THE PRACTICE OF THE COURT OF SESSION. By JAMES JOHNSTON DARLING, Writer to the Signet. 2 VOLS. 8vo. The increase in the number of appeals to the House of Lords, from the Court of Session, led to the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission, in 1824, to investigate the state of the forms of procecding in the Scottish courts. The result of this commission was, that a great many alterations were recommended, principally with the view of preventing the intermingling of law and fact, in judicial pleadings, as has been too long the practice of our courts. In the year 1825, the new system came into operation; but we have not hitherto had any book to explain the new forms, as modified by numerous regulations of court; and, by upwards of 1000 adjudged cases. The present volumes, therefore, can hardly fail to be useful to the law practitioner. The compilation has evidently been the result of much personal labour; and there is hardly a proposition contained in it, which is not supported by a reference to an adjudged case, or other authority.

From personal knowledge of the author, we can confidently recommend his book to the legal profession, as the work of a man, by his talents, business habits, and perfect familiarity with the details of which his book treats, peculiarly qualified for the work he undertook.

WORKS PREPARING.

The author of "The Revolt of the Bees," and "The Reproof of Brutus," has in the press "Hampden in the Nineteenth Century; or, Colloquies on the Errors and Improvement of Society," in 2 vols. 8vo, with Plates and Diagrams.

Early in December will appear, the Second Series of that work, which, under the title of "THE CHAMELEON," -as expressive of the changeful variety of its contents-last year held a middle rank between the Annuals, which it resembled in handsomeness, and those substantial works that challenge criticism at other than gift-giving seasons. It will this time have a new feature, in twelve original melodies, for the voice and piano-forte, by eminent composers,-thus combining both literary and musical attractions. Mr. Atkinson, who was last year the sole author, has been proffered the powerful assistance of many whose names would be a tower of strength; but nearly the whole will be anonymous.

A New-Year book will appear at the holydays, named, "THE EPIGRAMMA

Reece's Lady's Medical Guide, 12mo, 4s.
Brandicourt's Plan for Teaching the French
Verbs, 2s. 6d.

Explanatory and Practical Comments on the
New Testament, 8vo. 10s. 6d.
Baxter's Library of Agricultural and Horti-
cultural Knowledge, royal 8vo. Second
The Poetic Negligee, 10s. 6d.
Edition, 11. 12s.
Watkin's Principles of Conveyancing, by
Merrifield, royal 8vo. 11 Ss.
Geography, in all Ages, 12mo, 8s.
History of the Jews, in all Ages, fc. 8vo.
10s. 6d.

School Edition of Ditto, 78.
Hodson's Morning Discourses, 8vo. 10s. 64.
Edgeworth's Novels and Tales, Vol. VII.

FINDEN'S LANDSCAPE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, PART VIII. Of seven engravings three are from the drawings of Mr. J. M. W. R. A. Turner;-the Temple of Minerva, Cape Colonna ;-Bacharach on the Rhine; and the Castle of St. Angelo. The works of this gentleman are as popular as, if not the most popular of, any living artist. He has contrived to attain a reputation, the right to which it is, at this time, something hazardous to question; and, what to him is of equal, perhaps more sterling value, acquired plenty of that metal which the brilliant tints of his pallet invariably symbolize. Impalpable glory is a very fine thing, no doubt, but genius, unluckily, is enshrined in carnal chambers, and vulgar flesh must be fed to repair the tenement so prone to daily dilapidation; true worldly philosophy points to the mode by which man's wasting lump of clay, dried in the sun, may be still kept fitted for the abiding place of the immortal spirit; and Mr. Turner has so far followed the guidance of the finger of philosophy. The measure of his mind's ambition is full; his name is mighty among the sons of earth; and of bread and butter the choicest, he lacketh no supply: this is true glory.

Skilful of head, and expert of hand is Mr. Turner; nature-whom no man has more libelled or falsified in the extravagance of his imagination-nature possesses nothing too great or too gorgeous for the pencil of this fascinating colorist. He will not only robe his mountains, his seas, and his cities, with the golden magnificence of a summer sunset, but, in the calmness of his imperturbable confidence, will fling you into his kit-cat mighty Sol himself, in all the rich and yellow luxuriance of his unbonneted rotundity! The moon he, of course, plays with as a cat is wont to amuse the mice; and upon our honour and our conscience, we believe that if he had to depict a snow scene, no pigment, from vermilion to Zedoary-root, would he deem too warm to be therein introduced. He sees as through a glass, but not darkly, and that glass must be a multiplier, each separate plane of which is different in tint. It were monstrous, therefore, to suppose that the burin of the engraver could ever impart any thing of the sparkle and glitter of his splendid pencil; yet the graphic copies of these luminous originals, humbled as they are down [to mere gradations of black and white, are eminently beautiful. Mr.

Turner is a man, too, of placid waters and troubled skies, and hence his "lights and shadows" are pleasant to look upon. In viewing his cloud scenery, if you be at all addicted to the synthetical processes of mind, you shall be assured that storms are brooding as confidently as though you heard their moans and felt their gusty precursors; but if you carry your vision below, to the still and gentle waters under the earth, mirroring the objects planted upon its surface in all their multi-generous variety, straightway you shall loathe your logic as spurious and unsound. It is by this huddled but happy confusion of gradatory tints, it would seem, that he manages to charm; and that he does charm, appeal to the first picturegazer you meet. But we have become stupified by our own magniloquence and the glare of his remembered pictures, while we should have talked in sober criticism of Finden's Illustrations; and now we have brief space left.

