C ART. XII.—Extracts from the Italian Prose Writers, for the Use of Students in the London University. 12mo. pp. 558. London: Taylor; 1828. oh y vað ɛs pigallas tot boot vodt ti: gant ĵo taioq THE success of the modern universities must depend entirely upon their practical and popular usefulness. Were the promotion of abstruse learning, of mathematics, logic, bor the erudition of Greece and Rome, the present object of interest with the public, Cambridge and Oxford, after having revised their laws, and made a few changes in their systems, would answer completely the design in contemplation. But though literature has become popular, the higher departments of learning neither have, nor ever will become so; and if institutions be formed for popular purposes, and to embrace in their more liberal systems the instruction of the many, they must pay a proportionate attention to the branches of knowledge most necessary in the business and actions of common life. With a laudable consideration of this essential feature in their design, the projectors of the London University have, it appears, from their prospectuses, paid great attention to the department of modern languages. We have not an opportunity of deciding whether or not their choice of professors has been equally judicious in the other cases, but from the known literary character of Mr. Panizzi, from his great attainments, and extensive acquaintance with every thing regarding the literature of his native country, there is every proof that no one more fitted to do credit to the new institution could have been placed in the Italian professor's chair.it 0 24 The little work which is here presented to the public, and which is to form a class-book for the éléves of the London University, is a very judicious and amusing selection of pieces from productions little known to the generality of Italian students. It has been Mr. Panizzi's object to give such passages as are likely to prove interesting to an English reader, and assist in removing some of the many errors which the Professor alleges exist in this country concerning the real state of his. Independent, however, of this, the little acquaintance with Italian prose which is generally possessed, renders it a desirable object with students in that language to possess a work which may lead to a knowledge of its prose, as well as poetical capabilities. The selection embraces extracts from every author known among the Italian classics, and some of them are exceedingly curious and entertaining. Among these, we noted especially two or three letters of Tasso's, Bentivoglio's Character of our Queen Elizabeth, Cellini's Narrative of a Journey in France, through Switzerland, and some most interesting passages from Machiavelli. 1'. ✓ ART. XIII.The Chronological Guide. Part IAccompanied with a Chart. 12mo. London: Baker and Fletcher. 1828.stil mo f THIS is one of the neatest, and, for its extent, one of the most comprehensive especially well deserving, we think, of the patronage of teachers. Even and convenient chronological compendiums we have seen, and a schoolboy who is tolerably conversant with the annals of the principal nations of the world taken individually used notion of General History. will often, if he has been taught in the usual way, have but a very Children, as the present compiler remarks in a very judicious preface, grant compiler remarks in a they read of them; very few think enough to discover their relation in point of time; if they read, for example, as they do in Rollin, the Carthaginian history long before the Macedonian, it is most probable they will never find out that the victories of Alexander were at least sixty years prior to the first Punic war; or if they do discover facts of that obvious kind, it will still be difficult for them to go back, and again to proceed with the historian, without so far losing the connection of events as to render it impossible for them, without a great deal more study and attention than they are usually found to give, to obtain a clear and orderly view of the whole. The chart by which this little volume is accompanied is intended to assist the young scholar in forming those more correct and comprehensive views which it is so desirable he should possess. It has certainly the merit of clearness in a degree superior to many of its predecessors. The explanatory volume contains nearly every thing that is necessary for an elementary knowledge of chronology; presenting, besides, an ample collection of facts, a short introduction on the fundamental principles of the science, a series of historical sketches of the different countries whose chronology is delineated in the chart, an account of the method of reducing the several epochs to each other, a complete list of questions adapted to the table, and an appendix illustrative of the various offices, weights, measures, &c. alluded to in ancient history. The part of the work before us comes down only to the destruction of the Western Empire but we hope the attempt will meet with sufficient encouragement to induce the author to give us, as soon as possible, its promised continuation. Mondocoa events happened in the order in which 10 ART.XIV.—Historic Survey of German Poetry, interspersed with various translations By W. Taylor, of Norwich. