THE REVIEWER'S TABLE.

1. A Companion to the Lakes of Cum- berland, Westmoreland, and Lan- cashire. By Edward Baines, jun. Second edition.

2. A Guide and Pocket Companion through Italy. By William Cath- cart Boyd, M.D. 3. The History and Antiquities of the Tower of London. By John Bayley, F.R.S. &c.

4. Universal Mechanism. By G. M. Bell.

b. The Works of Bishop Sherlock ; with some Account of his Life, Sum- mary of each Discourse, &c. By the Rev. T. S. Hughes, B.D. Vol. E.

6. The Captive of Fez ; a Poem. By Thomas Aird.

7. The Lay of the Desert ; a Poem. By Henry Sewell Stokes.

8. The Senate; a Poem. Part I. The Lords.

9. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. With

a Life of the Author. By 3. H. Witfen. Third edition.

10. Parochial Law. By Alexander Dun- lop, Esq. 11. A Literary and Historical French Grammar. By Francois Le Hari- vel. Second Edition.

12. Anthology fur 1830. By the Rev. J. D. Parry, M.A.

13. The Family Cabinet Atlas. Part II. 14. Instructions for Establishing Friendly Institutions.

15. Catechism of Useful Knowledge for Schools.

16. Address to the Magistracy and Pa- rochial Authorities of London, &c. on the Shamefulness of certain Nuisances in the public Streets. By Thomas Dolby.

17. The Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XI.

1. WE lately noticed a Guide to the Lakes, of no small merit. The plan of Mr. BAINES is somewhat different from that of Mr. LEIGH. Mr. BAINES not only gives a copious itinerary, but he favours us also with a journal of a personal tour, or family tour rather, in which the various objects of the itinerary are graphically described. i At a moment when the land of Cockaigne s about to pour forth her sight-seeking thousands, Mr. BaiNEs's book will be found a pleasant and useful companion.

2. A most unassuming and sensible guide-book to the wonders of nature and art, of which the fertile fields of Ausonia present so exuberant a display. The descriptions, though necessarily brief, are lively ; and no object of curiosity that a traveller ought to in- spect, escapes mention. The work is accompanied with a useful and well-written introduction, the rules and prescriptions of which will be found of value to every one going abroad, whether they may happen to make Italy the object of their travels or not.

3. The reason assigned by Mr. BAYLEY for presenting the pub- lic with an octavo edition of his learned and elaborate work on the Tower of London, conveys a truth of no small importance. We fear, however, that abridgments have been the bane of books as well as of authors in all ages as well as the present.

"Another reason also influences me; which is, to check the system that so generally and discreditably prevails in the present day, of getting up small and cheap books, on almost every popular or important subject, by taking advantage of the labours and research of others ; a system which must effectually discourage the undertaking of any great and ex- pensive works, and destroy the literary character of the country."

Mr. BAYLEY'S work.on the Tower is well known as the most valuable of all the histories of that ancient but not venerable buildine. • and the octavo edition exhibits in a different form the whole building; contents of its predecessor, except the notes and appendix : it contains ten engravings, all beautifully execute d. We have small love for the subject of Mr. BAYLEY'S studies. Built for the purpose of putting down the freedom of the people, it has through a long lapse of ages performed a part in English story well worthy of its tyrannous origin, How much blood of the great and the good has been shed—what groans have echoed —what sights of sorrow have been exhibited, within its gloomy wails! If it depended on es, before six months were over, Mr. BAYLEY'S book should be the only remembrance of so infamous a prison-house : the monkeys would travel to Regent's Park, the guns to the Horse Guards, and the site of Rufus's Tower would be scooped out for the reception of the peaceful shipping on which its gloomy and misshapen battlements have so long looked frowning down.

4. This little essay is evidently the work of a superior and well- cultivated mind. The paraphrase on the days of creation is in- genious; and so are the chapters on the mechanism of animal and vegetable existences, which follow. The assumption, how- ever, that the days of creation were no more than ordinary days, we rather think is hastily made. The author ought to have re- collected, that before the sun was created, there did not exist a ma- chinery by which to measure what was afterwards called a day. We believe that all the observations of modern geology go to prove, that changes must have occurred on the surface of the earth, more important than any thing recorded by Moses can fairly account for : nor are we aware that by our soundest divines these observations have been found at all incompatible with the accounts of the divine historian, though they point to a date highly antecedent to that which the common chronology assigns for the commencement of his narrative.

