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HENFREY'S BOTANY.*

THIS is a work of far greater extent and intricacy than might be imagined from its modest title. It is not much known, except to working Botanists and Horticulturists, what a chaos of confusion exists in regard to the character and names of parts of plants. Botany has its tyrants, who lord it in their own sphere, with the greater impunity as the circle to which they address themselves is narrowed and incapable of that defence which can only rest upon the sympathy of the enlightened. But the botanical legislator is safe-the enlightened are so few! Mr. Henfrey has, however, clipped off many of the turgidities of the science, has carefully sifted and arranged what facts are well ascertained, and his work is in every respect adapted to be the class-book, wherever such is left to the choice of the student or the amateur.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

THE Comprehensive reviews which we have been induced to give of Sir George Simpson's Overland Journey Round the World, and of M. de Hell's Travels in Southern Russia, and the extent of our limited space occupied by these reviews, obliges us to postpone the notices which have been prepared of many interesting works that have appeared during the past month. Among these may be particularly noticed a very unpretending but very pleasing and instructive,

Journal of a few Months' Residence in Portugal, and Glimpses of the South of Spain, published by Mr. Moxon.

Mr. Leitch Ritchie's British World in the East, published by W. H. Allen and Co., is also a well-written, carefully compiled, and comprehensive summary of the leading facts connected with the historical, moral, and commercial relations of Great Britain with India, China, Australia, South Africa, and the other possessions or connexions of Great Britain in the eastern and southern seas.

Mr. Cottle's Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey will claim our earliest attention, as will also An Officer's Sketch of Assam and Assaad Kayat's Voice from Lebanon, with Tichendorf's Travels in the East, may form the subject of a future agreeable commentary. Not less important or less worthy of consideration is Mr. Meadows"

Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China, and on the Chinese Language, published by W. H. Allen and Co. It is the work of a man in every respect qualified to throw light upon the subject of which he treats.

Mind and Matter, illustrated by Considerations on Hereditary Insanity and the Influence of Temperament in the Development of the passions, by Dr. J. G. Millingen, and published by H. Hurst, is also a

Outlines of Structural and Physiological Botany. By Arthur Henfrey, F.L.S., &c., with numerous Illustrations. John Van Voorst.

work of a class which merits a careful attention and a considerate, not a desultory, notice.

We have once before been disappointed in our notices of Mr. Miller's delightful little books, Summer, Autumn, and Spring, and which are so full of natural and artificial beauty, as to be literary and artistic gems of their kind, and not the less to be admired for their revival of those truly rural tit-bits of Bewick, the historian of our native songsters and winged inhabitants.

Amiable Hans Christian Andersen, too, with his Picture Book without Pictures, translated by Meta Taylor, must not be neglected.

The season has also been more than usually prolific of poetical works of various degrees of merit. The claims of Lord Robertson to distinction in perhaps the highest sphere of literary composition have been contested, but it is impossible not to accede to the learned lord a cultivated taste, a perfect sense of the great, the good, and the beautiful, and deep poetic feeling. The Gleams of Thought now published, as reflected from the writings of Milton, will, in our opinion, do much towards establishing Lord Robertson's claims to a poetical reputation of a high order.

Charles Mackay is ever himself, whether tunefully singing in his voices from the crowd, or softly sighing from the mountains. There are utterances of these last Voices, of exceeding beauty and truthfulness, and it is to be regretted that the subjects partake so much of the same monotonous character, as to appear as if the prose articles of a certain weekly newspaper had been done into verse.

Modern Life, and other Poems, dedicated to that most impartial of critics, the public, shall, with the author's consent, be left to their verdict. Digby P. Starkey, barrister-at-law, the author of unconnected poems called Theoria, has adopted that title as expressive of his labour having reference only to the moral impressions of beauty. Some of these poems have already appeared in the pages of the Dublin University Magazine, and almost all are characterised by the spirit, and free and gifted language of one who has been a favourite votary of the muses. It is to be hoped that Mr. Starkey's work will meet with the same appreciation in this country that it has met with in his own.

Mr. E. D. Baynes has sent forth the first four parts of the Annals of England in sonorous pentameters, dedicated to Her Most Gracious Majesty as a feeler with respect to the continuation and completion of the work. It is not the first attempt of the kind, and as far as we are able to judge, fails more from the positive impossibility of treating such subjects poetically, as for example:

or,

"With other such, 'tis therefore my intention

To pass them by, and make no further mention;"

"From Sandwich sailing north, th' instructed fleet
Returning south, th' expected tour complete,"

than from actual want of ability.

Dreams, by Owen Howell, are, we fear, far too really dreamy to meet with favour from a public so little disposed to accept poetical compositions of any kind, and still less so those which are of a merely imaginative character.

THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE

AND

HUMORIST.

CONTENTS FOR JULY.

THE CASINO. BY L. MARIOTTI.

THE ALCALDE OF Zalamea. BY JOHN OXENFORD
MARGARET GRAHAM. BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ., AUTHOR OF
“DARNLEY," "RICHELIEU," &c.

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THE CHILD AND THE STARS. BY J. E. CARPENTER

A GRAYBEARD'S GOSSIP ABOUT HIS LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE.
No. V.

THE BALLAD of Rudiger THE PROUD. BY MRS. PONSONBY
THE PRIEST OF ISIS. AN EGYPTIAN ROMANCE. BY THE AU-
THOR OF "AZETH, THE EGYPTIAN."

WHY IS THY PILLOW WET WITH TEARS? BY CAROLINE DE
CRESPIGNY

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ASSAM AND THE HILL TRIBES

LIFE AND REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.

REDDING, ESQ.

