procured her to be united in marriage to Major Haverill, the son of a man whom be had laid under considerable eligations. On the day of their union, the lady discloses to Haverill her fatal ezet, who immediately renounces her. The Marquis, continuing the full career of his iniquity, at length falls by the band of his fair victim; and Haverill, released from his engagement, is united to Mas St. Arno, on whom he had fixed his affections during the season of his adversity.

From this brief outline, the story would appear to be of the serious or tragical cast; but it is, on the whole, Try gay and humorous. The Marquis, a magnificent villain, like Don Juan, lives in luxurious style, and entertains a great deal of company. The visitants at bis castle of Rhan vellyn, are, of course, more numerous than select; they are a justo of fashionable idlers, brought together indiscriminately, and consisting of shreds of old nobility, with all means, and ancient blood in their veins; and some specimens of Welsh baronets and squires, who ape their more honourable neighbours; a few military a little divinity; a sprinkhing of law and medicine; justices of peace; and a sample of every thing above the mere commonalty, that is, trade." Much amusement arises from the variety and contrast of character in this gay multitude; they afford the author full scope for the exercise of his talent for satire and ridicule, which is his forte; he has very little notion of the pathetic, and wisely forbears to attempt it. He occasionally fails, too, in his efforts at low humour, as in the instance of Mrs. Dunn, an ignorant, talkative, perverse waitingwoman, whom no lady would tolerate in her service for a day, and who has a great deal too much to say and do. He is much more successful in his portrait of Diggle, a Welsh poet, a disciple of Joanna Southcott, inoculated with the mania of prophecy. The two clerical amateurs of pugilism would have been as well omitted; a fighting parson is now a non-entity; and if such a phenomenon did exist, the exhibition of it would hardly come within the scope of salutary ridicule. One of them, to be sure, very properly stands in the capacity of chaplain to the Marquis: the other, Mr. Tilt, has certain additional accomplishments, which qualify him for prevcating the

stagnation of mirth in any circle of idlers to which he gains admittance. He plays, sings, and dances, with great effect, throws off a humorous extempore, and is ready to start or second any scheme of frolic that may be re. quired to relieve the ennui of perpetual dissipation. His marriage with Miss Monimia Fuzman is an exploit performed in consequence of a wager, and, like other precipitate affairs of this kind, is very speedily followed by a separation. By-the-bye, we cannot easily conceive how such a parvenue as Mrs. Fuzman, the mother of Monimia, could have obtained access and reception at Rhanvellyn Castle. She comes thither from Aberystwith, but her proper atmosphere is obviously Margate.

These and other personages afford much entertainment, but neither they nor their affairs excite any deep concern; they pass before the reader like a train of promiscuous company at a public place: he observes their physiognomy and their manners; and the author, like the merry devil Asmodeus, is at hand to give him a comic sketch of their history and their characters.

The following is one of the portraits exhibited in another part of the work ;

"My Lord Jeremy Grinwell was of the noble family of Grinwell, as his name imports, and he in no respect differed from his illustrious ancestors and relatives, but in having less understanding, perhaps, than fell to the share of most of the Grinwells: the same pride, covetousness, tyranny, and insolence, to which he added every folly most young men are guilty of, and half a hundred peculiar to himself. But what he most piqued himself upon was lying, which he said was an accomplishment none but the high-born could be entitled to possess. This was his favourite topic, his peculiar boast; and indeed so congenial was it to him, that it was the only subject upon which he could speak, and preserve his hearers' attention five minutes

"As the Grinwells were looking for. ward with peculiar eagerness to a change above, which should enable them to come once more into power, they used every artifice to bring this young branch of their family into the eye of the pub lic, as he was to be pushed, and they fondly hoped, both from his peculiar

talent, and the circumstance of his Dever having been known to blush but once, and that was when his tutor commended him for having chanced to speak the truth, they hoped from this that he would cut a shining figure, and be a most useful man in the Lower House. And perhaps if they had had an opportunity of bringing him out as they intended, he might have verified their predictions; but parties somehow ran counter, and he was waiting to see when the present men would leave their hold.

"When he was about sixteen years of age, and during his residence at Oxford, hedistinguished himself by pranks which, in a place less renowned, for the eccentricities of the vain, the foolish, and the mad, would have procured him a dark room and a whip; but it being necessary that he should distinguish himself in another way, he, or some friend for him, hit upon the following expedient. Our readers may probably know, or if they do not we will tell them, that the only two annual prizes in that renowned seat of learning are, or at least were, at the time we speak of, one for Latin -verses, open to under-graduates, and one for an English essay, for graduates. Lord Jeremy, with the true ambition of a noble mind, aimed at that he had no business to attempt; and applying to a man who had more wit and learning than either friends or money, he procured an essay on the given subject, which he sent under cover, and which, -being in truth excellent, was declared the best.

