first, giving the similes to which the town has been likened by Sir Walter Scott and others :-

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Edinburgh, I would say, resembles two aged parents, surrounded by a fair and flourishing family of children and grand-children. The Castle and the Highstreet may represent the former,-the New Town and southern district, the latter. The ancient pair are eyeing, with something like disdain, if not disgust, the foppery, the finery, the foolery, and the fashions of their effeminate offspring :while the young folks can scarcely conceal their contempt for the narrow prejudices of the wynds, the barbaric hauteur of the Castle, and the antiquated style of the Canongate. The frowning battlements of that fortress on the rock, sigh to every breeze over their fallen greatness, and their country's degeneracy--so rarely do their portals open to receive a captive prince or a lawless usurper! Even that awful symbol of our holy religion in the midst of the city, now seldom exhibits, within its sacred precincts, the animating spectacle of a patriot beheaded, a chieftain hanged, or a witch incinerated. In the royal palace itself, a crowned or uncrowned head may repose on its pillow with safety, if not with contentment-a queen may now be regaled with a conversazione or a sonato, without having her supper seasoned by a murder, or her Paganini slaughtered by a royal butcher."

The tourist pursues his route through the most interesting tracts of the Highlands and Islands, gratifying the eccentricity of his humour by a train of poignant satire and biting wit. The scenery, manners, and characters of the country and inhabitants are sketched with no inconsiderable power; our northern neighbours have as much reason to relish the criticisms of a modern as of a departed Johnson.

Tales of Private Life. 1 vol. By Miss Stickney.

Miss Stickney is one who looks upon human nature as people look upon an eclipse; least the vision should be too bright (which, nevertheless, she is anxious to see correctly) she smokes the glass through which she peeps, and thus continues susceptible of all that is going on, without being at all sensible of the brightness, which is the glory of all.

She resembles Hogarth more than Wilkie; and thinks more favourably of justice than she does of mercy. She would pull a rose for the sake of eradicating its thorns, rather than inhaling its perfume. Her eye is microscopic, with a difference-she would exaggerate a thread of cambric, not magnify the beauties of a diamond beetle.

Yet, with this-we had almost written unamiable-certainly unfeminine propensity, there are few whom we respect more highly than this clearminded and intelligent woman. Her object is truth; and though a stern and bitter monitor, there are few who would not say, "had such a person been the friend of my early days, how much misery should I have escaped!" Her knowledge of human nature is astonishing, and though the key she applies to unlock its mysteries, instead of being oiled, has been suffered to corrode, it is nevertheless the right key, and turned by a powerful hand. She offers some apologies for her former work, in her preface to the present; which, like everything she writes, is full of intellect. Though we differ from her in some of her harsher judgments, yet, on the whole, we are more than satisfied. There are certainly not more than three writers whose works we would present uncut to a young lady: Miss Stickney is one, and so correct, so dignified, so upright, is she in all things, that we look unto her as one of the pillars of female intellect and honour which support our moral world.

Loudon's Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture, with upwards of 2000 wood engravings.

In every age the private dwellings of the inhabitants of any given country may be taken as a tolerably fair criterion for ascertaining the state of civilization which it has attained. In the ruder and more barbarous ages, men dwelt in log huts or tents, and the only signs discoverable of architec

tural taste were displayed in the temples for religious worship and other public buildings. As civilization advanced, the private dwellings of the wealthy became more and more splendid, till, in the high and palmy days of Rome, the villas of her patricians realised the wildest dreams of oriental fiction. Still magnificence was aimed at rather than convenience; and there was little in the Roman villas to excite the envy of the wealthy of the present day. In the barbarous ages which succeeded the overthrow of Rome, immense banqueting halls, and castles with walls of surprising thickness, seem to have been only thought desirable; and, from the specimens yet remaining, we can form no very favourable idea of the domestic comforts of our ancestors. With the extension of commerce, however, new wants arose, and wealth readily supplied the means of satisfying them till by slow degrees the massive castle softened down into the comforts and conveniences of the modern villa.

The work now before us was published in monthly numbers, and was noticed by us as it appeared: it has now, however, assumed the form of an immensely thick octavo volume; the lithographic engravings have been executed in wood, and the whole appears to have undergone a careful revision, as we observe that some little mistakes as to references, &c., have been corrected. In turning over the volume, we have been particularly pleased with the Designs for Villas, the elegance and convenience of which not only seem adapted to supply all our wants, but even to teach us new ones that we never before imagined. The appendages are particularly well-contrived and elegant, and the hints on laying out grounds highly useful, especially as coming from Mr. Loudon, whose experience in laying out grounds gives his authority double weight. The following observations appear to us worth extracting:

