twelve of whom survive her-was married, only the day preceding her Ladyship's decease, to the Earl of Kerry, eldest son of the Marquis of Lansdowne; and, some surprise having been expressed at the performance of that ceremony so close upon the eve of her Ladyship's dissolution, we feel authorized in saying that it was the earnest desire of Lady Duncannon that it should be so. Lady Duncannon was universally respected and esteemed, and will be long lamented by all who had the happiness of knowing her. It is somewhat singular, that, of the twelve surviving children, two were born on the 17th of May in different years, and two others on the 14th of March, in different years. PAGANINI.-Paganini is in great force at Ghent, where, assisted by a Mr. and Miss Watson, and a Miss Wilson, he is giving concerts to crowds of astonished auditors. We remember, two or three years since, seeing one of our wits sitting listening to the Orpheus in one of the stalls at the Opera House, with the greatest attention; and, having waited till the termination of the concert, we accosted our jocose friend, and inquired how he liked the exhibition? to which he replied, impromptu, "When I heard the performance, and thought of my guinea, THE O'CONNELL HARVEST.-The Irish newspapers inform us that the O'Connell harvest has been gathered in, and that it has been vastly productive; insomuch that the great O and the lesser Os may " rejoice and be exceeding glad" in the enjoyment of another year's subsidies, levied though they may be upon the poorest and most wretched peasantry of civilized Europe. Those who know the condition of the Irish people can form a pretty fair estimate of the means that must have been used to collect the sum of 12,300l. The profitable patriotism on the one hand, and the state of starvation on the other, will form a strange picture for posterity. The big-beggar-man, with his gathered gear, has been already sketched by the masterly pencil of H. B.; we recommend that it be forthwith copied with a view to its circulation from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear. CRITICAL NOTICES. History of the British Colonies. Vol. I. Asia. The tutor who first teaches a child that two and two make four, is doubtless of more service than the nurse who first tickles its fancy by a fairy legend. In such sort of relationship to the general reader does Mr. Montgomery Martin stand, when compared with other historians. Long dissertations, elegant in their composition, pleasing for their imagination, but barren of facts, may make what is called a history; but for real usefulness, one statistical table of the population of an empire is worth it all. As a compendium of all such sort of knowledge, the work before us is invaluable. It commences with the rise and progress of the British power in India, stating each circumstance that may be supposed to have had any influence on our prosperity, and concludes by a display of the prodigious resources of those territories, where, a few years back, England owned scarcely a rood of ground, and where, now, she is the undisputed mistress of 100,000,000 living souls, and a dominion of 1,000,000 of square miles. The value of money in the different provinces, the variety of nations, the form of government in the several presidencies, the exact state of their civil and military establishments, their debt and expenditure, their general policy, the manners, and customs, and climates of these swarms of nations-all meet with attention; and on each point, where it is practicable, we have a statistical table, defining with precision all matters that can be reduced to such certainty. The volume is adorned with three excellent maps; one of the British Territories in India, one of Ceylon, and one of those countries situated between Bengal and China. In short, as a compilation, as a gathering together of all useful information that can be possibly brought to bear upon one subject, this work has perhaps never been exceeded. It ought to be in the hands of all those fidgety legislators who make laws upon theories, and are too magnanimous to attend to facts. Of such there are now many; and Mr. Montgomery Martin is just the man to disabuse their understandings. "Far as the breeze can bear-the billows foam- is his motto; but he not only surveys, he explains. He not only gives you measurement, but he is a meteorologist, a mineralogist, and a financier, for every district is surveyed. Indeed, there is nothing omitted, and we can only finish our praise by admiring his laborious industry, and thanking him for so useful a result. The volume is the first of five, it being intended that the four succeeding ones shall include the histories of the remaining British Colonies. COLBURN'S MODERN NOVELISTS. Yes and No; by the Earl of Mulgrave. CHEAPNESS, in all shapes, seems to be the most marked feature of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It is applied to all the necessaries, and therefore, as a matter of course, to all the luxuries of life. Art has felt and acknowledged its influence; and we are from month to month reminded that Literature is working under its direct effects. It would be out of place here to argue as to the probable influence of the change that has produced such a result. The fact has been canvassed again and again, considered in all its bearings, and the general opinion undoubtedly is, that, although in its extremes it may be mischievous, yet, applied in a fair spirit, and free from the baneful operation of monopoly-companies, the principle of economy must lead to universal and permanent good. April.