beauty enjoyed a comparatively more distinguished situation as housekeeper for fifteen long years in Coverley Hall. At the expiration of that period the fear of discovery led her to abet the murder of her patron, Sir Arthur, and of the unfortunate chaplain. The vengeance for these outrages taken by the Coverley followers upon the old witch, and her destruction and that of her cat by the burning of her cottage, is a well-told episode. Cassandra is tried, but acquitted, and young Sir Roger is removed from the scene of so many horrors to court, where he becomes a gentleman of his majesty's bedchamber.

The author appears in a most felicitous light when in his second volume he gets his hero to the court of Charles, of merry memory. All the notabilities of the day are introduced in full-length portraits. Queen Catherine of Braganza and her household, the Duchess of Portsmouth and her French accomplices, Nell Gwynne and her play-acting friends, "La Belle Stuart," the politicians, courtiers, wits, literateurs of the day, even to the blind Milton, appear in their turn in these versatile pages, in which, after the fashion of the day, new characters are ever fleeting by. Much that is humourous and ridiculous is afforded by the tricks played by Lord Rochester and his witty but profligate companions upon the simplicity and innocence of the young De Coverley. Their constant amusement was to place him under circumstances involved in suspicion. On one occasion he is sent to his great horror to the notorious Chiffinch, on another he is made to invade the apartment of the ladies of honour when they were at their toilet; but the most cruel trick of all, was the sole invention of Rochester, who must have taken some trouble in preparing it. But for this most diverting practical joke we must refer to the work itself.

The persecutions of Cassandra, which are of a far more serious charac ter than those of the witty courtiers of the merry monarch, continue to the end. The evil spirits of the Tangier Tavern are employed to work out her purposes; and the denouement in regard to the substitution of children is unexpected. We feel persuaded that we have said enough, however, to prove how much amusement is to be met with in these latest memoirs of "Sir Roger de Coverley."

TRADE AND TRAVEL IN THE FAR EAST.*

THE author of this curious work upon trade and travel in the Far East, quitted England as a youngster in 1823, and between that time and the present, he lays claim to having crossed the ocean in forty different vessels, thus fully establishing himself as a curiosity in British enterprise, and in the durability of life under trying circumstances.

The reminiscences commence with Java, the decline of the trade in which renowned island of the Hollanders, and the downfall of Batavia, once the emporium of the East, Mr. Davidson attributes solely to the government monopolies-a miserable spirit only entailing loss to the

* Trade and Travel in the Far East; or Recollections of Twenty-One Years passed in Java, Singapore, Australia, and China. By G. F. Davidson. Madden & Malcolm.

centre from whence they emanate. No European sleeps a single night in Batavia itself, but Mr. D. speaks highly of the excellent roads and admirable posting establishments established throughout this island. From Batavia to Samarang, a distance of three hundred miles, can be posted in three days. There is nothing approaching to such admirable and cheap facilities for travelling in any part of the British Oriental possessions.

Java abounds in wild animals, including tigers, leopards, and boa-constrictors. The Javanese sultans formerly defended their harem by a ditch full of alligators. The folly of making pets of leopards is illustrated by the case of an English officer, who kept one at Samarang: "One morning after breakfast, the officer was sitting smoking his hookah, with a book in his right hand and the hookah-snake in his left, when he felt a slight pain in his left hand, and on attempting to raise it was checked by a low angry growl from his pet leopard; on looking down he saw that the animal had been licking the back of his hand, and had by degrees drawn a little blood. The leopard would not suffer the removal of the hand, but continued licking it with great apparent relish, which did not much please his master, who, with great presence of mind, without attempting again to disturb the pet in his proceeding, called to his servant to bring him a pistol, with which he shot the animal dead on the spot."

Mr. Davidson states, as might, indeed, have been anticipated, that the trade of Singapore (whither he next conveys the reader) has suffered from the opening of the Chinese ports, but the merchants of that fine settlement, he afterwards informs us, are taking advantage of the new position of things by also entering upon the Chinese trade. He describes a disgraceful traffic as being carried on at Sumatra by the Chinese, who bring there hundreds of human beings from the island of Nias, and who are not positively sold as slaves, but are registered at the Dutch resident's office as bond debtors, for from seven to twenty years. At the British settlement of Penang our author did not find a resident who had arrived since 1829. The Europeans of that time had all, or nearly all, been removed by death. The sugar-planting is increasing in Penang since the removal of the duty.

