deficiency in taste and discretion. His poems have all the marks of youth and precipitation about them, and are occasionally defaced with some strange puerilities; as, for instance, in the introduction of four Lilliputian lines in the middle of a poem.

They swore and rioted, Bacchus warm'd the frame That it might rush to madness, and thus they Corrupt in body as in soul became,

And reap'd the harvest of depravity, Which is disease; and Egbert's noble form, Which had pleas'd a queen's daintiness, was food

Unto the worm,

Sire of a hellish brood,

Whose breath

Is death."

At the conclusion of the volume, we are presented with a great variety of epigrams, many of which are not very keenly pointed, for instance :-"On Gas the boxer being thrown from a gig, and killed by a cart passing over his head." "Death fought unfair with Gas: Chance laid him low,

When he was down, Death gave the fatal blow."

Mr. Templeman must not be satisfied with the merit of these productions, if he intends ever to enjoy the fame of a poet; and yet, from his preface, he appears to be tolerably contented.

The Grave of the Last Saxon; or the Legend of the Curfew. A Poem. By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. 8vo. 6s.

Poems and Poetical Translations. Samuel Gower. 2s. 6d.

By

pire, in the Years 1820, 1821 and 1822. 2 vols. 12mo.

There is a great deal of ability in these vo lumes, and what is more to the purpose, at the present day, of amusement. The writer appears to be one of those well-informed persons, who make the best use of their eyes, ears, and time during their travels, and who have the tact of selecting what is likely to prove interesting to their untravelled countrymen. The opinions which he has formed, appear on the whole to be fair enough, though here and there we trace a little dread of liberalism. The most interesting portions of his tour are, perhaps, those in which he has given an account of the German Universities, and of the state of society in Vienna. Nothing more lamentable can be imagined than the laxity of morals, nothing more detestable than the system of espionage existing in that metropolis. The worst symptom of all is, the contentment of the people under such circumstances. If the admi. nistration of Metternich fails to rouse the spirit of the Austrian, to what will they not submit? Our readers will, perhaps, be gratified with the following portrait of this notorious statesman.

"At the head of the ministry, stands despotic the Chancellor of State, Prince Metternich, the most powerful individual in Europe who does not wear a crown. A private nobleman from the banks of the Rhine, whose most celebrated vineyard has been bestowed on him by the grateful monarchs for whom he laboured; he has raised himself to be absolute master of the empire, firmly rooted in the confidence of his master, unwilling to bear a rival near the throne, but neither liked nor admired by the people. When I first saw him in the ball-room at Baden, he was sitting by the Court but yet alone. He was dressed in a plain suit of black, for it was the mourning for the late Queen of England. His eyes were fixed on the floor, as if in deep thought, except when they glanced up to follow the fair Countess Awho was flying round the ball in the waltz. His appearance has nothing striking or commanding. He is of middling stature, rather meagre than otherwise, but altogether a handsome man. countenance is pale; his large broad brow is marked with what seem to be the wrinkles of

His

cunning, rather than the furrows of thought: his

smile appears to be so habitual, that it has scarcely any character, except when it is satirical. His manners are polite and conciliating, for he is through and through a man of the world. He possesses in a high degree the power of concealing his own sentiments, and a coolness which keeps

him clear of all embarrassment."

There are many Scoticisms in these volumes, which might have been as well avoided. Had they been printed in England, the printer's devil would have corrected them with ease.

Collection des Lettres de Nicolas Poussin. 1 vol. 8vo. (A Collection of the Letters of Nicolas Poussin.)

