that he is somewhat comforted in the reflection that paralysis and poetry are united. Homer, he says, and Milton, were blind! Dante was a blear-eyed beggar man!! Tasso, mad; Pope, ricketty; Akenside, a cripple; Thomson, morbidly fattish; Shakspeare, stupid! Scott and Byron, lame; Cowper and Collins, mad; Coleridge had mannering fits of dreary daftness; and having thus recounted his lazar-book of diseases, the author considers his own complaint as affording an apology for venturing into the Limbo of fools. How he would have written while in health, we cannot say, but the following stanza seems to us a little morbid: Dim thro' the silence of that pageant hall,

In widow weeds he saw a lady glide, And bending raise the gorgeous sable pall That served a shapen church-yard clod to hide;

And with the ire of an insulted bride, Deep in the dead she plunged a gleaming knife,

And wildly ran, with frantic accents cried, "Now I am free-I am no more a wife!"

Sketches of the Beginning and the End, in
the Life of Gherardo de Lucca.
This tale of wonders,
And fatal blunders,

Of high-born beauties,
(We kiss their shoe-ties,)

With chisel'd hands, and scornful lips,
And eyes that sun and moon eclipse,
And knights as straight and stiff as
skewers,-

Are bad subjects for Reviewers.

Literary Fables, from the Spanish of Yriarte, by Richard Andrews. 1835.The original tales of Yriarte are neatly devised, and skilfully and pleasantly executed; more simple than Fontaine, and more concise than Gay. The translation by Mr. Andrews, is very good. We will give a specimen from p. 75.

THE TWO THRUSHES.

A sage old thrush was once discipling
His son-in-law, a hair-brained stripling,
In the purveying art; he knew,
He said, where vines in plenty grew,
Whose fruit delicious, if he 'd come,
He might devour ad libitum.
'Ha! fruit! and is it good, I pray,
My honoured sir? do show the way.'
Come then, my son,' the old one cried,
I to the spot will be your guide.
You can't imagine what a treat,
Such fruit it is-so plump and sweet.'
He said, and gliding through the air,
They reached the vine, and halted there.

Soon as the grapes the youngster spied,
Is this the fruit you praise?' he cried;
'Why, an old bird, sir, as you are,
Should judge, I think, more wisely far,
Than to admire, or hold as good,
Such half-grown-small-and worthless

food;

Come see a fruit which long I've known,
In yonder garden, and you'll own,
That not without some cause, I sneer,
At your poor dwarfish berries here."
'Well,' said the other, 'lead the way,
But I'll my head and feathers lay,
Before I see it, 't will be found
Not worth those skins upon the ground!
They reached the spot the youth had
named,

And he triumphantly exclaimed,
Show me the fruit to equal mine,
A size so great, a shape so fine-
Now, now your silly taste confess,'
It was a pumpkin-nothing less!
Now that a thrush should take this fancy,
Without much marvelling, I can see,
But it is truly monstrous, when
Men, who are held as learned men,
All books, whate'er they be, despise,
Unless of largest bulk and size;
A book is great, if good at all,
If bad-it cannot be too small.

final settlement under Prince Leopold; who was acquainted with the principal persons, civil and military, both in Holland and Belgium, who were concerned in the progress of the great events described; who was privy to the principal negociations; and who has formed a cool, deliberate, and statesman-like view of the whole.

SO

The Belgic Revolution, in 1830, by Charles White, Esq. 2 vols. 1835.-These volumes are written by a person of knowledge, acuteness, and observation, and form the very best account of that revolution, which, rising in the pit of the theatre, in a single night tore the crown of Belgium from the temples of the monarch. The causes of the discontent, its progress, and its movements; the delay, and difficulties, and errors of the king and his advisers, are clearly explained. The Allied Congress, in uniting two kingdoms so discordant, differing in language, religion, habits, interests, first laid the stone of future evil; secondly, William, by his preference of the Dutch in all situations, civil and military, increased it; thirdly, by delay, and obstinate inflexibility, he lost the chance of recovery; and, lastly, the total incompetence of Prince Frederic to fill the important office of commander of the invading and chastising army, in a most delicate and difficult crisis, sealed at once the fate of the sovereign, rendered re-union hopeless, and placed the revolted Belgians under a new and, we hope, a happier dynasty. Mr. White's book is highly interesting and instructive; it is the work of one who was present during the eventful period, from the breaking out of the revolution, to the

New England and her Institutions, by one of her Sons. The most interesting chapter in this work, is that which gives us an account of Slavery in America. It appears that there are in America two millions of slaves and three hundred thousand free blacks; and their numbers are increasing at the rate of sixty thousand annually; a fearful number, which has long naturally excited attention and inspired alarm. The Americans have a colony at Liberia in Africa, where free blacks have been sent; but it absorbs only one drop in a shower, and the colony itself appears to be in an unprosperous situation. The account of the insurrection of the negroes in August 1831 in Virginia, is most terrific; and presents a more frightful picture of misery, consternation, and horror on the one side, and brutal and bloody ignorance and frantic cruelty on the other, than we ever remember. Alas! what is to prevent a second eruption of this fearful volcano, and desolation in all its terrors a hundred times as great?