The Bacharach, already named, is a delightful little vignette, Turner every inch of it; and notwithstanding its closely packed contents, every item is clearly made out, and every line tells. St. Angelo, we like less; the contrast of shade with the lights is too harsh and inharmonious. There is a solemn grandeur about the scenery and sacred ruins of the Temple of Minerva which we are much pleased with; the moon, peering through the black obscurity beyond, is a fine conception. Mount Etna, by Purser, is pretty, but too thin, and faulty also in its aerial perspective. St. Sophia, by Roberts, is capital, and gives, in a small space, an excellent notion of the vastness of that magnificent structure. Gastineau's Simplon, and Callcott's Verona, are both clever productions.

Had we not exhausted all our stock of hard words and expletives, we should have spoken, as becomes us, in praise of the engravings; they are worthy the name subscribed to them-whether rightfully or wrongfully, is no business of ours.

Upon the whole, this number is among the very best of those which have been yet published.

LANDSCAPE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PROSE AND POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT; with Portraits of the Principal Female Characters. No. 7.*— The present number contains a view of

Chapman and Hall.

"Durham," by our friend Robson, that wholesale dealer in indigo and orpiment, than whom no painter, this side immor tality, knows better how to make a picture, and a pleasing one: of" Newark Castle," by De Wint, a sombre structure enough, rearing its dreary crest into a fine fresh morning sky: of "St. Anthony's Chapel," a moonlight scene, by G. Barret, but nevertheless in all the blackness of desolation and of the "Tolbooth," by Nasmyth, a correct representation, and a pretty picture to boot. The portrait of "Amy Robsart," to which we have made allusion in another notice, and the autograph of Sir Walter, precede the whole; and these together, compose a number which fastidious, hypercritical, and penurious enough must they be who begrudge half-a-crown for its contents. Rumour reports an extensive sale for this little work; we hope, and cannot doubt, it will continue.

PORTRAITS OF THE PRINCIPAL FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. PART II. Surely, no title could have been more luckily, if not appositely, given to portraits such as these. To foist a heap of beautiful faces, namelessly, upon the rude gaze of an unmannered world, would have been a violation of all decent dues; but to give to each the protection of name and identity, and of such exultation, too, was at once a wise and cunningly devised precaution.

We have not yet seen, and never expect to see, any one sketch, portrait, or design, intended as a representation of SCOTT's ideal characters, male or female, that has at all approached our own individual conceptions. Revert to that lovely face which CHALON has called Flora M'Ivor; we can fancy her haughty step and noble presence at such a place as Almacks, the shaft of contempt ready to leap forth from the bow of her beautiful lips, and her proud eye to look into the very earth any presumptuous miserable, who dared the wound of the one or the encounter of the other; but that face no more belongs to our Flora than it does to the Flora of Chalon himself. Artists, indeed, are by no means expert in portraying the actual visions of even their own mind, be they self-created, or raised by other powers; a one idea is ever predominant, and haunts their eye, and guides their hand, in spite of their better judgments. The academician WESTALL is a notable instance of this: in every one of his pictures, and he has consumed much canvass, may be seen this one, enduring, unvarying idea. Whether he paints a hero, an angel, a murderer, a babe, a bel

Chapman and Hall, London.

dam, withered age, youth, elegance, penury, divinities, or devils, you may testify to their parentage before any police office magistrate in London, without chance of perjury. That fine creature, in a brown study on a rock, which he has christened " contemplation," is evidently the sister of his arch-angel Michael, mother of the Lady of the Lake, own-aunt to Musidora, and surely, though distantly, a-kin to Dirk Hatteraick. The truth is, and it is a secret which every painter will be indignant at the telling, each and all of them to a man, designs his images as he best can; he may groupe, drape, and attitudinize his figures, variformly enough; but in their fancy faces there reigns the one idea; and he may as well attempt to change the identity of his own by the contortions of smiling, frowning, or grinning, as try to rid his mind of the master image that dwells in his eye, and is traced by his educated but unconscious hand. Cannot any one, at all conversant with works of arts, at once, and without difficulty, name the artist, upon the first glance at his production, having no more for his guidance than the general acquaintance with the peculiar something that is invariably stamped upon them all?

We are not sure what we are driving at in all this, except it be that it is idle to expect any facial semblance between these fancy portraits, and the originals whose names they bear, as conceived by the minds of others; and that it is foolish to quarrel with the names so applied to them, when that of "Betsy Fusby" would not have taken one charm away from that which is here called "Rowena." The thought was a capital one; for this gallery of sweet countenances has gladdened the eyes of many whose hearts are warm, but whose heads are too dull to create the like.

The present Number contains the usual quantity of four portraits; to one of which, a "sweet pretty" face, the name of "Amy Robsart"-the fond, confiding, loving, lovely Amy-has been appended by Mrs. Carpenter. We never read a temper rightly by such an index, however, if sharp wit and a stinging tongue lurk not beneath those downcast eyes and compressed lips. Depend upon it, all the Leicesters on earth would never have made an Amy of the owner. She is a charming creature, but not Amy Robsart. The outlined bust is very graceful.

The beauty of Mr. Boxall's "Diana Vernon" is marred by the profusion of coal-black hair by which the face is surrounded. The eyes are bright and fullfull to a fault; but there is little of the mind in them which must have lurked half seen in those of the original Di.