Poussin is undoubtedly the first painter, I will not say of the French school, but who has been born in France. This great artist, though a native of Normandy, yet must be classed amongst

It was at

the painters of the Roman school. Rome that he lived, painted, and died. It was at Rome alone that his talent was justly appreciated. He was recalled to France under Louis XIII., but was only employed upon frivolous subjects altogether uncongenial to his grave and severe genius. Hence he returned to Rome with

as little delay as possible. While at Paris he kept up a correspondence with one of his friends in Italy, the Commandant Del Pozzo. From this correspondence the letters now published have been selected. They bear striking testimony to the state of barbarism in which France was, relative to the fine arts, at that period, and from which state she can scarcely be said to have really arisen until 1790, when David first shewed to the world something approaching to the qualities of a great painter. The unflattering reception given at the court of Louis XIII. to Poussin, and his brief sojourn there, have not hindered French vanity from claiming him; and this same sentiment will, no doubt, insure the success of the present collection of his letters. The editors of this collection have evinced a most ridiculous and overweening excess of critical acu. men in correcting the faults which Poussin made in writing French.

La Morte di Carlo Primo rè d'Inghilterra, Tragedie, en cinq actes, improvisée par M. T. Sgricci; précedée de deux Lettres, l'une de M. C. Lacratelle, l'autre de M. Cuvier naturaliste. (The Death of Charles I. of England, a Tragedy in five acts, improvised by M. T. Sgricci; to which are prefixed two Letters, one of M. C. Lacratelle, the other of M. Cuvier.)

Mr. Sgricci is a young Italian poet, a native of Arezzo. In conversation he gives no indications of any superiority of intellect; but once mounted upon the stage, and with an audience before him, he will improvise tragedies quite as good as those with which the French theatre has recently been inundated, and certainly as dramatic, if not more so than the Louis IX. of M. Ancelot, or the Cleopatra of M. Soumet. What the French tragic poets take a year or years laboriously to eke out, Sgricci strikes off at a heat in two hours. Besides this talent of impromptu composition, he pussesses no mean capabilities as an actor; so that his improvisation is a very remarkable intellectual exhibition. Two of his improvised tragedies have been taken down in short hand and printed: Ettore (Hector), which he gave a year or two ago at Turin, and the one now before us, The Death of Charles I., which he has recently improvised at Paris in presence of a deputation from the French Academy. This deputation of the Academy need not have alarmed him much, as there was not oue member of it sufficiently familiar with the Italian language to understand tragic verses uttered with all the fervour and rapidity of inspiration; for what is remarkable in Sgricci is, that he does not accompany his declamation by singing, like several other improvisatores, more or less celebrated, who gain time, by the slowness of the recitative, for collecting their ideas and rhymes. On the contrary, Sgricci declaims as rapidly as if it were merely an exertion of memory, and not of invention. The intellectual effort is certainly an extraordinary one to witness; but when the result is taken down, printed, and submitted to the calmer judgment of the closet, it must be confessed that there is very little of originality or beauty of composition to be found in it. Sgricci is evidently an imitator of Alfieri, who was himself an

imitator of Racine. His chief object seems to be the production of smooth and sounding verses; but as to keeping of character, or natural dialogue, it is vain to look for them in his dramatic essays. He generally prefers subjects taken from Grecian story, into which he never fails to introduce choruses, as in these, from their vague and general nature, he is enabled to pour out a torrent of sounding verse, which very often signifies nothing. Suspicions have been entertained that these tragedies were not really impromptu, but that Sgricci merely recited a number of verses made beforehand; but such a doubt can only be harboured by those who are altogether ignorant of the mechanism of improvisation, and of that species of inspired delirium into which the improvisatore is thrown upon these occasions. I myself was present upon one occasion, when the matter was put beyond doubt. The subject, taken from a number of others by chance, was Tippoo Saib, of whose character, actions, and death,

