MISCELLANIES. So nearly allied is novel-writing to poetry, that if we adopted the fentiments of fome theorists, we fhould. have placed Mrs. Weft's Refufal* in the preceding clafs. In the poetical merit of invention it certainly is not deficient, in other refpects it is an inftructive and well-told tale, and this is all that its author attempted to make it. The English Dictionary of Anecdotest, though anonymous, is a refpectable and entertaining compilation, and in conjunction with the French, from which it is not copied, will make a confiderable body of fuch amusement. In this heterogeneous clafs, our tranfitions muft unavoidably be rapid'; we mention, therefore, without further introduction, Dr. Turton's very elegant little manual, entitled the British Fauna, which we earneftly hope to fee continued and completed, as foon as the other avocations of the author may allow. Dr. Richardfon's tract on the virtues of his favourite grafs, the Fiorin, feems to bring the matter to the iffue of teftimony and affidavit; if these proofs can be repelled, the Doctor's triumph may ftill be fhort; but we do not ourselves fee how facts, positively attefted and fworn to, can eafily be fet afide. Colonel Macdonald's valuable work on the Military Manœuvres of the French §, though in fubftance a tranflation, derives no fmall part of its utility from the very fcientific preface by which he has introduced it, and the notes he has fubjoined. Other military works which we have lately noticed, fuch as Cooper's Military Cabinet ¶, have their merit, but, in point of profound fcience, muft yield, we conceive, to his publications. No. I. p. 59. No. V. p. 529. No. V. p. 506. + VI. p. 649. Here Here then we lay down the pen, having provided unexceptionable ftudies, for our readers of various defcriptions, and by the time they have digefted thefe, we shall be ready to prefent them with a fimilar fupply Uno avulfo non deficit alter Aureus, et fimili frondefcit virga metallo. . TABLE BOOKS REVIEWED IN VOLUME XXXVI. Amfinck, Paul, Efq. Tunbridge 382- |