THE CHAMELEON.
THE outside is the first thing that attracts in the natural chame- leon: the book Chameleon has as pretty a skin as any reptile that either creeps or clings. It does not change its complexion, how- ever, at least while new. The variety is all in the inside; where the reader will find articles of all colour,—green, pink, -blue, crimson, and black,—nature, love, literature, history, and theology.
Of the first volume of the Chameleon we spoke highly, as we thought: if the second does not strike us as so good, the effect of the novelty of an Annual by one person having gone off, may pos- sibly be the sole cause. The poetry is still in many instances very good ; and some of the songs rival old ones, and beat most of those of' the present day. Many of them are accompanied by original airs, printed in the book form, with great brilliancy and much neatness. The prose- of this series seems to us to want depth where it is disquisitive, and life and vigour where it is descriptive. It is nevertheless that of a man of extensive reading and a refined turn of thought. Taken as a whole, both as the specimen of the writing of a sin- gle individual and the production of a provincial press, it is highly creditable to the flourishing town of Glasgow. The author, -as our readers are aware, is Mr. THOMAS ATKINSON, an enterprising bookseller and publisher in that place.
A word on the music of this volume. There are eleven songs, composed by THOMSON, CLARKE, ATKINSON, and other Scottish writers; and they are, for the most part, good songs. There is very little of the commonplace, worn-out phraseology of the musi- cal contributions to our English Albums; in which a composer gives the number of notes and bars for which he has contracted, but, prudently, reserves for another and more enduring mode of' pub- lication any thing which bears the marks of effort or original think- ing. These songs are, really and truly, worthy of being sung, and occupy precisely the situation which musical contributions ought to claim in such a volume.
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