The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal

stick tight to many memories. The “ Elvino" which he sang in Rubini's shirt (a fact!)—was it not winning, fascinating, charming, delicious, – and whatever adjective you please, that you would put into an enthusiastic lady's mouth, when you supposed her to speak of a gentleman vocalist. Thou, too, Coletti, great singer, great actor, thy old Foscari,

terrible with his wrath, so terrible with his grim white moustache, is a thing that shall not die. These be good importations, these of Gardoni and Coletti, and of the now elderly Year 1847 has its special operatic coat of arms, Gardoni and Coletti shall be the supporters, while Jenny Lind is the crest.

And then the ballet—we cannot say that the ballet has improved because that is always perfect at Her Majesty's Theatre. · Mr. Lumley carries about him in some pocket a sort of patent which declares that he has the sole power of producing ballet ; he stands forth as the Terpischorean monopolist in an age of anti-monopoly. A ballet elsewhere is neither more than less than a horrid - bore” '-a miserable thing made up of time-damaged notions and combinations. It is immaterial who is the premiere danseuse at any other establishment ; she may be the first person of the world, but the ensemble is too heavy for her. At all theatres, save Her Majesty's, ballet is an exotic in a badly managed conservatory, but at Her Majesty's Theatre it springs as from a native soil, and you

feel the geniality of the circumstances. Taglioni always comes with a renewed juvenility, to be attributed solely to the benign atmosphere of the Haymarket-Cerito's bounds have a joyance which belong to the climate of that one theatrical region.

And then what choice inventions spring from the brains of the ballet concoctors at Her Majesty's Theatre! None of your picking up an old stale village festival, or a trembling group of Swiss peasants, to do what has been done twenty times too often, but there is a living fancy at work that diffuses itself into details of costume and picturesque formations. Never was a neater little blaze of brilliancy than that Thea, the scene of which was laid among flowers, and which took us into a world of smiling pinks, agile jonquils, and coquettish tulips. There is a luxurious play of the inventive faculties in these little works, which oscillate so prettily between ballet and divertissement without belonging to either, and there is always an effective scenic flash at the conclusion--something that shows creation has been at work, and that there has not been a hammering together of old fragments.

Moreover our stock danseuses has been increased to an important degree. Rosati and Marie Taglioni the younger--she of the droll chevelure—are, in truth, valuable additions, and the

former has a particular sort of step, which constitutes a distinct individuality. Therefore, Mr. Lumley, we bid thee twine thy brow with a wreath composed of such verdant leaves as Jenny Lind, Gardoni, Coletti, Taglioni (elder and younger), Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, and Rosati, and wish that in 1848 thy lustre—we will not, like the Persians, say thy shadow-may not be less.

LITERARY NOTICES. MR. JAMES, who is never more felicitous than when engaged in depicting the thoughts, speech, and customs, of bygone times, has contributed another admirable novel to the existing stock of light literature. In this last work he has taken up that interesting period of English history, the licentious days of the second Charles, and the plots and persecutions which were entailed at the same eventful period by rival faiths, and, we may truly say, with more than ordinary ability and success. Russell; a Tale of the Reign of Charles II.* will undoubtedly take its place among the author's best historical romances.

Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the authoress of Ellen Middleton, has also contributed to the same stores a tale of deep pathos and high-wrought interest, entitled Grantley Manor.f It is in every respect calculated to ensure a distinguished literary reputation to Lady Fullerton.

Mr. Broderip's Zoological Recreationst are undoubtedly destined to take a place by the side of White of Selborne and Waterton. The love of Nature and observation of her various works are indeed united in this work to a familiarity with the literature of the country which is not to be met with in his illustrious predecessors. While such works generally contribute to enhance knowledge, improve taste, and increase our enjoyments of life, they are thus made to assume, with Mr. Broderip, the additional value of a literary and, in the case of ancient dragons," an historical interest. Nothing would have been more gratifying to us than to have made a few extracts from these papers, although they originally appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, but we can well afford to allow so excellent a book to stand up in its own merits.

Dr. Travers Twiss's Lectures on the Progress of Political Economy is at once a sound and valuable work. Excepting Mr. Macculloch's Introductory Discourse to the Wealth of Nations, we have had no previous attempt of the kind, that we are aware of, made in the country. Yet amidst the conflicting theories which have sometimes led us to despair of human reason, as rendering knowledge of such an abstract character, of a most suspicious nature ; we have still often wished to possess a manual of reference a kind of historical handbook-to the progress of this, after mental philosophy, for a long time the least satisfactory, as the most perplexing and contradictory, of all branches of knowledge.

Dr. Twiss's work appears to meet this desideratum in a most effective and satisfactory manner. He has carefully and ably sifted and separated those popular fallacies which are perpetually being arrayed against the doctrines of political economy

from those

very

doctrines viewed as the conclusions of experience, and not as deductions from arbitrary or dogmatic premises, and which are now admitted to constitute the great truths of that which must one day assume the station of practically the most important of all branches of knowledge.

Russell : a Tale of the Reign of Charles II. By G. P. R. James, Esq. 3 vols. Smith, Elder, and Co. + Grantley Manor. A Tale. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 3 vols. Moxon.

Zoological Recreations. By W. J. Broderip, Esq., F.R.S., &c. Henry Colburn.

View of the Progress of Political Economy in Europe, since the Sixteenth Century. A Course of Lectures delivered before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1846, and Lent Term, 1847. By Travers Twiss, D.C.L., F.R.S., Professor of Political Economy. Longman and Co.