Facts and Fictions, or Gleanings of a Tourist, by the author of Rostang. We must always withhold our approbation from tales like these; they are dangerous by the false lights, the artificial and exaggerated colouring which they throw over the events of life, and by the violent manner in which they act on the imagination. Events like those here described seldom occur; when they do, they should as speedily as possible be buried in oblivion. The history of guilty desires, unrestrained wills, misplaced affections, rash and headstrong resolves, and catastrophes ending in desolation and death, was borne for some time reluctantly in the poetry of Byron, but will be rejected, when offered again in the prose of his less illustrious successors.

* How came Mr. White to make so unscholar-like a blunder, as to assert that Scaliger was born in Holland? Why the marble statues of the great La Scalas, at Verona, shook upon their lordly pedestals? Is the blood of Julius come to this?

ETCHINGS BY REMBRANDT.

The late Mr. Pole Carew's fine Cabinet of Rembrandt's Etchings was lately dispersed by auction, and a preface to the catalogue informs us that this collection was surpassed only by that of the Duke of Buckingham, the sale of which we recorded last year. If the latter proved more abundant in rare and unique specimens of the master, Mr. Carew's at least possessed its due share of gems of no ordinary interest, as the following prices of some of them will amply testify:Rembrandt's most celebrated work, 'Christ healing the Sick,' known among collectors as The Hundred Guilder, produced 1637. 16s. bought by Sir Ab. Hume. The Portrait of Tolling, the Dutch Advocate, 2204., purchased for M. Six, of Amsterdam, whose ancestor is commemorated by one of Rembrandt's finest portraits. The Little Polish Figure,' a diminutive gem of an inch and a quarter high, 531. 11s. was bought for the King of Holland. The Rat-killer,' 591. 178. by Molteno & Graves. The rare portrait of Renier Ansloo, 74. 11s. by Mr. Harding. A Girl reading,' 15. Mr. Woodburn. Lutma, the Goldsmith,' 31 10s. by M. Claussin, of Paris. Asselyn the Painter, with the easel,' 397. 18s. A Portrait of Rembrandt drawing, 317. 108.; another portrait of him, 581. 168. The finest specimens of this collection were either carried off by foreign agents, or found their way into private collections at home, whilst the officer of the print department of our national establishment sat a quiescent spectator of the sale, without funds at his disposal to dispute the possession. It is to be hoped the results of this sale may not be lost upon the Committee of the House of Commons who are now investigating the affairs of the British Museum, and that greater funds will ere long be placed at the disposal of the Trustees.

•

Four Views of Belvoir Castle, Leicester shire, the seat of his Grace the Duke of Rutland. These are from original drawings by Joseph Rhodes, Esq. of Leeds. They consist of two exterior views, the more distant one taken from the lake, and the near view from the woods below the castle on the north west. Plate 3. represents the Grand Hall and Staircase; and plate 4. the interior of the Chapel, with the altar-piece by Murillo. The plates are of large quarto size, well executed in lithography, by the masterly hand of P. Gauci,

Leonardo da Vinci.-A picture by Leonardo da Vinci has been lately discovered at the palace of Fontainebleau, which had long been given up as lost. The subject is Leda, and it is spoken of by the contemporaries of Leonardo in the highest terms of praise.

HEATH'S Gallery of British Engravings. 8vo. & 4to. Parts I. II.-The rapacious cupidity of foreign publishers, which has long pirated with impunity the copyright of English authors, has lately directed its attack upon the works of our engravers, whose acknowledged superiority in the execution of small plates has made their works an article of profitable speculation in the continental markets. To accomplish their purpose still more effectively, the said publishers have even proceeded to engage English artists to make the copies. In order to encounter, on equal terms, this unjust and illiberal competition, the proprietor of the Keepsake, the Book of Beauty, the Picturesque Annual, and Turner's Annual Tour, has determined to offer to the public, both of England and the Continent, impressions from the original plates, at a less price than his competitors can sell their stolen and inferior copies. His plan is to give three engravings in each shilling part, together with descriptions. They will usually consist of one portrait or fancy head, an historical subject, and a landscape. The wonderful durability of engravings on steel prevents any perceptible difference between the earliest and the latest impressions.

The Napoleon Gallery; or, Illustrations of the Life and Times of the Emperor of France. 12mo. Part I. This is an English edition of a series of French etchings, said to be taken from all the most celebrated pictures, &c. produced in France during the last forty years." It is to be completed in sixteen monthly parts, each containing six plates. They are effectively executed in outline, slightly shaded; and will certainly form a very interesting series when chronologically arranged, or as illustrations to the various Lives of Napoleon, for which their size well adapts them. In one instance "The Retreat from Moscow," the letter-press does not at all answer to the story of the picture.

British Atlas, by J. and C. WALKER. Longman.-This work is to comprise separate maps of every county in England, and the three Ridings of Yorkshire.