Arrived in Australia, our traveller is surprised at the variety of languages spoken by the natives; he would, perhaps, be still more so, were he to know that such is the rapid progress of ethnology in this country, that these languages have now for the most part been classed, and their extent determined. The author expresses himself against looking to Port Essington as the best point from whence to communicate with the mother country, and recommends the colonists to look to some other route, without saying which. For our part, our predilections are decidely in favour of the said port; and if the great commercial crisis that has lately visited New South Wales, has for a time placed the subject in the back-ground, there is no doubt but that the Australians are still sanguinely bent upon the project of having their own overland mail. We are happy to observe that Mr. Davidson's opinion is that Australia has seen its darkest day, and that matters are likely soon to improve when the actual crisis has blown over. What we have said, however, above, concerning the as yet unexplored route from the Cobourg peninsula to New South Wales, does not militate against the steam navigation of Torres Straits, which must ever be looked upon as the complement to the navigation of the Chinese seas.

Mr. Davidson, in opposition to what we have lately heard, speaks highly in favour of the new British settlement at Hong-Kong. No one, he says, can question the prudence of the choice, and the magnificent harbour is generally crowded with the ships of England, America, and other nations. He considers its situation, as a depôt for goods intended for the Chinese market, to be unrivalled. He is not, however, prepared to say that Chusan would not have been a better situation for a military station. The superior climate of Chusan is incontrovertible. The Chinese in that island are, it appears, very anxious to remain under the free and enlightened protection of the British government; and many English merchants have erected warehouses and residences in this delightful country, in the hope that it will ultimately be retained by Great Britain, or that the Chinese authorities will not object to their remaining on the island subsequently to its restoration. Hong-Kong, on the other hand, is described as decidedly inimical in its climate to the European constitution. It is ravaged every summer by a malignant fever, which is characterised by medical men as an interesting admixture of the yellow fever of the West, with the bilious fever of the East Indies!

Notwithstanding these great disadvantages of a most insalubrious, or rather of a very fatal, climate, the progress made in Hong Kong since its occupation is astonishing, and perhaps unsurpassed in the history of civilisation. The town of Victoria already extends upwards of four miles along the beach. One firm alone has laid out upwards of 40,0007. sterling in building. The position is objected to as exposed to the north, and hence shutting out the colonist from the southerly breeze wanted to refresh his worn-out frame. If its aspect had been southerly, it would have been much more sensibly objected, that it deprived the resident of the bracing northerly breezes.

"A trade," says Mr. Davidson, "suddenly thrown open with three hundred millions of human beings, is not likely to be completely developed in three, four, or five years; and I conceive that I am within the mark, when I hold out encouragement to my countrymen to quadruple their shipments to China." The author also remarks, that Great Britain, which should omit no opportunity of extending her commerce, ought not to suffer the Japanese sullenly to exclude our shipping from their ports, while the Dutch enjoy the sole privilege of trading to their country. "I would tell the Emperor of Japan," he says, "you shall either be friend or my my

foe."

It appears that the important discovery of coal in Borneo Proper, was first made by the captain of a steamer (name not given), who was sent by the Singapore government to release the captain, crew, and passengers of the ship Sultana, destroyed by fire on her way from Bombay to China. The importance of this discovery exceeds conception.

Upon the subject of the cession made by the Sultan of Borneo, of the tract of country around Sarawak, to Mr. Brooke, noticed elsewhere; Mr. Davidson justly remarks that "the government of this country cannot but be fully alive to the value of such a point on the north-west coast of Borneo, with reference to the protection and security of the vast trade carried on by British subjects to and from China, not to mention the intrinsic advantages of an establishment on one of the largest and most valuable islands in the world."

There is not the slightest doubt but that government is perfectly sensible to all these advantageous prospects held out by Mr. Brooke's suc

cesses; and there is every reason to believe that the most powerful influence will soon be brought into operation in bringing together all the elements of a rapid civilisation, amongst a people at present the prey of ignorance, superstition, and oppression. The "Sarawak Hill Rangers" will not, we suspect, be wanted to produce these desirable results.

It will be seen, from what little we have been enabled to notice of Mr. Davidson's explorations, how much interest we find in his narrative. His work is that of a single-minded, straightforward man, who writes according to the best of his judgment, and not for the sake of argument or effect. It can be cordially recommended as full of sound and valuable information upon countries towards which the commercial eye of this country is at the present moment most especially directed.

