PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

From December 19th to December 24th.

Boots.

Stories from the Italian Poets; wills Lives of the Writers. By Leigh Hunt. In two volumes.

The Cricket on the Hearth; a Fairy Tale of Home. By Charles Dickens. The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, from the earliest times till the reign of George IV. By John, Lord Campbell. A.M., F.R.S.E. The first series, in three volumes, to the Revolution of 1688.

The Dispatches and Letters of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson. With Notes by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, G. C. M. G. The fifth volume. January 1802 to April 1804. The Picturesque Antsquities of Spain; described in a series of Letters, with Illustrations, representing Moorish Palaces, Cathedrals, and other Monu- ments of Art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville. By Nathaniel Armstrong Welis.

Over-Population and its Remedy; or an Inquiry into the extent and causes of the Distress prevailing among the Labouring Classes of the British Islands, and into the means of remedying it. By William Thomas Thornton.

• Thom's Irish Almanack and Official Directory, for the year 1846. [This is the third volume of Thom's Irish Almanack and Official Directory, but the first we have seen; and a very capital publication it is, highly creditable to Mr. Thom and Dublin. The calendar, we think, is rather an improvement on the usual business remembrancer; but the statistics are the feature of the book. Besides the usual quantity of information about courts and great people, acts of Parliament, and statistics commercial and financial, the volume is crammed full of information relating to Ireland, not merely of a curious and encyclopredie kind, though there is enough of that, but of a real work-a-day character. Chairmen of the Poor-law Unions, with their Vices, are exhibited at large; Ecclesiastical Directories, with such lists of divines, Anglican, Roman, and Dissenting the great men of all the Counties, and the luminaries equally great in their sphere that shed light upon the Boroughs; Learned and Scientific Institutions innumer- able; and a complete Directory of Dublin and its vicinity, in the various phases of names alphabetically arranged, a classified list of individuals according to their trades, and the streets with their inhabitants, in the London fashion, but with rather more minuteness, and with the useful addition of the rental as valued for local taxation: a feature amusing enough to the merely curious—Daniel O'Connell, for instance, Merrion Square, is rated at 1801.; and T. Berry Cusack Smith, Attorney-General, for the same sum. It is also useful to the man of busi- ness, as some test of means, when he learns the length of time the person has resided in the house.] Post-office London Directory, 1846. The forq-seventh annual publication. EThe volume for 1846 of this immense receptacle of practical information touch- ing the whereabouts of London and its inhabitants, is chiefly distinguished for the further improvement of existing features. The alleged facts in relation to its price and production, which Mr. Dancombe brought before the House of Commons last session on petition, seem to challenge remark. It was stated in substance, that an official at the Post-office takes advantage of his position to compel the servants of the public (the unfortunate letter-carriers) to collect the facts of the book for private advantage. It was also urged, that the volume, whose materials were really collected by the public, was charged to the public at a monopoly price • and that private traders, enjoying the same advantage, would publish it for a far lees sum. To the truth of the facts we cannot speak; but the question should not be allowed to slumber, for the particular case is suspicious, and the principle involved is worthy of consideration. If in any particular branch of industry a person be allowed to employ the public servants for his own profit at little or no remuneration, no private undertaking can stand against him; as is proved by the Post-office Directory having driven all other competitors out of the field, and consequently established a monopoly. Cases do arise where it is more advan- tageous for the state to carry on a particular business, and Adam Smith mentions the Post-office as one; but it should be carried out openly by the public and for the public, not handed over to an individual, which is substantially reviving the old monopolies of the Tudors and the Stuarts. Mr. Duncombe will probably recur to the subject.] Railway Carrying and Carrier's Law. By the Author of " Railway and Land 'Taxation," &c. [This book contains a large selection of cases in reference to the liabilities of common or railway carriers; but the publication seems, as the author phrases it, a " hasty compilation"; for it is rather a presentation of cases whence the reader may deduce the law for himself, than an endeavour on the part of the compiler to exhibit the principles which the decisions establish—although he wanders back to Moses for the origin of the law of bailment. In one idea the public will scarcely agree with him, that railway companies need more protection as carriers.] The Eventful Epoch; or the Fortunes of Archer Clive. By Nicholas

Michell, Author of " The Traduced," &c. In three volumes.