"Lord Jeremy, however, not having graduated, could not have the prize; but he got all that his friends desired for him, the reputation of deserving it, and every journal in the three kingdoms trumpeted forth his praise."

In the progress of the story, the scene changes very frequently. At the house of Serjeant Fullbottom we find a coterie less numerous than that at Rhanvellyn Castle, but consisting altogether of better company. The author here takes occasion to give some prominent sketches of living characters; among which are one or two of the literary class, much too plain to be mistaken. They are very laughable, but at the same time very severe.

By far the most pleasing parts of the work are those which relate to the personal adventures of Haverill and Miss St. Arno; the progress of their

attachment, the vicissitudes by whic it is thwarted, and the misunderstand ings and ecclaircissements occasioned b the overtures of Mr. Medicy, a rival o Haverill, but afterwards his firm an attached friend. From the more ex tended and public exhibitions of lif that are interspersed, we recur to thes domestic scenes with renewed interest it is like quitting a crowd of stranger to join a circle of friends. These cha racters, which most claim our esteem gradually unfold themselves, and gain upon us imperceptibly as we become acquainted with them; that of the he roine in particular is managed with great delicacy and address. Her merits and fine qualities are not formally set forth, as in some novels, in a preliminary flourish, like an auctioneer's advertisement of an estate; they disclose themselves unobtrusively when occasion calls them forth.

We cannot agree with those persons who are disposed to construe this work into a directly personal satire on certain individuals. In compounding his materials, the author has indeed drawn largely from our modern annals of gallantry; but we should conceive his aim to have been somewhat similar to that of Cervantes, a ridicule of books rather than of men. Be that as it may, he has produced a complete burlesque on those novels founded on fact" with which our literature has been deluged, as much as that of Spain was by tales of chivalry before the appearance of Don Quixote. Most of the things to which we allude have rested their pretensions to popularity on an affected disclosure of important secrets, a peep behind the curtain, a developement of every mystery, social or political, which has interested the public curiosity. They have claimed to be considered as pieces of authentic biography relating to eminent persons, who were for sundry weighty reasons represented under feigned names, but very pointedly designated. They paid an indirect compliment to their readers, by perpetual appeals to their sagacity. Adopting the same mysti ficatory process, the author of Har denbrass and Haverill, whether inten tionally or not, has forcibly ridiculed these insidious oracles of detraction,

and has done much to correct that eager credulity which encouraged their propagation. He has at the same time confined the fictitious part of his story to a representation of real life and man

ners, divested of morbid sensibility and meretricious refinement, and of that artfal sophistry which, confounding the esactions of virtue and vice, tends to ad the imagination and corrupt the

Lart.

Expeditious Writing, or a New and Easy System of Short-Hand, rendered attainable in Sir Lessons, with an Appendix, shewing by a simple Methad how the same is applicable as am Universal System of Stenography, illastrated by numerous Examples, on Nine elegantly Engraved Copper plates, by Thomas Oxley. Smith and Fider. pp. 4to.

THE Title very timely states the contests of this valuable Publication, and is a Commercial Country like Great Britain, where every attempt to simplify solarportant an art, as that of penman ship, must deserve encouragement, it is scarcely necessary to add any thing in favour of a work, which so ably recommends itself, as an improved system of Facography, it appears to possess every merit that ought to attach to it, and as ese fact will speak more in its behalf than our most laboured eulogy, we shall merely state, that a Professional GenLeman of eminence, whose avocations render it necessary for him to study the most concise, and valuable of the many diferent systems-bas, after having tried eleven others, given preference to, and now practices the system of Mr. Unley.

2.

casting our eyes over the afflicting path which has been trodden, the mind is naturally led to the spot from whence arose the evils which have been endured. Prompted by the spirit of enquiry, or awakened by pathetic recollections, we, as it were instinctively, live over those chilling days which saw a King adorned by all the tender virtues, and a Queen beautiful and accomplished, but rendered doubly interesting by her sufferings and heroism, precipitated from a throne to a dungeon, insulted, arraigned, and finally immolated, unpitied by the misled persons around them, and unassisted by those numerous and devoted friends, who would have esteemed it the highest

honour to have received their last embrace, but whom, by a noble self-renunciation, the victims themselves had compelled to depart. We participate in those feelings of louely desolation, which maintain their gloomy reign in the heart of a capital, in the view of multitudes; and, approaching with reverence a scene thus painfully interesting, thus strangely compounded of grandeur and of woe, of magnanimity and of degrada tion, we shed in silence the tear of nature over the calamities to which humanity is exposed, and from which even the possessors of a throne could not ohtain exemption.

