PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

'Publications continue to decline in number, perhaps in mark. The most promising book of the week is the letters of Colonel Fraser written during the Peninsula and Waterloo campaigns, which long looked for has come at last ; but it arrived too late to enable us to look far into it. So far as we have examined the best book of the week is the Reverend J. D. Mereweather's Australian Diary, for its truth, and very often its novelty. Dr. Wingfield's "Tour in Dalmatia, Albania, and Mon- tenegro" takes the reader into regions not very frequently visited, and possessing interest from passing events. Part of his tour was in those dominions of Austria accessible to a hostile fleet, and who knows how soon it will be before the Turks may be involved in the war which seems fo threaten Europe and the provinces adjoining Dalmatia be penetrated by some of the belligerents. The Doctor, however, appears to have turned his attention fully as much upon the past as the present, dealing with the antiquities and history of most of the places he comes to, at least in Dalmatia. Mr. Augustus Sala's "Gaslight and Daylight" is a series of London sketches, which it strikes us are more or less reprints. The three novels all profess to delineate modern English manners and characters.

Boons.

Letters of Colonel Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, K.C.B., Commanding the Royal Horse Artillery in the Army ender the Duke of Wellington. Written du- ring the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns. Edited by Major-General Edward Sabine, of the Royal Artillery.

Diary of a Working Clergyman in Australia and Tasmania, kept during the years 1850-1853 ; including his return to England by way of Java, Singa- pore, Ceylon, and Egypt. By the Reverend John Davies Mereweather, B.A., Author of " Life on Board an Emigrant Ship."

A 7bur in Dalmatia, Albania, and Montenegro ; with an Historical Sketch of the Republic of Ragusa, from the Earliest Times down to its Final Fall. By W. F. Wingfield, M.A., Oxon, M.D. Pisan.

Gaslight and Daylight, with some London Scenes they shine upon. By George Augustus Sala, Author of " A Journey Due North."

The Recollection of Geolfry Ifamlyn. By Henry Kingsley. In three volumes. Woodleigh. By the Author of " One and Twenty," " Wildflower," " The House of Elmore," &c. In three volumes.

Betty Westminster; or the Worship of Wealth. A Novel. By William Platt, Esq., Author of " Mothers and Sons, ' Ike. In three volumes.

The Theology of Geologists, as exemplified in the cases of the Into Hugh Miller and others. By William Gillespie, Author of "The Ne- essary Existence of a God," &c.---Some geologists considered the late Hugh Miller was at times rather too prone to mingle religion and science, but it appears that his philosophical piety had not enough of faith to satisfy Mr. Gillespie. The "theology of geologists" is an at- tack upon Miller because he conceived that "untold ages before man had Sinned and suffered, the animal creation exhibited exactly its present state of war," and drew the conclusion that pain and death both existed in the world before the Fall of man. The Reverend Paton Glody, author of the Primeval World, is assailed upon similar grounds.

Mr. Gillespie does not, indeed, deny the facts from which conclusions adverse to the literal interpretation of the Mosaic account of the Creation are deduced; but objects to the geologists for not bringing forward an explanatory theory which should remove the idea that a beneficent Deity created eviL The theory he himself supplies is, that Satan and his fol- lowers were the cause of the pain and death among the animal inhabi- tants of the world in its early ages. Nay ! who knows ? but "that those horrible lizards, and other still more horrible monsters, were the outer shells of devilish souls, diluted, to speak so, to the dozenth degree, or to any degree of attenuation which you may prefer." So after all the monks and mediaeval painters were not so out in their pictures of demons.

The difficult question of the origin of evil would not be settled if we adopted Mr. Gillespie's theory ; for arguments of this class merely shift the origin further back, from the immediate to the mediate. The publi- cation is based upon certain reviews which appeared in a periodical called 211Phail's Magazine, and is characterized by the worst tone of contro- versy. It would appear that Mr. Gillespie's Necessary Existence of a God has received high praise from Lord Brougham, Sir William Hamilton, and various professors; but either he must have written much better in that work, or his panegyrists were influenced by the subject. Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by .B.—The storr tat a lady's successful adventure in cow, pig, and poultry keeping us a house with four acres of land attached to it, at a rental for the whole of 70/. a-year. There are directions how to make butter as sho made it how to feed and fatten pirc and how to manage poultry, with the money paid for cows, swine, fow and so forth, the cost of their keep, and the profit derived from it all. or the first six months this profit amounted to 29/. LL 4d., including fruit and vegetables set down at 91., but as this was in the author's " salad days," and she was contemplating increasing her stock with her increasing experience, it may be supposed that the produce will in time enable the family to live rent free. However, we incline to agree with her objecting friend, that the wages of the gardener, and we may add of the boy, should be carried to the debtor side of the account, in which case we imagine the profit would dwindle. It may be true that the gardener's wages were less than the bill of the family doctor would have been in town, and that fresh fruit is much finer than that which is got from a London greengrocer. But these are not legiti- mate items of account. The bibber cannot make an alleged advantage to his health, or the pleasures of drinking, a set-off to his wine and spirit bills. A case is perhaps made out against the general notion that it is cheaper to buy than to grow or rear.

