PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

BOON.A.

Selections from the Charges and other Detached Papers of Baron Alderson. With an Introductory Notice of his life by Charles Alderson, M.A., Fellow of AU Soul's, Oxford.

Popular Astronomy : by Francois Arago, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Translated from the Original and Edited by Admiral W. H. Smyth, D.C.L., For. Sec., R.S., &c., &c., and Robert Grant, Esq., MA., F.R.A.S. In two volumes. Volume II.

The Foster Brothers: being a history of the School and College Life of Two Young Men.

The Two Mottoes. By the Author of" Summerleigh Manor."

Peasant Life in Germany. By Miss Anna C. Johnson, Author of the Iroquois," &c.

Years' Campaigning in India, from March, 1857, to March, 1858. By Julius George Medley, Captain Bengal Engineers, and Garrison Engineer of Luck- now. With Plans of the Military Operations.

The Curiosities of Food. By P. L. Simmonds, F.R.G.S., &c., Author of "The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom," &e.—A mix- ture of facts, gossip, and we might add gluttony, done after the manner of the celebrated Dr. Doran, and, in our opinion, in a better manner- less inflatedly, less strainingly. The subject of Mr. Simmonds is animal food, n.ot exactly such as forms the general sustenance of civilized man with "his legs under the mahogany "—though that is not altogether occluded; but the titbits or regular provender which habit or necessity induces barbarous peoples to live upon, and which even civilized men of the species traveller have been compelled to eat. The edibles are classed according to the arrangements of natural history, and some sound well enough as fish or birds; among rudimantia, ifideed, there are various delicacies, as buffalo humps, but the " cetacea " of the same chapter are not quite so attractive; unless in the Frozen zone, where man must keep up animal warmth by animal fat. The attraction of the pachydermata must, we imagine, depend upon circumstances, of which appetite is the thief. The same piquant sauce may probably relish the quadrumana, certain prejudices touching form being got over, but reptilia, (save such items as turtle,) insects, with a distinct chapter for arachnids ! Pah I In sueh straits there is nothing for it but a return to the maxim of childhood, "open your mouth, and shut your eyes." There is a medley of matters in the volume; and Mr. Siramonds does not pretend to more than a compilation. But he has fulfilled the critical canon of compassing all he intended, which was to produce "a readable book." Great Facts. By Frederick C. Bakewell, Author of "Philosophical Conversations," &c.—The story of more than twenty of the most re- markable inventions realized during the present century. Wonder- fully as the world has progressed in something more than fifty years, still the "great" inventions have hardly reached a score, though it is curious to observe how close they approach to it. If we strike out serated waters, the kaleidoscope, dissolving views, instantaneous lights, and some larger, if not really more important things, as the diorama, there will /JAM remain a dozen that either appeal to the memory and the feelings, as photography, affect the comforts:of mankind, as gas-lighting, influence the whole business of civilized life, as steam, navigation, railways, the electric telegraph, or operate upon the universal mind as paper-making and printing machines. In such a ',number of subjects any one of the largest of which would require a volume for exposition, the treatment must of necessity be "popular." It is not, however, superficial though Mr. Bakewell confines his explanation to the salient points. Great Facts will form a gift book of a useful kind for the approaching season. Days of Old, for the Young. By the author of "Ruth and her Friends."—A very charming he& its literature, and.Etufficientl,y, well " xp'T' to fors ,n acceptable, Christmas,mantra,. Criticisin might object' to some deviation 'from dramaticaccureez 'to manners and sentinicpts, in the ancient Briton, the Anglo Sax4ntiktul the Crusader under Vceur de Lion ; but the accessories are 89 74 preserved, ana so complete a conaisteney Is Maintained throughet0 :that this theoretical defect is rather perceived theft felt. The moral and religiou.s objeots of the writer also render exact manners of less importance by imparting

kind of cloistered tone to the whole. ,

The talea " Days of Old" are three in namber. One carries the reader to- Britain in the earlier part of the first Chrifftian century,. con- trasting Druidical superstition and the efforts of the natural mind to arrive at a knowledge of itself and the unseen, with the assured truths aLe.Christian. In the next story there is a picture Of the Saxon Earl and the freedTan, illuetrating the triumph of Christian affection over natural self-vp.11. iThe third shows by „contrasted example the power and inward reward of faith and. love, aa against knightly glory and worldly success. This last tale is probably the best from the greater consistency of the times with the subjeet4ruths iliu.stratcd and the closer sympathy,, with modern ideas, but they, are all attractive stories, charming alike in ceneeption and expression, • Struggles in Falling: By Henry John Lester.—The " falling " in this story, . we suppose, for there are several things that might come un- der that title, is tlie elopement of the hero with a betrothed on the eve of her marriage, and the struggles applied to Mr. Charles Vamp, are a simple tissue of vanity, villany, and conceited self-display. The excuse for the conduct is to be sought in the fact that Mn Veaey, unknown to people in general, has been fixed to a marriage with a "hard-.featured, red-haired, keen-tempered (Scotch) lady of about thirty-five years of age," by having played the character of her husband in a charade, and agreed to continue the joke for the rest of the evening. This we are as- sured in a foot-note did constitute a Scotch marriage, but the law "has been altered within the last few years." We know of no alteration in the Scotch law of marriage, but we do know that' this notion of it ap- plied to the purposes of trouble in fiction, is not originally Mr. Lester's, and has been marred in the using. There M a kind of flippant smartness in the writing, especially where the hero Vete), and his friends are on the scene; in other respects the book is bad enough. Florence, a Tale. By A/. E. llammond,—An incongruity attaches to this story, because of an attempt to engraft ideas derived from modern life, on elements which are drawn from the novels of a somewhat past time. The writer possesses a 'knack of story-telling with a touch of feeling that imparts interest to some of the scenes. The character and tone of the tale, however, are not of alcind to challenge criticism. The Two Frigates. By George Clippies. Author of "The Green Hand."—A cheap novel of nautical adventure, "partly republished from a serial form." It is full of nautical doings, the author's model appa- rently being Marryat and Tom Cringle with this difference, however, that with them nauticalities were 'subordinate to the incidents, whereas with Mr. Guppies they often constitute the incidents. However, it is a readable two shillings' worth, with love, war, mystery, and interest. ' A Christmas. A Tale in three Tell:1gs. By Theophilus Oper. Author of "One More," &c.—A Christmas tale on the plan of making three successive Christina days contain the three distinct acts of the story. The idea is not bad, but it is marred by the word-spinning manner in which it is presented. It is Dickens with little more than his faults. Memorials of Christian Martyrs and other Sufferers for the Truth in the Indian Rebellion. By the Reverend W. Owen. Author of the "Life of Havelock.' —A collection from newspapers and missionary communications of tales and incidents of European and Native Christians who have suffered death, or troubles sometimes worse than death, during the Indian Mutiny. The accounts—not always told in the best taste or the most forcible manner—are enlarged by Mr. Owen's own commentary. The style of book is not very greatly to our taste; because the minds of recorder and annotator so predominate in the narrative, as to entirely colour if not alter the facts themselves; but there are undoubtedly a large class of readers who sympathize with this kind of composition.