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"We do not object to a wire fence in front of the house, in the case of cottages and cottage villas, where the house, from its smaller dimensions and picturesque low form, blends with the scenery, without the necessity of architectural appendages. In the case of all villas of any magnitude, however, we consider the architectural accompaniments of terrace walls, gateways, alcoves, stone seats, steps, pedestals, urns, and other mural and sculptural ornaments, essentially requisite to prevent the incongruity so ably exposed by Mr. Hope, of launching from the threshold of the symmetric mansion, in the most abrupt manner, into a scene wholly composed of the most unsymmetric and desultory forms of mere nature.' 'These forms,' he adds, are totally out of character with those of the mansion, whatever may be its style of architecture and furnishing.' With him, we desire to surround the house with a garden, into which the cluster of highly adorned and sheltered apartments that compose the mansion may, in the first instance, shoot out, as it were, into certain more or less extended ramifications of arcades, porticoes, terraces, parterres, treillages, avenues, and other such still splendid embellishments of art, calculated, by their architectural and measured forms, at once to offer a striking and varied contrast with, and a dignified and comfortable transition to, the undulating and rural features of the more extended, distant, and exposed boundaries; before, in the second instance, through another link, and a still farther continuance of the same gradation of lines and forms, the limits of the private demesne are made, in their turn, by means of their less artificial and more desultory appearance, (increasing with their distance from the house,) to blend equally harmoniously with the still ruder outlines of the property of the public at large. "-p. 771.

The wood cuts are very beautifully executed, and those especially of the scenery of Alton Towers would do credit to the taste of any artist of any age.

The Young Seer; or, Early Searches into Futurity. By Elizabeth Frances Dagley.

Addison has a pretty fiction, in which he represents Truth calling in the aid of Fiction, to give those lessons which, without such aid, would have been unattractive, and therefore unprofitable. To instruct by events whose consequences are made obvious to the juvenile capacity is the laudable aim

of narratives like the present. The fault peculiarly pointed out in the clever and amusing volume now before us, is that desire of prying into futurity which, even in the present day, is such a common error. The author well observes that "There is, in the human mind, a strong craving towards the knowledge of things hidden—an instinctive impulse to pierce the confines of the invisible world. This is doubtless an innate principle, and assuredly a strong proof of the immortal spirit within us; but it becomes impious when we would snatch the forbidden fruit." She also adds, The circumstance which leads to the catastrophe in the following little tale was an actual fact." The influence acquired by a designing person over an imagination whose weakness is the result of early excitement is forcibly shown in these pages. Young people who feel the silly wish of having their fortunes told had better read it in these pages. Among the dramatis personæ is a Mrs. Spencer, whose easy temper, and yet exegiante, is sketched with all the truth of life. The volume is very neatly got up, with a new and pretty style of binding.

Cases illustrating and confirming the Remedial Power of the Inhalation of Iodine and Conium in Tubercular Consumption, and various disordered states of the Lungs and Air-passages. By Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D. F.R.S.

Consumption is so prevalent in this climate, and so invariably fatal under all hitherto tried methods of treatment, that we willingly listen to any proposal that bears upon the face of it a fair promise of rendering it less the opprobrium medicorum than it has always been considered. Sir Charles Scudamore's plan of treatment is principally, though not entirely, that of inhaling the vapour arising from iodine and conium (hemlock); and though the inhaling medicated vapours and gases is no novelty in medicine, yet we think the combination of so active a principle as iodine with the sedative effects of hemlock, if they reach the surface of the ulcer in the lungs in an energetic state, may in some rare cases prove remedial. It is not vaunted, with all the parade of empiricism, as a specific, nor has the treatment of the patient ever been trusted entirely to its influence; and the general result of the cases, which seem fairly reported, will warrant farther trial of its effects, in lessening the fatality of such an everyday disease as consumption.

There is a sort of moral delusion among consumptive patients which prevents them from seeing any danger in their disease, and it may be literally said of almost all of them, that

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast,"

and as it is the province of the medical practitioner to keep Hope alive to the last, as the best of all medicines, it would be equally vain and cruel to tell a consumptive person that he would not recover. Even if he were told so, so strong is the delusion that he would not believe it, but would probably dismiss his medical attendant, sans ceremonie, and fly to Singe-ing Long, or some other quack who would promise him a cure, and fleece him to the last.

If the inhalation of medicated vapours has no other advantage than that of mitigating the severity of the cough, while it amuses the patient, and thus smooths the avenues of death, it is infinitely better to have recourse to it under proper medical direction, than to abandon a fellow-creature to the fangs and cajolery of ignorant, unprincipled, and torturing quacks, who are always seeking whom they can devour.

The work is dedicated, by permission, to the King; and Sir Charles concludes his preface with these words:- -" It is not on selfish grounds that I advocate the practice-what concerns my reputation or advantage is personal and transient, and of little moment; what relates to science and

to the interest of mankind, is for all ages, and of inestimable importance." This is not the language of a pretender to physic, but that of a candid and honest physician.

Loudon's Architectural Magazine, No. I.-(To be continued Monthly.)