In

Sgricci knew so little, that one of the company had to trace a rapid sketch of that prince's history for him; and after a few moments' reflection he commenced, and went through unhesitatingly a dramatic poem on the proposed theme. fine, without being chefs-d'œuvre of dramatic talent or composition, it may be said, and truly, that the greater number of his improvised tragedies (and he has given a great many) are fully as meritorious as the soi-disant tragedies given to their countrymen by the Parisian poets of the last thirty years. Like them also Sgricci's tragedies are insupportably tiresome, full of pompous common places and false and exaggerated sentiments, something in the style of the Spanish compositions of the sixteenth century-not one "touch of that nature which makes the whole world kin." In a word, one little scene of Macbeth or Othello outweighs countless millions of such rhapsodies. As for the Morte di Carlo Primo, it is of a piece with his other attempts, and has nothing remarkable enough to justify quotation. I have heard him attempt the fifth act of Othello; his improvisation of which lasted an hour and a quarter. The incidents, with the exception of one, were those of Shakspeare's tragedy. The only novelty introduced by Sgricci was representing Iago as dying raving mad, and which was apparently introduced for the purpose of contrasting it with the calm and touching death of Othello, whose last words, according to Sgricci, were, "I go to meet Desdemona, who loved me so, that I am sure she will receive me with as much ardour as on the first days of our passion, though I have been the cause of her death." As Sgricci intends going to London, it may not be uninteresting to mention that a good preparation for hearing him will be to read, some time in the day before going to his Academia, an act or two from the Aristodemo, or Cajo Gracco of Monti, or from the works of any other Italian dramatic poet.

Notice sur Dieppe, Arques et quelques Monumens Circonvoisins. 1 vol. 8vo. (An Account of Dieppe, Arques and some Neighbouring Monuments.)

Every one knows that it was near the Castle of Arques that Henry IV., one of the best kings, if not the only good one, that France has had to

boast of, fought one of his most celebrated battles. The ruins of the Castle of Arques, calling up, as they must, recollections of that excellent munarch, cannot be visited without interest; and, by means of the book now before us, that interest may be considerably heightened, as it gives a clear and succinct historical account of that ancient forstress, the town of Dieppe, and the antiquities in the neighbourhood. As Dieppe is at present the most fashionable of French watering-places, and consequently much frequented by English, it may not be useless to make known the existence of this book.

Memoires Historiques sur Carnot. Par M. Tissot. 1 vol. de 26 feuilles. (Historical Memoirs of Carnot; by M. Tissot.)

M. Tissot has in this book taken up one of the greatest characters produced by the French revolution. What might not Carnot have been if he had sufficiently despised the men by whom he was surrounded? His brightest title to glory is his having raised in 1794, as if by, enchantment, and out of the bowels of the earth, as it were, fourteen armies of eighty thousand men each, and without the aid of pecuniary re. sources. Napoleon himself has achieved nothing comparable to this. He attempted a similar task in 1815, before the battle of Waterloo, but completely failed. The Emperor then felt how insecure is the tree of despotism when the tem pests are abroad, and that though its branches may have spread out far and wide, yet its roots shoot but a little way beneath the surface. Napoleon dreaded to awake the passions of the people, and make an appeal to their patriotism; whereas Carnot made a frank and generous appeal to their love of country and horror of foreign invasion; and the starting of a countless multitude into armed existence was the immediate result. This miracle Carnot performed without any pomp or ostentation, aided only by four clerks. During his exile at Magdeburg, where his death took place last year, he is said to have written an account of the principal transactions of his own life; but as he has a brother and nephews in France, upon whom its publication might bring the persecution of the government, it has, for the moment, been suppressed, but it is to be ardently hoped that so precious a deposit will not be lost to posterity. M. Tissot, who is a mere every day man of letters, has, in the book before us, under. taken to supply the loss (only a temporary one we trust) of Carnot's own memoirs. He has had, at least, one advantage-that of having been an eye-witness of the prodigies achieved by Carnot. He has also obtained from the family some papers belonging to the gifted subject of the memoirs. The Life, properly speaking, of Carnot, occupies 197 pages; the rest of the volume is filled with his inedited correspondence. In the character of Carnot there was but one ridiculous trait-he was given in his earlier years to verse-writing; and

