27 JANUARY 1866, Page 24

Aurora; or, Rays of Light on the Road of Life.

By W. Torbet Young. (Rivingtons.)—This diminutive volume is a curiosity in its way. In the most magniloquent of prefaces we are introduced to what is intended to be pure essence of thought. "Wherever sociality assembles friends, and good-humoured gossip alternates with ill-natured

scandal, it is not often that a lively thought redeems the tete-a-tete from tameness or a sally of wit disturbs the torpor of fastidiousness, and converts the platitudes of frivolity into an unrestrained and genial table-talk," says our author, in his opening, and having knocked us out of time with this tremendous sentence, proceeds to comfort us, fatigue& and panting, in our enforced siesta with intellectual drams, such as the- following :—"Begin too soon, that you may not end too late ;" "the- centre of gravity, dulness ;" " the branches of a polite education should consist of more than bows ;" "freeing a flower from weeds—marrying a worthy widow." It is satisfactory to know that this "original table- talk on all kinds of topics " is procurable at London, Oxford, Cam- bridge, and Dublin, so that society in the metropolis and the. Univer- sity towns has no excuse for the future in being tame, torpid, frivolous, or platitndinarian.