The book is written in a pleasant cheerful spirit, but with rather too much of minuteness. The lady appears from her style to be an amateur.

The Election Statutes and Corrupt Practices Act. Edited by William Henry Cook, Esq., M.A., Barrister-at-Law.—This chronological arrange- ment of the statutes relating to Parliamentary elections is not only.a timely publication, and useful as "a guide for agents, candidates, electors, and returning officers." It presents in a compact form the statute law relating to Parliament with marginal annotations, and is suggestive to boot. Look at the mere list of Acts, and see bow they grow with time. Including title-page, &c., the hook consists of some two hundred and fifty pages, of which upwards of two hundred and thirty are devoted to the laws for improving Parliament, passed by this generation, beginning with the Reform Act of 1832. From the 8 Henry the Sixth, which limited the right of' voting to forty-shilling freeholders, to the time of the Reform Bill, the Statutes are eight in number, and occupy rather less than twelve pages. Such was legislation in four centuries. Within the last twenty-seven years there have been eighteen Acts, filling two hundred and thirty-two pages. 'Curdy, with so much attention Parliament should be better than it is said to be.

The British Catalogue of Boobs published during the year 1858.—This important literary Annual is both enlarged and improved by a species of twofold exhibition, instead of the previous single list. The first catalogue contains an alphabetical index of titles and authors with a reference, by means of figures, to the second part. Here the full title is given wider the fortnight when the book appeared, this catalogue in fact being a re- print of the "Publisher's Circular." New editions, books reduced in price, and American works imported, are included in the publication. The former mode is greatly improved, not only by these additions, but by the double catalogue. It is often an advantage to know the time of a book's appearance ; and the alphabetical index with its short titles, and double references when needed, prevents any trouble arising from the hi-monthly division of the larger part.

Elementary Exercises in Greek Prose Composition. By the Reverend H. M. Wilkins, M.A., &e. Author of "A Manual of Greek Prose."-:- Although introductory to Greek composition, this book of exercises will require a certain degree of previous knowledge in the pupil using it ; for its object is as much composition as grammar. • The method of the work is to illustrate Greek peculiarities of language by means of sentences, the Greek words of which are all given in their uninflected form and order. The student must then compose the sentence from the raw material, as it were, before him, of course exhibiting the particular nicety Which the exercise is intended to enforce. Carefully used it will be found a valu- able book for the student.

The Persone of a Tout:. The First Book. By George Martin Beaune. —The idea of this poem was suggested by Chaucer's Good Parson, but the author has written the account of his modern hero in the Spenserian stanza, and with an exaggeration of Spenser's obsolete words. The in- congruity of modern life and opinions, expressed in an imitation of ancient dialect, is not the chief fault of The Persons of a Toun." That is a want of incident and action proportioned to the length of the story as yet told. In a strict sense there is hardly any action at all, but mere description of the hero Austin at school, at Cambridge, in his curacies, and on the look out for a wife, this description being further weakened by reflections and observations on the Church and things in general. The piece is elegantly written, but scarcely rises to poetry.

Who was sold at the Bubbleton Election ? By the Author of " Pub- lic School Matches," &c.—A timely jeu d'esprit being a ludicrous but somewhat exaggerated account of a borough election. It is told in the form of letters from different parties practically engaged, beginning with the attempt of the Old-Boy-Stiff-back family who have neglected Bubbleton to make up lee way by a file, and ending with the close Of the poll.

Messrs. Hurst and Blackett have included in their " Standard Li- brary " Miss Kavanagh's Talc of " Nathalie," not only the best novel of that writer, but one of the best pictures of French character and manners that ever was written, besides being an interesting story. The " Art of Prolonging Life," edited by Mr. Erasmus Wilson, has reached a second edition which appears in a neat form.

Nathalie. A Tale. By Julia Kavanagh. [Standard Library].

Hufeland's Art of prolonging Life. Edited by Erasmus Wilson, P.R.S. Second edition.