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 506. London: Treuttel and Würtz. 1828.2 THE present volume is principally composed of a number of articles on the works of the German Poets, which the author had contributed some years ago to this Review and the Monthly Magazine. It does not profess, therefore, to present us with a complete History of German Poetryalthough the separate disquisition of which it consists have been woven into a continuous composition by the interspersion of a few connective paragraphs, so that it may now claim the character of at least a regular and unbroken sketch of that interesting subject. The work is to consist, when finished, of three volumes, of which only the first has yet appeared, which brings down the annals of German Poetry to the publication of Lessing's Nathan the Wise. Mr. Taylor's labours on this occasion have at least the great recommendation of supplying what has hitherto been a desideratum in our literature, and presenting us with a guide to the study of the subject, the attraction of which is growing among us every day, although till now the English public have had no means of forming their own judgment as to its extent and importance. The attempt is therefore at all events an exceedingly praiseworthy one, were it only on account of its subjects; but its execution, we have no hesitation in adding, is also such as well merits encouragement. The author is evidently both very extensively conversant with the facts of his subject, and quite capable of illustrating them with spirit and originality. Without professing to agree with all the opinions advanced in the volume, we willingly aknowledged that they are advocated in general with very considerable skill and plausibility. The style is disfigured, we observe, by a number of affectations-originating apparently in an anxiety to infuse something of a German spirit into our English tongue_ which we should be pleased to see avoided by the learned author in the progress of his work. His innovations, we apprehend, are not likely to be generally adopted. His poetry, we are glad to perceive, is much freer from these objectionable peculiarites than his prose-and is upon the whole, indeed, very creditable to his ingenuity and taste. ART. XV.--Tales of the Affections: being Sketches from Real Life. By Mrs. Caddick. Foolscap 8vo. pp. 199. London: Longman and Co. 1828. THE tales of this modest volume, four in number, are prettily told; but the style is their chief merit-there being, except in the Broken Vow', nothing very striking nor extraordinary in the incidents, and little of plot or involution to excite or keep alive the interest. The Mountain Stream,' for example, contains the story of two boys, who were drowned by the overflowing of a brook after a thunder-storm, on the declivity of Ingleborough, the monarch of the Yorkshire mountains. Only a few pages, however, are devoted to the boys and the catastrophe which befel them, the rest is taken up with a sentimental essay on the waning of youthful pleasures in after life, and a poetical prose description of the mountain and the stream. 'Of the waters, particularly of the streams which originate in the hill side, the shepherds speak, like Miss Mitford, as if they were things of life.' One of the largest of them occupies, at its source, no wider a space than a peasant girl may cover with her straw hat; but it flows on in unpretending tranquillity, until it is augmented, by other springs, into a tolerably wide brook. Its bed then becomes rough and stony, being scattered over with large masses of rock, which the tempests of ages have in succession hurled into it from the heights above. In ordinary times, the stream winds playfully round these obstacles; but when storms have swelled it to ten times its usual size, it dashes over them with inconceivable fury, or falls from one to the other, in long lines of silvery whiteness, which, if they are met by the wind that plays round the middle of the hill, are caught up by it and scattered far and wide, until they assume the appearance of a mist.' p. 122. The Broken Vow' is related with great feeling, and resembles not a little the story of the Surgeon's Daughter, in the first series of the Chronicles of the Canongate. We doubt not that both have originated in the same real history, though moulded into varied forms by Sir Walter, and by Mrs. Caddick of Manchester. ART. XVI.-Sydney's Letter to the King; and other Correspondence, connected with the reported exclusion of Lord Byron's Monument from Westminster Abbey. 12mo. pp. 56. London: Cawthorn. 1828. 'SIRE, THE hand of Death has laid its sceptre on the Poet's head! 'His laurelled brows are trailed along the dust, like Hector's corse, insulted, not dishonoured. A mighty aspirant appears before Your Majesty, and appeals to your benevolence and justice. The remains of Genius, cry out, Sire-from the tomb. A voice is in its ashes, which invokes Your Majesty to spare the living and protect the dead!" * * * * The chains of Superstition are unloosed :-The empire of Idolatry is at an end; and forth has rushed one universal and Angelic shout, proclaiming loud :-" Peace upon earth--Grace and good will to men!” But there are Household deities which still survive, and find a temple and a shrine in the breast of every faithful Englishman. Among the holiest and the first of these are "Civil and Religious Liberty." Between these deities we place your Royal bust, the tutelary genius and the guard of both.'