PEERS AND PARVENUS.*

66

ANOTHER of Mrs. Gore's clever artistic novels, and as redolent as ever of her incomparable sketches of society. If it be true that the novelists of the people have maligned their clients, Mrs. Gore, as the novelist of aristocratic life, is even still more open to the charge of degrading the class from whence she draws her materials. The story of a Royal Favourite," and "Peers and Parvenus," alone contain sufficient to damage a whole aristocracy in the estimation of the public; but it is absurd to suppose that either people or aristocrats suffer from such misrepresentations. The world at large understands perfectly well that the character sketched by the novelist, and the instances of conduct in life adduced by him, constitute the exceptions, and not the ordinary features of society, and beyond the amusement afforded, the incidental by-play of real life that gleams forth here and there, and the tacit feeling that occurrences such as are here depicted, could flow, or in some instances have actually followed, the want of moral and intellectual principle, which is established as belonging to a class; the whole passes by as innocuous and as fleeting as a joke in Punch, at which we laugh heartily, but never trouble ourselves to consider in the light of reality.

"Peers and Parvenus" contains the history of an unprincipled gambling nobleman and of his son, the one still in the prime of life, the other just entered upon his majority, but both involved in the deepest pecuniary embarrassments; and of a Lady Hillingdon, as inconsiderate, selfish, and extravagant, as any peer-hater could possibly desire. posed to these are the family of a day-labourer, out of which a son rises to be a wonder of talent and ability, although it is never made to manifest itself beyond carrying on certain archæological explorations at Portici, and writing a dissertation on the domestic life of the Romans.

Op

As has been latterly the case with most of Mrs. Gore's novels, we are called upon to visit all the places of fashionable resort on the continent, and to winter it at Rome with the usual proportion of aristocratic ladies with husband-seeking daughters, sporting lords, gambling foreigners, ladies of doubtful reputation, with honour and true love left to the hero and heroine alone. It is but justice to the author however to acknowledge that the Countess von Adlerberg is a new character beautifully conceived and equally skilfully worked out, and had the denouement been more to our liking, we should have placed "Peers and Parvenus" before the Royal Favourite" as a work of art and interest.

66

*

Peers and Parvenus. A novel. By Mrs. Gore. Author of "Mothers and Daughters," &c. 3 vols. Henry Colburn.

VELASCO.*

"VELASCO," is a romance of the Gil Blas school, in which the leading features of that school-its graphic delineations of Spanish characters and manners, its sly humour and quaint satire-mingled up with bustling incidents and ever-recurring intrigues and amours are so well sustained, that, did we not know otherwise, we should think some musty old archives of the eighteenth century had been appealed to as often as nature, for the materials of so clever a piece of imaginary biography.

The lovers of light and amusing literature will eagerly run after such a prize, and in doing so, like urchins gathering berries, they will find themselves frequently brought-to, by a practical and homely wisdom, which is often made to tell where it is least expected.

MR. NEWBY'S PUBLICATIONS.+

It was our intention to have taken up the important subject treated of in the very able and spirited work, the title of which is given below, but circumstances oblige us to defer the task, till the work is more complete. We cannot, however, allow the opportunity to go by, without expressing our sense of the very great improvement that has taken place in the character of the publications which issue from the house of Mr. Newby. Some of the very best novels of the last season, probably after long previous neglect, first saw the day in Mortimer Street. Interesting narratives of travel followed in their footsteps, or appeared contemporaneously, and were themselves accompanied by a variety of works of standard literature, including history and biography, which betoken a meritorious and a prosperous career.

LONG ENGAGEMENTS.

WHEN history is wanting in interest, then is it the legitimate province of fiction to re-kindle the dying embers. When reality has lost the romance which ever belongs to the new and the striking, imagination may be honourably employed in re-awakening it; and when sympathy for the brave and the suffering is about to expire, it is a triumph to genius to bring it back to life and action.

But we cannot plead, as far as concerns ourselves, any one of these failings in regard to the recent dread and fearful contest in Affghanistan. It is evident, however, that to some, the narrative of the gallantry, the endurance, and the sufferings, of our countrymen, requires to be introduced by fictitious episodes of love, and such interesting sketches of Anglo-Indian society, as are essential to the rousing their worn-out sentiment, to the tone necessary to harmonize with the real that was in the thing.

To such, we sincerely recommend "Long Engagements;" we do not envy them, but we should be very sorry that there were any, who had not sympathised with the warriors who fell so far away from their friends and their country.

Velasco. By Cyrus Redding. 3 vols. P. C. Newby.

†The Age of Pitt and Fox By the author of Ireland and its Rulers. 3 vols. Vol. 1. T. C. Newby.

A Tale of the Affghan Rebellion. 1 vol. London: Chapman and Hall.