To occurrences like these, which possess a hold on our affections, we fondly desire a near admission, and by an arrangement peculiarly favourable to the conveyance of living feelings, the accounts which have been transmitted, with a singular amplitude, afford us the melancholy gratification. We are fur nished with the minute detail of that faithful and affectionate servant*, who sought his Royal Master in his rude abode of captivity, and who assiduously attended his persecuted Sovereign and Family until removed to a seperate confinement, on the charge of his attach

ment.

A successor + equally devoted, then supplies the narrative of a larger period. The friendly visitant, adininistering the latest consolations, exhibits to our view the iponarch at the hour of

death; and the august princess*, who at a tender age, shared the hard fate of her illustrious parents, and who alone survives, presents a most important and concluding portion of this unprecedented history; in the account she succeeded in keeping, respecting her exalted female relatives and fellow sufferers.

To rescue from comparative oblivion a large portion of these interesting details, and to combine them, with the more recent but not less valuable accounts of a later date, in one narrative, blended with a few transient illustrations from other sources is the design of these with what success the compiler pages; says, must be left to the decision of those who will properly appreciate the labours of the intellect employed in services of the heart; and whose habits of reasoning will offer no violence to the dictates of judgment, but who, far from being guided by that disgusting phrensy which denominates rank an inroad, and birth a crime, ever find, in those who suffer unjustly, a fit object for sympathy; and the more so as the susceptibilities may have been expanded in the fairer regions of exalted expectation.

Philanthropy, A Poem: With Miscel laneous Pieces, by Ingram Cobbin, M. A. foolscap 8vo. pp. 386.

POETRY is a most charming medium of conveying instruction to the mind. It is, however, to be lamented, that it has been so much abused. In the pages of our most celebrated bards, works of fiction have almost excluded the interesting details of truth; nature has been supplanted by art; and what is most of all to be lamented, impiety has too often usurped the throne of religion. Our poems adore the deities of the Heathen; Jove usurps the sceptre of Jehovah ; and his most glorious works and bountiful favours are lost in the names of -Neptune, Apollo, or Ceres.

The beautiful Poems now in vogue, are nothing more than romances in verse, nor is this their greatest defect; for their morals are so exceptionable, that to select their beauties, our minds are in danger of coming in contact with some defiling principle; it is like groping in the mud to gather diamonds.

The topics here represented to the reader are drawn from nature. The design of the Work is to touch the best feelings of the heart-to awaken in the mind a love of patriotism, of freedom, of humanity, and above all, of religion.

To devote Poetry to religious parposes is to restore it to its original use. The vessels of the Muses' Temple have been too long profaned, and the instruments hired to unhallowed lips. The three most adinired British Poets, Milton, Thomson, and Young, were not indeed sparing of religious sentiment, but the former, unfortunately, has been deemed most unhappy in the most devotional parts of his matchless poem. The subject here chosen is, however, not religious: but has been the author's aim to introduce pious sentiments as often as it would allow, and to recommend the beauties of Revelation, by calling in their aid when they assist in adorning

a sentence.

Such a trait in the poem, will we hope, at least recommend it as safely adapted for the eyes of youth, whose lively minds cannot too early be excited to remember their Creator, and to imitate him who went about doing good."

The notes, though long, are not uninteresting; they are more especially designed to be a brief record of philauthropic characters and institutions, and may serve as an incitement to the noblest actions, and as useful memoranda to the philanthropist.

A Practical Introduction to Botany: Illustrated by References, under each Definition, to Plants of easy Access; and by numerous Figures; and also comprising a Glossary of Botanic Terms. By the Rev. W. Bingley, A.M. F.L.S. Author of Animal Bio-· graphy, &c. 12mo. pp. 89.

Turs little work is by no means intended to supersede the larger and more valuable introductions to the study of Botany, particularly Professor Martyn's Letters, and Sir James Edward Smith's Elementary Treatise. The latter of these, in particular, must continue to be read and adinired so long as any taste for this study shall exist in the British dominions. The claims to attention of the present publication are founded chiefly on its portable size; its compris

"principal defiuitions arranged in syste