24 NOVEMBER 1877, Page 25

John Cheap. The Chopman's Library. The Scottish Chief. Literature of

the Last Century Classified: Religious and Scriptural. (Lindsay, Glasgow.)—Some of the contents of this volume are interesting, some are simply curious, B01710 are quite out of place. How has Divine Songs .for the Use of Child, en, by J. Yvratts, D.D., with the date of 1847, found its way here ? We should like to know something about the" no. count of the Battles of Drurnolog and Bothwell Bridge," taken from an American newspaper, entitled "the Nation's Gazette," and claiming to be written by the "Laird of Torfoot, an officer in the Presbyterian .army." The beginning has a suspicious look. "It was a fair Sabbath morning, 1st Juno, 1670, that an assembly of Covenanters sat down on the heathy mountains of Brun:1(310g. We had assembled, not to fight but to worship the God of our fathers. We were far from the tumult of .cities. The long, dark heath waved around us, and we disturbed no living creature, saving the pees-weep and the heather-cock." This is somewhat remarkable prose for the year 1679. It is doubtful also 'whether the laird of Torfoot would have thought it necessary to give this piece of information, " Wo of the Covenant never swear." On the .other hand, the "History of the Life and Sufferings of the Rev. John Welch," "The Life and Wonderful Prophecies of Donald Corral," and sone or two other pieces are interesting. The Comic and Humorous volume happened not to come under notice till the foregoing criticism bad been written. It contains less that is interesting, and nearly as -much that is irrelevant. Some of the matter, we cannot but think, -would have been much bettor left in tlao obscurity into which it has happily fallen. There is a positive mania now-a-days for digging up 41 sorts of offensive stuff which the kindly action of time has buried.