though his compositions were below mediocrity, he had the vanity to publish them in the Almanach des Muses. But his rhyming propensities were fortunately checked by the French revolution, without which event it is probable that Captain Carnot would have remained unknown to himself as well as to others. The best eulogium that can be made of the French revolution is to state that it rescued from frivolous, useless, and worse than useless pursuits, hundreds of men of superior talents, and afforded them, in the wide field of public affairs, numberless opportunities for the exertion of their energies, which otherwise would have remained dormant, or have been employed upon laborious trifles. It is to the exertions of such men, in every department of the state, that France is indebted for her present immense prosperity. Napoleon, on assuming the reins of power (Nov. 9, 1799), wished to destroy, or at least to diminish, Carnot's popularity; and, with that view, named him war-minister, at the same time intending to counteract all his measures by secret orders. Carnot, though not altogether unaware of the policy of Napoleon, yet seeing the Austrians at the foot of the Alps, accepted the situation, resolving to serve his country, no matter at what risk to himself, and looking upon the conduct of Napoleon under these circumstances merely as an inconvenient de plus. Napoleon, however, soon became afraid of so much integrity and firmness, and dismissed the possessor. Carnot quitted the ministry very poor, and for several years remained in a state almost approaching to indigence. At length, in one of those moments of Napoleon's life, when the truly great qualities of his beart got the better of his tyrannical propensities, he became ashamed of the neglect and poverty in which Carnot had been suffered to remain: he granted him a pension of 10,000 francs; and, to make his preceding conduct towards him appear the result rather of forgetfulness than design, he ordered that the pension should have a retrospective effect, and be paid from the moment when Carnot was dismissed from the war department. In virtue of this disposition Carnot received at once 80,000 francs of arrears; but he declined accepting any place. In 1814, when he again saw the country in danger, he appeared before Napoleon, and tendered him his services. He was immediately despatched to Anvers. The account of his getting into that town secretly, and in disguise, is not a little romantic, though perfectly true. Two hours after his arrival he attacked and repulsed the enemy. Since that period his career offers nothing extraordinary. These Memoirs would not have been less interesting, and would certainly have been more worthy of the unaffected subject of them, if M. Tissot, who is a mere man of letters, and not a man of talent, had contrived to write with simplicity; but apparently he had not esprit enough to dare to pursue his narrative without the aid of that ambitious and declamatory style, which is the damning vice of modern French writers.

THE Memoirs of the celebrated Madame de Genlis, on which we believe she has been occupied for many years, are about to be published in 4 vols. 8vo. A more interesting work could scarcely be announced.

The second Series of "Highways and Byways," now passing rapidly through the press, is to consist of 3 volumes in 8vo. each containing one Tale. The scenes of the stories are placed in the Pyrenees, Versailles, and Normandy: and the heroine of one of them is the illfated Marie Antoinette, the late Queen of France.

We understand that the work talked of as forthcoming from the pen of the authors of the Rejected Addresses, is a Novel in 3 vols.; the hero of which is a citizen, and many of the scenes are said to be laid in that circle of society where a citizen's life is usually passed. From the well-known talent of the Authors, a high treat may be expected in this new performance.

The attention of the Public will shortly be solicited to a subject of great importance, in a "View of the present State of the Salmon and Channel Fisheries, and of the Statute Laws by which they are regulated," by Mr. J. CORNISH. The work is intended to shew that it is to the Defects of the latter that the present Scarcity of the Fish is to be attributed.

Mr. HOGG, author of the Queen's Wake, will very shortly bring forward his Queen Hynde."

Mrs. OPIE, we are informed, has in the press, Illustrations of Lying, in all its Branches.

The Medical and Chirurgical Society of London have nearly ready, Part I. of Vol. 13 of their Transactions.

The History of Poetry, we are led to expect, will receive considerable illustrations by a work which is now announced, entitled "Specimers (selected and translated) of the Lyric Poetry of the Minessingers, of the Reign of Frederick Barbarossa, and the succeeding Emperors of the Suabian Dynasty; also similar Specimens of the Troubadours, and other contemporary Lyric Schools of Europe. With Historical, Critical, and Biographical Remarks." 1 vol. 8vo.

Sir EGERTON BRYDGES does not remain idle in his absence on the Continent. Another work is announced, in which the fruits of his wanderings will appear, being Recollections of Foreign Travel, on Life, Literature, and Self-knowledge. 2 vols. post 8vo.