5. This is the first volume of a series of the English Divines. It contains twenty-four sermons of the celebrated SHERLOCK, with a life, in which the editor unnecessarily utters a violent tirade against BENTLEY. Each discourse is preceded by a lengthened summary, meant to assist the young divine in composition. We doubt whe- ther the summaries add to any thingbut the bulk of the volume. For our own parts, we would put a single perusal of one well-rea- soned discourse against five hundred summaries, as a guide to

composition. •

6. Mr. AIRD must remember what HORACE says of middling

poetry ; and his is but middling—nevertheless, we treat our readers

to a slice of it. The story of the Captive of Fez is of one Julian, who, for certain misdemeanours, is condemned to perpetual im- prisonment by a terrible fellow named Zemberbo. There is store of characters of all kinds in it. One of these, Queen Zenone, has strange ambition for a burial-place ; nothing but Mount Etna will serveher. She does not, however, insist on her whole carcase being carried thither ; a part will be sufficient :— " Hear me yet : When! Have gained my triumph, and have bowed to die—

As soon I must—if thou shalt me survive, To win my heart from clay, Italian, strive. And thou shalt flee from out this sable land, And bear it like a treasure in thy hand, And in the hour of midnight shalt thou throw The little gift to Etna's fiery flow ; So the bright haunts shall be my burial-place, Nor my heart rot like man's ignoble race ! Swear—swear.'"

The ambiguous gentleman to whom this speech is addressed, answers, with the characteristic prudence of an Italian, "'I swear, so strength be given to me."

In the next page but one, we have Zenone in a towering pas- sion. The last four lines of the following description are prodigi- ously fine,— " As from the cloud the lightning's nimble glance

Startles the forest from its midnight trance, Upsprung the pale Sultana at the word, Which told the captive to her power restored. And passion's flaming linstock fired her brow, And gleansed her eye as from a fearless vow, And o'er her cheek red floods of kindled life Steeped the wan pearls."

Every one recollects Marmion's murmured call for water. One of Mr. AIRD'S princesses, happening to be thirsty, thus expresses herself to an aged friend,— " Go, seek thy couch ; if strength thou lack'st to bring

One draught of water from th' appointed spring.

But none, save thee, I have: OhJ fast— go fast;

And let this bitterness of thirst be past ' "

Axuch, adds the author, " — kissed her hand, and from her chamber went, With mustered strength, as if for great intent."

We forget if he brings back a tumbler, or not. Mr. AIRD is not -always burying hearts, or firing off passions, or clamouring for cold water and fair play. He can occasionally choose a softer theme : witness the following picture of a young woman weeping over a sleeping child :— " She saw her little brother on his bed,

And to him ran, and murmured o'er his head, Till, from their zones dissolved, the dark, the deep, Her dropping- tears bedewed his rosy sleep.

' Sweet knot of tangled dreams! arise—arise,'

She murmured, for thy mother's in the skies.

Wake, for the night of sorrow soon shall fly—

Wake, for thy great redemption draweth nigh.

And, sisters all, to her shall ye be given

Young white believers at the gates of Heaven.'"

The lamentation of the poor children was not uncalled for ; a terrible fate awaited them.

"Black Zemberbo comes : and he has sworn That, flung to want, from me ye shall be torn, Poor homeless things ! to drink the desert rills, To wander idly o'er the windy hills, To eat cold roots behind the moonlit hedges, To crawl for sleep beneath the dropping bridges I"

Did ever any mortal hear of such a merciless rascal ?—eat tur- nips, and sleep below the bridges !

7. Mr. SEWELL STOKES is a mighty grumbler at a world which we apprehend owes him but little, if his other presents to its in habitants have no higher claim to acceptance than his "Lay of the Desert." "When he has done something to merit the notice of mankind, he may complain of their neglect, if he meet with it. We notice in the poem a flat and frothy panegyric on Mr. 'VI, owls, whom it associates with — MILTON ! and an attack, ribald and spirit- less, on one of the most amiable men in England—Mr. SOUTHEY ; who is described as

" Grey in the service of servility, Whose pallid cheek is somewhat tinged with shame !"

But, as Mr. SEWELL STOKES hath it, in another part of his Lay, "'Tis sad, not strange, that fools should be misled."

8. There is a good deal of smartness in this little piece, but we cannot commend the discrimination of the author. The panegyrie on Lord ELDON is honest, now that he is laid on the shelf; but what peculiar merit there is in a judgment of Chancery that passes "unquestioned by posterity," we do not exactly- know. All final judgments, we take it, must pass unquestioned. As- suredly, of all the judges that ever gave decision, Lord ELDON has laid down fewest general principles, and furnished least of the materials by which future Chancellors are to be guided. The compliment to Lord ELDON'S decisions is appropriately followed by one to the Duke of WELLINGTON'S eloquence. The author's figures are somewhat broken. The Duke and his three brothers are first, a " galaxy ; " then they are " Arthur's wain ; " and the "wain" wants, to complete it, a lost " pleiad." The House of Commons, with which we are threatened, will afford more scope for satire than the Lords.