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ADRIEN ROUX; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A COURIER. BY DUD

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WHICH IS THE PRETTIEST? A GLIMPSE AT THE PARISIAN
COULISSES. BY AN OLD HABITUÉ

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MEMOIRS OF M. TOURGUENEFF. AN EPISODE IN RUSSIAN
HISTORY

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LORD CASTLEREAGH'S TRAVELS IN THE EAST

THE OPERA-JENNY LIND AS NORMA-SWEDISH MELODIES LITERATURE:-Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Caroline, Consort of George II., including Letters from the most celebrated persons of her Time. Now first published from the originals by Mrs. Thomson.Novels of the Month-Zenon-Fortescue-Jeremiah Parkesand the Protegé.-Miscellaneous Notices

. 363 . 367

368 to 378

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Mr. AINSWORTH begs it to be distinctly understood that no Contributions whatever sent him, either for the NEW MONTHLY or AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINES will be returned. All articles are sent at the risk of the writers, who should invariably keep copies.

THE JULY NUMBER OF

AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE.

EDITED BY

W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ.

Contents.

I. JAMES THE SECOND; OR, THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. EDITED BY W. HARRISON
AINSWORTH, ESQ. ILLUSTRATED BY R. W. BUSS.

BOOK THE THIRD.-Chap. II. How the Earl of Sunderland conformed to
the Catholic Faith.-Chap. III. Lady Place.-Chap. IV. Nottingham's
Counsel to the King.

BOOK THE FOURTH.-The Invasion.-Chap. I. The Prince of Orange.-
Chap. II. The Landing at Brixholme. Chap. III. The March to
Exeter.

II. DECEIVED BY APPEARANCES.

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BY E. P. ROWSELL, ESQ.

III. HE ENVIED NOT THE POMP AND POWER. BY THE REV.
JAMES GILBORNE LYONS, LL.D.

IV. THE AGENT'S WINDOW. BY MRS. WHITE.

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I. Ali Pasha, and the Bey of Rawanduz.-II. The British Residency at
Baghdad.-III. Antiquities at Baghdad.-IV. An Over-Zealous Mis-
sionary.-V. Arabian Diplomacy.-VI. An Accident to the Steamer.-
VII. Robbery and Imprisonment of the Passengers.

VII. THE VENETIAN WIFE AND THE COUNCIL OF TEN, AN
HISTORICAL TALE. BY THOMAS ROSCOE, ESQ.

VIII. THE BLIND OGRE. A BRETON LEGEND.

ESQ.

BY W. HUGHES,

IX. ZEKY NAASHON, THE JEW OF PORTSMOUTH.
MAN'S TALE. BY W. H. G. KINGSTON, ESQ.

A YACHT-

X. LAUNCELOT WIDGE. BY CHARLES HOOTON, ESQ.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.-The Supper Party.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.-Launcelot's Marriage with Amelia, and
what came of it.

XI. WHAT I LOVE. BY CAROLINE DE CRESPIGNY.

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE CASINO.

BY L. MARIOTTI.

LUNIGIANA, or VAL-DI-MAGRA, is a narrow and deep strip of land on the Apennines, a dainty valley which may well put the most gorgeous descriptions of Rasselas to the blush. It was too rich and fair, too blessed a region for any mortal monarch to lord it all over. Consequently the King of Sardinia, the Duke of Modena, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany have each their own slice. The upper district belongs to the last-named potentate, and forms a separate dependence of the Grand Duchy, hemmed in on all sides by the neighbouring territories.

The metropolis of this little Tuscan province is called Pontremoli. Pontremoli-Pons-Remuli, according to some-more probably Ponstremulus-derives its name from a crazy and shaky old bridge in the vicinity of the old town-gate,—a ricketty concern, which has been rocking and swinging, and would, ages ago, have sunk into the torrent beneath, but for the interference of San Giovanni Nepomuceno, the bluff Teutonic saint, Old Nepomuck from Prague, there hung in effigy, with his characteristic crown of five stars, and stretching forth his hand to avert the wrath of flood and avalanche, and supply the defect of solid masonry.

Why the good Bohemian bishop, who could not help himself from a fatal tumble from the bridge on the Moldau, should be set up to stay a bridge in its fall, is one of those mysteries of the Roman Catholic Olympus, which mere profanes need not attempt to explain-unless it were by reasons analogous to those which appointed the Virgin saints, Lucy and Apollonia, to guard their worshippers against all ophthalmic and odontalgic diseases; viz., that the latter having every tooth in her mouth drawn, and the former both eyes torn from their sockets, pickled, seasoned, and served up at supper, by the inhumanity of heathenish tyrants, and having, therefore, nothing to apprehend from tooth-ache and sore-eyes on their own account, they are, it is inferred, amply at leisure to take care of other people's infirmities.

Thanks, as we said, to the exertions of the saint, in behalf of the structure from which it takes its name, the city of the tumble-down bridge, is as flourishing a place as any other market-town in the Apennines. It lies deep in the valley, in a snug hollow, sheltered on three sides, cloaked and blanketed, as it were, in the deep folds of its bold mountain-range. Up to their summits the hills are one vast chestnut and olive forest. The vineyards bloom on the lower eminences; corn-fields and pasture-grounds spread to the south-west, immediately below the town. A few white dots glimmer through the dense ever-green mantling the heights. These are the church-steeples of Vignola, Bagnone, Filattiera, and other less important hamlets of the district. Else nothing interrupts the sameness of that luxuriant vegetation. The very torrents glide or dash down unseen into the main stream of the Magra-unseen, though by their wild rattling crash, perpetually enlivening the stillness of their Alpine solitude.

July.-VOL. LXXX. NO. CCCXIX.

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