-p. 8., Such is the opening of this farrago of prose run mad-and it is quite enough, we think, to prevent our readers from falling into a paroxysm of surprise, when we tell them that the author, page 33, zealously argues from internal evidence, that the lines beginning "Within this awful volume lies." Are Lord Byron's, though they are well known to be by Sir Walter Scott, and occur in the Monastery, vol. ii. So much for the knowledge of Byron's peculiar style and genius" possessed by this letter-writer, who is not in the least abashed at confessing his blunder in a postcript to the reader. ART. XVII.-The First Lines of Philosophical and Practical Chemistry; as applied to Medicine and the Arts, including the recent Discoveries and Doctrines of the Science. By J. S. Forsyth, Surgeon, &c. Author of the New London Medical and Surgical Dictionary, &c. &c. &c. &c. With plates. 12mo. pp. 326. London: Sustenance and Stretch. 1828. MR. FORSYTH, it would appear, is desirous of exemplifying in his own person the prophetic saying of King Solomon, that "of making many books there is no end:" whether he finds the context of this celebrated verse hold good or not, we have no means of ascertaining; but there is almost no subject into which he has not dipt his pen-History, Antiquities, Arts, Sciences, (including Fencing and Magic,) and a whole library of Medical, Surgical, and Pharmaceutical publications, with occasional pamphlets, provincial and metropolitan, exhibiting a singular vein of sarcasm, vituperation, and rejoinder, sometimes dramatic, sometimes rhetorical, and sometimes nondescript. The First Lines of Chemistry' is a fair specimen of his tact and experience in his profession. It contains an extensive series of facts and experiments, condensed into very moderate compass. One thing strikes us as remarkable: after commencing, according to the very worst form of the catechetical style, he suddenly abandons it, and only resumes it again in an occasional page as he proceeds: Question. With what properties are material substances endowed ? Answer. Material substances are endowed with two kinds of properties-namely, physical and chemical, &c.'-p. 1. ---- Now we are entitled to ask, in our turn, what good purpose is gained by this oscillatory, pendulum style of bandying words between a pupil and his instructor, for whom, we presume it to be intended? If there be any of our readers who retain a partiality for a manner which has of late been rapidly and deservedly becoming obsolescent, we have only to refer them for a comparison to the opening of the work before us, and that of the "Conversations on Chemistry," by Mrs. Marcet. We are convinced that such a comparison can lead but to one opinion-viz. the immense superiority of the latter over the former, both for communicating knowledge, exciting interest, and, consequently, of improving the memory, and still more, the judgment of the pupil. In the question and answer style partially adopted by Mr. Forsyth, the pupil is made a mere recollecting machine; in the conversation method, he is made to pause and think at every step. But if Mr. Forsyth was convinced of the utility of the method, why not carry it uniformly through his book? The best portion of Mr. Forsyth's work are his Select Experiments, his Tables, and his Glossary of Chemical Terms, all of which are exceedingly useful to beginners; and though we would recommend the Conversations in preference to the First Lines, for obtaining an introductory knowledge of the science, yet the young chemist will find Mr. Forsyth an exceedingly useful guide upon many points altogether omitted or deficient in that and some other elementary works. T ART. XVIII.-Sketches in verse, from the Historical Books of the Old Testament. By J. Brettell. 12mo. pp. 183. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1828. WE We are extremely sorry that we cannot in any conscience compliment Mr. Brettell, of Rotherham, on his poetical powers; because he appears to be a sincere, well-disposed, amiable man; but we must abide by what appears to us to be the impartial truth. We had thought (most unwittingly, we confess, but we had thought) that the fulsome panegyrical style of dedication had long passed away with the fashion of laced coats and full-bottomed wigs; but lo! here it meets us in all its pristine glory. May the benevolence of your Lordship [Earl Fitzwiiliam], which, like the beneficent radiance of the luminary of day, casts a cheering lustre on the world, long continue to shine upon it, and, when it is eventually overcast by the shadow of life's closing eve, may its reflected light, resting in all its glory on the present noble heir to your Lordship's rank and virtues, be transmitted by him,' &c. &c.t for wou od teblå Of the tenth rate poetry which is thus fulsomely dedicated to Earl Fitzwilliam, we suppose our readers will have little curiosity to see a specimen. We open at a venture, and find in the song of Moses: 7 ans The blast of Thy power divided the flood, |