[The scene of this novel is London, during the days of the French Revolution. and Democratic Societies; with which Walter Pellew, the foster-brother of the hero, is connected; whilst Lord Eltham's son, a bad young num, endeavours to corrupt his wife. Archer Clive, the hero, is the nephew of Lord Eltham; and, as it finally turns out, the real heir to the title and estates; the second Lady Eltham having a husband living at the time of her marriage. There is of course a love affair, with hatreds, rivalries, and horrors enough, but of too little likelihood to interest. Mr. Nicholas Michell has derived his notion of life from the circulating library novels of the age he attempts to depict; and though he strives to give elevation and reality to certain parts of his book by introducing Burke, Fox, and other celebrities of the day, they are mere names without body or life. The style of the work is rather stilted, and Mr. Michell is pretty good at a situation; both of which may give him popularity among the readers of circulating libraries.]

Stray Leaves/rout the German; or Select Essays from Zschokke. B7 the Reverend Vi. B. Flower, BA., Chaplain of the Training Schools, Swinton, &c.

[A selection of essays, from a periodical work which Zschokke started in 1807, to improve the religion and morals of the Swiss people; bearing, apparently, more resemblance to the plan of the British essayists than the modern journals or ma- gazines. The articles chosen are seventeen in number; and mostly refer to family duties, with which religion is always closely connected: for, though we think that the author's scepticism still predominated at the period he wrote, he exhibits the same fervent piety with which he preached at Magdeburg. The character of the essays approaches that of the lay sermon, or the superior tract, which Hannah Moore brought into vogue fifty years ago. Zschokke, however, rises very con- siderably above that kind of literature; elevating the c,ommonplacesof morals and religion by philosophy and reflection, as well as animating them by a vivacious. gemus. Stray Leaves from the German will be found a superior book of its kind.] The Poetical Works of Henry Alford. In two volumes. [A collection of poems, many of which have appeared some years ago. The topics are mostly of a religious character, or made so by their mode of treatment: the feelings of the author seem to lean towards the Tractarians in the Church and Young England in the State: the forms of the poems are varions,--sonnets, hymns, miscellanies, tales and ballads, with along poem called "The School of the Heart." The ideas and language have the elegance which we have often noted as belonging to the author's class of religionists; his verse indicates a musical ear; and his mind is sufficiently trained to avoid puerilities and commonplaces: but we miss the independent thought and the living spirit which must be present to- constitute a poet.] A Manual of Music: containinga popular sketch of its rise and progress in all eountnes, and a comprehensive vade mecum of musical science.

[This publication consists of three parts or divisions; which have, we believe, appeared separately, and are now collected into a volume. The first contains a general history of music; the second a special account of British and Irish music; the third professes to be an outline of the principles and elements of the art. The whole is a mere compilation, drawn from common sources, not very well put together.] Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures.

The Comic Blackstone.

[Two reprints from the well-known subjects of Punch, come in happy time for st merry Christmas.]

ILLUSTRATED IVORIES AND PRTNT S.

Finden's Royal Gallery of British Art. Part NIL [This part consists entirely of new engravings from recent pictures of merit and interest; and the selection of subjects and the execution of the plates show that the undertaking is carried on with spirit and judgment by its present proprietor, Mr. Hogarth. Turner's famous picture of The Old Temeratre Tugged to her last Berth is the principal feature of Part XIL ,• and its splendour of colouring and poetry of conception have been rendered in the engraving by Willmore with ad- mirable fidelity. The effect of light, space, and atmosphere, is conveyed very suc- cessfully in black and white: the beams of the setting sun, whose orb is veiled in the mist of evening, shoot upward in a blaze of living fire, partially reflected in the calm surface of the river. '1 he shadows, however, are too opake in their blackness, and the light of the crescent moon strikes us as ioo intense. But the impression left by the glorious painting itself is so vivid as to make it difficult to avoid dis- advantageous comparisons•' and perhaps it is owing to this cause that the exe- cution of the plate appears too petite, hard, and laboured, to represent the grandeur of style and daring freedom and mastery of hand of the painter's own work. Sickness and Health is the title given to a touching and beautiful picture of rustic life, by Webster; who is inimitable in depicting childish character. A sick girl, reclining in a pillowed chair in the shade outside a cottage-door, looks on with a faint smile at the efforts of her infant sister to emulate an ether girl who is dancing gayly to the music of an Italian organ-boy; while her schoolboy brother looks up from his book at the merry dancers, the grandame gazes at them with thoughtful placidity, and the mother turns upon her sick child an anxious look.

i The story s simply and charmingly told; and the scene is full of character and homely interest. The engraving, by William Finden, is neat, but somewhat tame and feeble; wanting in depth and vivacity.

Charles Landseer's still-life picture of Nell Gwynne introduced as an orange girl to a party of gallants feasting at a tavern, has been engraved by L. Stocks, with richness of effect and elaborate finish of details; in which the merit of the painting consists.] The Angler. Drawn by John Absolon. The _Milkmaid. Drawn by John Absolon. [A pair of figures from Mr. Absolcm's simple and graceful designs for Wallon's