We have already noticed in terms of high commendation, Mr. Loudon's Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture ;" and we have now before us another work by the same indefatigable author. The only fault of this Encyclopædia is, that, though it is cheap compared with the mass of valuable matter which it contains, its price is too high for the journeyman carpenter, or other mechanic to hope to obtain more than a passing glance at its pages. The “ Architectural Magazine” is not liable to the same objection; the price is uncommonly cheap, and the decorations are of a superior description. It also embraces a still wider field than the Encyclopædia, as it includes town houses and public buildings; and we do not despair of seeing it work a complete reform in our English architecture, which has long been a mark of scorn and reproach to all the nations on the continent. We quote the following passage from the Introduction :

"A taste for architecture, like that of any of the fine arts, is at once a source of enjoyment, and a mark of refinement. As buildings are more frequently occurring to the view than either pictures or statues, this enjoyment can be proportionately more frequently obtained; and hence it would appear to be the more desirable for the possessor. It may farther be stated, that to understand and enjoy architecture does not depend nearly so much on what is called a natural taste, as does the enjoy ment of pictures, statuary, or music. Architecture is more an art of reason than of imagination; and there is hardly any great feature of beauty or deformity in a building, the propriety or absurdity of which could not be made obvious to the most ordinary understanding, even if the possessor of that: understanding had paid very little attention previously to the subject. So much cannot be said of any of the other arts mentioned."-Int. p. iii.

Nine Years of an Actor's Life. By Robert Dyer.

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"All the world's a stage," said Shakspeare, and an actor seems to consider the stage a world in which every one is interested. Mr. Dyer has ever been a gentlemanly, and, we believe, an honourable man, and from what we hear, we understand, an accomplished actor. He has had his " ups and downs," his barns and breaks, like others of the profession; and we sincerely wish that he and his "five reasons, in the shape of children, were comfortably settled far-far from the chance of further care or disappointment. We have been much entertained by his adventures; several of his anecdotes are both excellent and original. The volume recalls many old favourites of the sock and buskin to our remembrance, and we cordially recommend it to all who love to hear of the strange vicissitudes of an actor's life.

A Treatise on the Nature of Vision, Formation of the Eye and Causes of Imperfect Vision, with rules for the application of artificial assistance and observations on the danger arising from the use of improper glasses. By Alexander Alexander. Optician.

This little brochure is the production of a scientific optician, and gives an accurate account of the optical structure of the human eye; the derangements which it is subject to by increasing years and the other imperfections of vision, which it is the province of the optician to relieve or remedy. It is fairly written, and is evidently the work of a philosophical mind, and if we may judge from the list of subscribers, which includes the names of Sir A. Cooper, Dr. Farre, Mr. Travers, and a host of other surgeons; the author is well known to the professional world, and far removed from the

ordinary class of Shop-ticians which we meet with in almost every street. If our editorial vision were imperfect, we know not where we could apply with more confidence for an adjustment of our focal distances, than to the author of the above work.

Vergleichendes Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Gothisch-Teutonischen Mundarten, &c.-A Comparative Etymological Dictionary of the Gothic-Teutonic Dialect, &c. By Heinrich Meidinger.

This book goes far towards supplying the want, long felt in the literary world, of a work which, within a moderate compass, should present the whole stock of words ever in use in that great stem of language, of which our own forms a distinguished branch. Of the languages compared in this dictionary, five are dead, and five living. The former are the Mæso-Gothic, the old High German, (including the dialects of both the Franks and the Allemanni), the Anglo-Saxon, the old Saxon (or old Low-German), and the Icelandic; and the latter, the modern Swedish, Danish, Netherlandish (Flemish and Dutch), English and High-German. But, in many instances, roots of other ancient and modern languages have been added, to point out a common origin.

By this arrangement, the principal point of view, that of displaying the wealthy stores of the Teutonic stem, is never lost sight of, and the mind not distracted by being confusedly referred from one language to another; while, at the same time, the general relation among the languages of both Europe and Asia is kept before our eye. An interesting account of the sources from which the dictionary has been compiled is given at the beginning of the work; and it will gratify the English reader to find, that although comparatively little is now doing among us in the vast and interesting field of northern philology, the author acknowledges himself greatly indebted to English and Scotch research for a great portion of his information.

His treatise on the use and interchange of letters among the Teutonic nations is too brief to be perfectly intelligible to those who are unacquainted with the theory established by J. Grimm, in his celebrated grammar of the Teutonic languages. Indeed, the work, as it is, can hardly be studied with advantage, except as an appendix to that grammar, which teaches the analysis of the words given here in their concrete form. It is for the rest a great merit of the book, that the author has contented himself to place the words of the different languages seemingly of one root, and approaching in their signification, under one head, instead of pursuing the ignis fatuus of etymological inquiry. An index to the English words at the end of the book is a useful addition; and a table of contents of Grimm's celebrated grammar will be gladly received by all who are possessed of this interesting work.

The Frolics of Puck. 3 vols.

A work worthy its title-full of amusing incident and fantastic adventures it has also the merit of painting and recording all sorts of old English customs and superstitions. ~Puck is banished from Fairy-land till he discovers what women like best; of course, the old satire is revived, that their liking is for their own will. Very true, we dare say; but pray is that taste confined to the gentler sex? We have some suspicion that gentlemen like

it too.