PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED, From December 13th to December 19th.

Boom.

The Conquest of Scinde, with some Introductory Passages in the Life of Major-General Sir Charles James Napier. By Major-General W. F. P. NAPIER, Member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Military Science, Author of " History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France." Part I.

The Chimes ; a Goblin Story of some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In. By CHARLES DICKENS.

Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third. By HORACE WALPOLE, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford. Now first pub- lished from the original MSS. Edited, with Notes, by Sir DENIS LE MARCHANT, Bart. Volumes I. and IL Christmas Festivities : Tales, Sketches, and Characters. With Beauties of the Modern Drama, in four specimens. By JOHN POOLE, Esq., Author of "Paul Pry," &c. The Comic Miscellany, for 1845. By JOHN POOLE, Esq., Author of "Paul Pry," &c. With a Portrait of the Author, and an Illustration by Pam. tBoth these publications consist of a collection of articles, with which Mr. PootE, the well-known author of Paul Pry, has already amused the public, in different periodicals. The Christmas Festivities is brought out under the superintendence of the author himself; and in a preliminary address he com- plains of Mr. COLEMAN for advertising The Comic Miscellany under his name, of which he (Mr. POOLE) knows nothing, and the articles in which have not received the benefit of his revisal. Mr. COLBURN replies, in a preface to The Comic, that the papers were originally published in The New Monthly Magazine; paid for at a much higher price, expressly to have the power of separate publication ; and that if they have not been revised, the fault is with Mr. POOLE, who had them submitted to him last October for that purpose. The portrait also is a bone of contention : Mr. POOLE declares the one pre- fixed to The Comic Miscellany was painted twenty years ago, and implies that it is no likeness of the existing POOLE ; which is certainly the case if the head prefixed to The Christmas Festivities is a true portrait—" Twenty years have wrought strange alteration."

The articles, like the fictions of this writer, are farcical in their conception of men and things ; but broad, telling, and full of what the players call points. The Comic Miscellany would appear to contain the newest papers ; but we think there is more variety and matter with less exaggeration in The Christmas Fes- tivities.]

The Betrothed Lovers ; a Milanese Story of the Seventeenth Century. With The Column of Infamy. By ALESSANDRO MANZONL In three volumes.

This is another translation of MANZONI'S I Promessi Sposi. Like the pub- lication we noticed a few weeks since, it appears to aim at presenting the whole of the original without abridgment ; and, on a comparison of the two, it ap- pears equally accurate as regards the meaning of the words. 1 Promessi Sposi —the Betrothed, however, seems to reflect the original images with more truth and ease than The Betrothed Lovers, and to possess more animation. The present volume contains, in addition to the novel, an account of a shocking trial at Milan in 1630, by which some persons were condemned, after an extorted con- fession by torture, for infecting the city with the plague ; and the house of one of the accused being razed, a " column of infamy " was erected on its site.] The Rebellion in the Cevennes; an Historical Novel In two volumes. By LUDWIG TIECK. Translated from the German, by Madame BURETTE. [The subject of this story is the rebellion of the Huguenots in the Cevennes during the latter years of Louis the Fourteenth, when so many atrocities were perpetrated on both sides, till Villars, by conducting the war in a more humane and politic spirit, virtually put an end to it. Renders accustomed to the rapid narrative and broad action of the English historical novel, will find TIECK'S minute painting of homely character, his long-winded discourses, and his Mar- tificial method of exhibiting the features of the war, somewhat slow if not fiat. The Rebellion in the Cevennes is not equal to the theme.] Brallaghan, or the Deipnosophists. By EDWARD KENEALY, to series of papers of intermingled prose and verse, Latin, Greek, English, and brogue; written in imitation of the broad and roistering style of Fraser some years ago and the " Noctes" of Blackwood. The papers exhibit much reading and scholarship of an under-graduate cast, and possess a swaggering kind of animation or animal spirits ; but this class of composition requires originality to be attractive. If Garrick is to be "hated" at "second-hand," the imitation of a buffoon will never be admired.] Ow Punishments and Prisons. Written by his Majesty the KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY. Translated from the second Swedish edition, by A. MAL

