz order of "illustrations."]
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