Archdeacon CoXE, the most indefatigable historian of our times, has in the

press, the History of the Administration of the Rt. Hon. Henry Pelham, drawn from Authentic Sources; with Private and Original Correspondence, from 1743 to 1754. In 2 vols. 4to. with a Portrait.

Mr. RICHARD CARMICHAEL is about to publish A Treatise on the Venereal Disease in all its Shapes. I vol. 8vo. with Plates. Which will concentrate the valuable information contained in his two former works, besides giving the results of later experience and research.

A work, bearing the curious title of "Revelations of the Dead Alive," from the pen of a successful dramatic writer, will be published immediately.

Mr. JOHN H. PARRY will speedily publish "The Cambrian Plutarch, or Lives of the most eminent Welshmen,” in 1 vol. 8vo.

An Original System of Cookery and Confectionery, embracing all the varieties of English and foreign practice, with numerous illustrative plates, the result of more than thirty years' experience in families of the first distinction, by CONRAD COOKE, is nearly ready for publication, in one volume duodecimo.

The Gaelic Dictionary, by Mr. ARMSTRONG, that was announced to be published by subscription, and which was destroyed at the late fire at Mr. Moyes's, will be but little delayed by the accident, the publisher having made arrangements for the reprinting the sheets destroyed, at the same time that the other part of the work is going on.

The Rev. Mr. FRY's History of the Christian Church, which was nearly ready for publication, and which was destroyed at the late fire, is again at press, and will shortly make its appearance. A new edition of the Exposition of the Romans, and Translation of the Canticles, is also in the press.

The Rev. J. R. PITMAN of the Foundling and Magdalen, will shortly publish a course of Sermons for the Year; containing two for each Sunday, and one for each Holiday; abridged from eminent Divines of the Established Church, and adapted to the service of the day. For the use of schools and families, in one large volume.

Mr. WINSOR is preparing for publication an Appeal to the Public on the Origin, Introduction, and Progress of Gaslighting in England, France, and other parts of Europe, America, and both the Indies; dedicated to His Majesty and Parliament, with an epitome of the immense national benefits arising from the general introduction of his valuable discovery.

THE latter harvest appears to have been more protracted than we anticipated in our last report; and a larger portion of the crop of barley having been thus exposed to the influence of an untoward season, the whole quantity of that grain which was secured uninjured is even less than we had previously imagined. Thus the advance in the value of that article is easily accounted for; but why the price of wheat also should have risen so unexpectedly, unless it is that the relative value of all grain will always in some measure approximate, is not quite so easy to determine; for we feel perfectly convinced that the last crop of wheat is not only well harvested, but sufficiently abundant; consequently it is reasonable to expect that so soon as the wheat-sowing is ended, which at present almost exclusively engages the attention of the farmer, a large quantity of grain will be thrown upon the market, and that prices will experience a proportionate reduction. The uplands are in good tilth for the reception of wheat seed; but on those of an opposite description the process will be considerably retarded in consequence of the recent heavy falls of rain, from which occurrence also considerable mischief has otherwise accrued, in the destruction of property occasioned by the vast accumulation of redundant water.

The turnip crop has in some measure participated in the injury occasioned by

an excess of moisture--in many places they are already beginning to decay, and in all they are less likely to withstand the effects of frost in consequence thereof, should the ensuing winter prove severe at the commencement; nevertheless, they shew well off-hand, and promise an abundance of feed: consequently store cattle, nay farming stock in general, has commanded more money this Michaelmas than we have recently been accustomed to observe. It makes us almost fancy a recurrence of "the olden time" to see milch-cows sold for fourteen or sixteen pounds a piece, and cart-horses from forty to fifty guineas! yet such prices have been by no means uncomnton during the Michaelmas sales. This, together with the readiness with which landed property is disposed of, either by sale or on hire, is no indifferent barometer, indicative of the improvement which is already effected in rural affairs-the happy consequence of diminishing taxation, reduced rents, remunerating prices, and restored confidence: if to this were added a more equable application of the corn-laws by a permanent relative duty instead of the present inefficient system of averages, the country would rest upon a basis calculated to afford protection to the husbandman without encroaching upon the interests of the remaining portion of the community.