Wayfaring Sketches.* - This is a most amusing, gossiping work. Its materials are of the lightest possible description, but they are characteristic, lady-like, and graceful; and we do not care how often it is our good fortune to wander over the same highways, with so observing and 80 entertaining a companion.

Frederick Douglass, the Missionary Slave.t-Frederick Douglass is one of those beings who stand in their own proper persons, living reproofs to the nation which gives them birth. His mother was a black slave, his father was his white master; and, as slave-holders have ordained and by law established, that the children of slave-women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers- -an odious system which makes the gratification of their wicked desires, profitable as well as pleasurable–Frederick Douglass was born a slave. But as if Providence selected also its instruments of punishment from out of the proceeds of crime itself

, the new blood and intellect infused into men so born, and annually increasing in numbers, fits them more to be the uncompromising enemies of slavery, than its tacit victims. Frederick Douglass is a striking example of this great fact. Richly endowed in intellect, and in natural eloquence almost a prodigy, he has, as a fugitive slave and a lecturing agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, both in the United States and in this country, roused feelings of virtuous indignation by his stirring exposition and denunciation of slavery and slave-holders. The narrative of the life of this extraordinary man, cannot be read without the deepest interest, as there can also be no doubt, but that his labours will aid materially in the great cause of shaming his countrymen out of their adhesion to a system so especially abhorrent to Christianity, and so humiliating to a Republicanism, which can never be received by other countries as real, so long as such a system is tolerated by pretended lovers of equality.

Travelling Atlas.--It is seldom that we have derived more positive satisfaction than from the examination of Sidney Hall's “ Pocket Travelling Atlas of the English Counties," published by Chapman & Hall. These maps are of perfectly portable dimensions, they are coloured, and the railroads are carefully corrected up to the end of last session. Yet although of pocket size, in nicety of execution and perfection of detail, they leave the old atlases of the same kind, as Cary's

, or the quarto English topography, quite in the shade. Nor can we, in the present state of things, imagine a cheaper, more convenient, or in every respect more satisfactory atlas.

Pictorial Guide Books. I-Delightful and well-timed little books. Sylvan's Pictorial Hand-books, so prettily illustrated by the Messrs. Gilks, have already claimed our admiration. The mass of information, and the maps which accompany them,

render them all that can be desired by the tourist, or by the possessors of leisure, who are awaiting to have their attention called to the picturesque and the beautiful. Messrs. Orr & Co.'s

* Wayfaring Sketches among the Greeks and Turks, and on the Shores of the Danube. By a Seven Years' Resident in Greece. Chapman and Hall.

† Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by
himself. Third edition. Barker, Wortley.
-Sylvan's Pictorial Hand-book to the Clyde, and its Watering-places. with
Maps, and upwards of Fifty Illustrations from Original Sketches. By Thomas and
Edward Gilks. John Johnstone, London.

The Pictorial Guide to Erith and Greenhithe. The Pictorial Guide to Woolwich. W. S. Orr & Co. London.

pictorial guides are of more humble pretensions; but at the same time the illustrations, produced under the superintendence of the brothers Vizetelly, yield precedence to none in the same field. There are a variety of reasons why we should feel pleasure at seeing these cheap and tempting little guide-books, and one of the chief of these, is the proposed intellectual recreation of the humble classes, to which purposes Messrs. Orr's guides are most especially well adapted.

Poetry.-- The number of those whose burning thoughts scorn the shackles of every day prose, or with whom there is an ever-flowing life-cherished love of the divine art,” never diminishes, notwithstanding the sternness of critics, or the all-absorbing utilitarianism of the times we live in. It is our duty therefore, to mention that, among others, Captain G. P. Thomas, a gentleman of some literary, and much travelled experience, has issued a volume of “ Poems”* in which the lovers of versification will find a tragedy of the Thugs, and other Oriental and home subjects metrically treated.

It was intended that Miss Rose Ellen Hendricks, the impersonation we suppose of the wild roset should have spoken for herself in her own polished strains, but alas ! it is not in our power to be gallant, as it is not our wish to be hyper-critical.

“The Love Test"I is a poem of some merit, although by no means improved by the metre being so frequently changed in its progress. Some of the author's miscellaneous poems may also be fairly recommended for poetical feeling and successful versification, but there is great inequality in the latter artistic qualities.

“The Heiress," a tale by W. C. Eaton, is written in pleasing and unassuming verse, and we wish it all the success sought for by its author —“the relief of some care-burdened mind, if only for one short hour.”

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. THE Overland Mail and the Austrian Lloyds, published by George Mann, can be recommended as giving a comprehensive and fair view of the doings of the Austrian Lloyds.

We remember having seen the views embraced by the Rev. T. Price in his Geographical Progress of Empire and Civilisation, in the pages of the Athenæum, and having been particularly struck by their exceedingly unphilosophical and unsatisfactory character an impression which is not removed by re-perusing the same views in an illustrated and pamphlet form.

The Life and Writings of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, by the Rev. Henry Davis, and published by James Gilbert, can only be considered as a pioneer to some more elaborate work which will be necessary to do justice to the life and writings of an eminent divine, but not very distinguished political economist. The pamphlet is, however, a very deserving one.

Several works of more importance, and which cannot be dismissed in a line or two, must lie over for notice in the ensuing number of the Magazine.

* Poems. By George Powell Thomas, Captain, Bengal Army, author of“ Views of Simla.” Smith, Elder, and Co., London.

† The Wild Rose, in six cantos, with other Poems. By Rose Ellen Hendricks, authoress of “Political Fame,” &c. William Pickering, London.

# The Love Test, and other Tales and Poems. By B. Lambert. H. Hurst, London.

§ The Heiress. A Tale by William Champion Eaton. John Snare, Reading.