mr.ession of KingOscart to the throne of Sweden probably induced

the publication in England of this work; which was written by the royal author when Crown Prince, to aid the Swedish Diet of 1840-1 in their deli- berations on the reform of criminal punishments. But there needed not a kingly title to recommend to the attention of philanthropists and legislators a work which treats on this momentous topic in a spirit of enlightened benevo- lence and calm investigation. King OSCAR, considering that all penal inflic- tions should be reformatory, is opposed to capital and corporal punishments: be regards our system of transportation as having signally failed, and prefers the separate system of imprisonment, as adopted in the Penitentiary of Phila- delphia. The statistics of the details, results, and cost of different kinds of prison-discipline, may perhaps be less new in this country than in Sweden; but they acquire new value from being employed argumentatively and discussed critically. It is propitious for the welfare of Sweden and Norway, that their Sovereign should be found advocating not only the amelioration of the criminal code, but the duty of society to prevent as well as punish crime. Let us hope that the acts of the King will realize the promise of the Prince.] The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. By CHARLES GRIFFITH, A.M. [This volume aims at rather too much in proportion to its size ; embracing fhe natural, social, statistical, economical, and political condition of Port Phil- lip. In addition to these things, there are chapters relating to natural produc- tions, the character and management of the aborigines, and some hints for emigrants. As several publications have already appeared on the same subject upon the same plan, there is not much of novelty in Mr. GRIFFITH'S book : but his original descriptions display good writing, and his tone and style are more measured and in a better taste than colonists generally display. His views are colonial; he is opposed to the WAKEFIELD system as applied to New South Wales ; and he is for exercising summary process on natives who injure the settlers—the injured being judge and executioner.] Views of Canada and the Colonists : embracing the Experience of a Residence ; Views of the Present State, Progress, and Prospects of the Colony ; with detailed and practical Information for intending Emi- grants. By a Four-Years Resident.'

[The reprint of a series of letters descriptive of the London District of Upper Canada, and of the general state of the country and prospects of the emigrant, which appeared in the Scotsman newspaper. Notes, more fully illustrating points of the text, are now added to each letter, sometimes original, sometimes extracted from other writers on Canada. A great number of subjects are handled in the appendix, from Canadian policy down to the rates of wages, the prices of commodities, and the charge for board and lodging. The book is of a practical and informing character, but often rather jog-trot in manner; and it falls, especially in the parts now added, into the compiling style.] The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher; the Text formed from a new col- lation of the early editions. With Notes and a Biographical Memoir, by the Reverend ALEXANDER DICE. In eleven volumes. Volumes V., VI., and VII.

[This very handsome edition of the most poetical of our dramatists is steadily advancing towards completion ; but the three volumes before US contain little to challenge remark; the introductory notes to each play being chiefly of a bibliographical character, relating to the respective authorship, the period of the production of the plays, and the sources of the plot. The number of dramas contained in the volumes is fifteen.] The Virgin Martyr. By PHILIP MASSINGER. With six Designs, by F. R. PICKERSGILL, Esq. [The selection of this strange and shocking drama for separate publication is only to be accounted for on the supposition that a certain religious coterie find in its subject and mystical treatment something congenial with their ideas and likely to subserve their views. The merit of Mr. PICKERSGILL'S designs would not alone have induced its reprint ; for they have neither pathos nor power, originality nor beauty, to recommend them : the artist aims at classic grace and simplicity, but falls short of the mark.] Syntax Made Easy, or How to Speak and Write French Correctly. Con- sistin., of six Progressive Lessons, in which the Difficulties of the French Language are elucidated by explicit rules, and exemplified by useful phrases. By D. M. AIRD, Author of "The Student's French Grammar," &c.

[A. series of plain rules on the government of the different parts of speech and the construction of sentences in French, illustrated with brief exercises. The easiness of the book consists in the brevity and clearness of the explana- tions; for the six lessons of the author's titlepage are subdivided into some two hundred rules of one kind or another.] The Poetical Book of Fate ; a Merry Pastime for Christmas Parties.

ILLUSTRATED WORKS AND PRINTS.

The Illustrated Guide to the London and Dover Railway ; accompanied

by a complete and accurate Tourist's and Traveller's Directory to the

Counties in communication with the line—Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. [A florid and laudatory description of the works, scenery, and antiquities on the Dover Railway : illustrated with many very pretty cuts, and containing a good deal of local information. As this line is so much used by tourists crossing to and from France. the hints for their guidance should be more fall and explicit.]

ALMANACKS.

The Phrenological Almanack, or Psychological Annual, for 1845. Rees's Improved Diary and Almanack, for 1845.