9. Mr. WIFFEN'S Jerusalem Delivered bears to the translation of FAIRFAX, somewhat of the same relation that PITT'S Virgii does to DRYDEN'S. The modern version is the more smooth and elegant, the ancient the more bold and vigorous. The public re- quired a work in which the rude simplicity of olden times should be exchanged for the polish of modern refinement. Mr. WIFFEN has furnished such a work. To speak in plain of a book whose third edition is now lying before us, would be a useless task. Its worth has been pronounced upon by a higher authority than that of the critics.

10. This is a sound, well-considered book, such as our Northern brethren are usually in the habit of sending forth. The greater portion of it is of local interest ; but the long and able chapter on the Poor-Laws of Scotland is one that English econo- mists may consult with great advantage. The Scotch have no prouder monument of the wisdom of their internal regulations, than the plan according to which their parochial poor are ma- naged.

11. "I have entitled this Grammar," .says Monsieur FRANcOIS BARIVEL, "Historical and Literary, because I have sown the seeds of grammar in the fields of history and literature, in hopes that the verdure of the foliage germinating from them will be de- lightful to the senses; and the sweetness and richness of the fruit, which they will also naturally exhibit, will be delicious and gra- tifying to the taste, possessing equally a peculiar virtue of enlightening the sombre shades which may still exist in the pro- found recesses of the untutored mind ! " Fruits that furnish light by which to munch them are of no common order. The Grammar we are inclined to regard as a good one - it is very amusing. The technical arrangements we do not think worthy of notice, for they differ in almost every grammar we have seen ; and who shall de- clare which are best ? But the form of the exercises—which, instead of dry, detached sentences, consist of lively and interesting anecdotes and good sayings—deserves praise for its ingenuity and taste, as well as subservience to the great object of the work.

12. Mr. PARRY, who is, we presume, an Irishman, terms his book an "Annual Reward-book for Midsummer and Christmas." In England such a reward would be termed semestral. The work is neatly got up, but its contents are somewhat hackneyed. We should not object to the age of the pieces, but several of them have appeared in other collections of a similar character—the flowers of the Anthology are no longer fresh. Even when we are favoured with a hitherto unculled one, the worst of the bunch seems to be selected. Thus we have the vulgar and feeble edition of the Boatie rows," from JAMIESON, while the elegant and spirited version of Miss BAILLIE is passed by. The Anthology is dedi- cated to the Duchess of CLARENCE.

13. Another part, equally beautiful with the first, of an excel- lent little work. This number contains Europe, Scotland, France, and Russia, engraved with a clearness and correctness which, considering the size of the maps, is quite surprising. When the whole is complete, travellers will have a system of Geography and a complete Atlas, which they may carry in their waistcoat pocket !

14. This is a most useful and excellent pamphlet. Its simplicity is admirable ; and the rules and directions it gives are so plain and full, that the most stupid and careless cannot fail to under- stand them. Noblemen and gentlemen could not employ a few pounds to better advantage than in giving it universal circulation. No plan for the temporal welfare of the labouring poor is so well adapted to that end as Friendly Societies on sound principles.

15. The introductory questions in this little book are frivolous. What master is he who cannot, uninstructed, frame such a query as "How many is a couple ? " or what is the age of the scholars where such a query is necessary ? There are others not entitled to so light a censure. At page 6, we find the following question and answer,— " Has the first day of the week any other name than Sunday ?"

"Yes; in the Bible it is called the Sabbath."

Now, we would ask the writer what advantage he proposes to society by teaching what is not true ? He must know (or he is the most ignorant man that ever published a book) that the term " Sabbath " is not applied to Sunday in the Bible, and yet he deliberately instructs the child to say that it is. Does the infant idea shoot so slowly in a wrong direction as to stand in need of forcing? The propriety of the application of the word "Sabbath," by Christians, has nothing to do with the case.

16. We believe that there is no eye or nose in London which has not been long offended by the nuisances which Mr. DOLBY de- scribes, in strong, but certainly not too strong terms. They are a gross stain on the character of the metropolis, at once filthy and indecent. His plan for their removal, we think good ; and there- fore recommend his pamphlet to the favourable consideration of the authorities to whom it is more particularly addressed.

17. The Foreign Quarterly Review and the Foreign Review have terminated their differences by embracing each other ; and in future the two works will be merged in one, bearing the former title. We never made any secret of our opinion as to the relative merits of these publications; and we rejoice that the field which was too narrow for the success of both, is now occupied by one, strengthened in resources, and unopposed by any injurious com- petition. The present Number of the Foreign Quarterly is full of the excellences for which we have heretofore given this Review credit; and we are inclined to regard it as a nearer approach to the beau Uhl of such a work than any number that preceded,