Four school-books are before us, if indeed Leopold Millers "German Grammar" ought not rather to be termed educational. One of its cha- racteristics is the attention given to pronunciation, so far that is as it can be taught by precept; another and the principal feature is the ffius- tration and enforcement of both accidence and syntax, from the simplest sentence up to the niceties of the language by reading lessons and exer- cises. It is primarily intended to be used as an aid to oral teaching. Mr. Edwin 'Abbott's "Second. Latin Book" is a series of exercises, also designed to enforce the leading rules of Latin construction by exercises, starting with simple sentences but closing with extracts from Cmsaes invasion of Britain. The author intends it to be used as a species of text book by the master. The "Arithmetic for Beginners "is chiefly remarkable for the number and variety of its exercises to decimal fractions and compound interest. The fulness of the introductory explanations as to the working. of the sum, and the establishment of the rule" as a sequence, requires, in the case of young pupils, to be reiterated and impressed by the master. "The Analysis of Sentences" by Mr. Demaus is a brochure intended to be used in conjunction with grammars, in which this basis of good _composition is insufficiently handled or not at all. Practical and Theoretical Grammar of the German Language, for the use of Schools. By Leopold Willer, Master of Modem Languages in the Madras College, St. Andrews. A Second Latin Book; containing the Rules of Syntax, with Illustrations and Examples for construing. By Edwin Abbott, Dead Master of the Philologi- cal School.

Arithmetic for Beginners : being an Introduction to Cornwell and 'Itch's Science of Arithmetic. By the same Authors.

The Analysis of Sentences; with Applications to Parsing, Punctuation, and Composition. By Robert Demons, MA., F.E.I.S., late Principal of the Grammar School, Alnwick.

The American Mr. Holmes does not show so effectively in prose as in verse. "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," reprinted. from the Atlantic Monthly Maga:ine, seems to us as if it might well have re- mained where it originally appeared. In the form of all but a mono- lo,,rue the anthortpours forth his "notions," smartly as regards turn of periods, briskly in point of manner, sometimes quaintly, " now and then ,perhaps wittily. But this " lireakfast-Table " talk wants the gllbildttlee and reality necessary to occupy a volume. • The trial of more than thirty years and the .demand for a serentli edi- tion leave nothing to say of Southey's "Book of the. Church," except that this most enduring of his works, appears in a neatly .compar...4 forna; and, we suppose, at a reduced price. Messrs. Routledg,e continue their publication of the elder. Disraeli's ,rose works by "'he Calamities and Quarrels of Authors," a hook more Interesting in its subject, and we thinl, less behind the present age in its treatment than the "Curiosities of Literature."

Prose fiction meets us everywhere. Desideethe novels raterved or dismissed already,. there are three reprints, ltresers. Parker republish from Fraser the story of modern life called "Hanwortli.4!"" Messrs. Illackweod give us half-a-dozeri capital stories In, a neat eighternpenny red:rime from their Magazine, and the "-Bun and Read Library" includes in its series the fatuous "Margaret Catchpole." Tha Autocrat Of the Breakfast Tehle. Every Manhis own BuswelL By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Author of "Astrea" arid other Poems. - 79orBOok of tha Church.' By Hobert Southey,-Riq., M.D. ',Seventh edition.

The Calamities' and Quarrel's of Artehorx: wifinitOrno ioquiries.resPectlegthek moral and literary characters, and Memoirs for our Literary. History. By • Isaac Disraeli. A new edition, edited by his son the Right Honourable B. Damen, Chancellor of her Maj&.ty's Exchequer.

lionevorth. Originally publiehedin traser's Magazine: Toles P.0111 Btacktrood. Volume III., • Ira4aiet Catchpole, SulF61kGirl. Bt theReterendle. CObbold. •

itrireoce : Pictorial, Descriptive, rind Ilfstorical. Be Christopher Wordsworth,

• D.D„ Canon of Westminster, laM Fellow of Trinity College, and Public . Orator irt the University of Cambridge; -Head Master a Harrow School and Iteinber of the Archicological Institute at Rome. A new edition, carefully revised. With numerous Eagravinga illustisfive of the Scenery, Architec- ture, Costume, and Fine Arta of that country. And a History of the Charac- teristics of Greek Art by George Scharf.y.S.A,