-VOL. XL. NO. CLX. 2 M The novels issued by Mr. Colburn were originally published at about twothirds more than the price at which they are now offered to the public; and they consist of nearly all the best and most popular works of fiction published during the last twenty years-so that a valuable collection may be formed at a very moderate expense. They are, moreover, bound in a tasteful form, and, in some instances, are accompanied by portraits of the respective authors. It will be at once seen, that this plan of a monthly issue, at a rate so lessened, must recommend itself generally to the public; but it is an especial advantage to such families as, residing in the country, are precluded in a great degree from those sources of enjoyment and improvement which the circulating library supplies. We have hitherto neglected to notice the works as they appeared. We shall, in future, discharge our duty by commenting upon them, and pointing out to our readers the several publications under this head, which the first of the month offers upon such easy terms. The Anglo-Irish, forming Vols. X. XI. and XII. of Irish National Tales. It Although this work cannot be considered as the most successful of its author, it is, nevertheless, full of that wild and powerful genius which has placed Mr. Banim foremost among the writers of his age. abounds in exaggerated pictures of Irish wretchedness, paints them as degraded slaves, and apologizes, to use no harsher term, for those revolting excesses into which they have been hurried, either by misjudging friends or secret enemies. Its interest, however, is deep and exciting-many of the characters are drawn by the pen of a master to whom the mysteries of the human heart are not as hidden things. It sustains, if it does not add to, the reputation of the author of "The Nowlans," and cannot be read without exceeding delight, mingled though it may be with regret that half its gloomier portraits are taken from the life, and the other half sketched by a pencil dipped in the colours which a too sombre imagination had formed. The Chelsea Pensioners, being Vols. X. XI. and XII. of the Naval and Military Library of Entertainment. Mr. Gleig was one of the earliest to lay down the sword and take up the pen. If, of late, the cedunt arma toga applies to him more emphatically than it did when he entered upon the calling of authorship, he has, from the commencement of his labours in the arts of peace, sustained a very high reputation, and one that could not have been exceeded if he had gone on from step to step until he had led a squadron to the field, and retired with the highest honours that a soldier's fame could give. The interest of the "Chelsea Pensioners" is not confined to the classes to which it is more particularly addressed; it recommends itself to the general reader as a work of rare value, not only amusing as a work of fiction, but valuable as a record of some of the more striking events by which the Services of England have been so long distinguished, to the honour of her name and the well-being of her children. We wish him success both in his writing and his clerical capacity; and consider that he is not likely to make a worse chaplain of Chelsea Hospital because he has written so much and so beautifully of" Chelsea Pensioners"-albeit he is a Tory, and bound to uphold the constitution in church and state. Makanna; or, The Land of The Savage. 3 vols. The perusal of this novel has agreeably disappointed us. suaded ourselves that genius could work nothing out of such unpromising We had per matériel as savage Africa and its wretched aborigines, or the still more debased descendants of Old Holland. The attempt was a bold, and a hazardous one—but it has been fully successful. We have rarely read a production of deeper interest-interest sustained from the first page to the last. It has been conceived in a fine spirit; the several characters are ably painted; and those which are of the more sketchy character (such as a young vengeful, but grateful, son of the savage) are sketched by a master-hand. The wild sea, and the wilder land-where " Nature, as at her birth," revels in luxurious abundance-must have been passed over, again and again, by the enterprising traveller, who, in blending fiction with fact, has presented to us much useful and agreeable information of the most singular but most unknown of the four divisions of our globe. Our knowledge of its scenes and circumstances is so entirely mixed up with the fearful and appalling stories of slavery and atrocities attendant upon the dealing in human flesh, that the tales of its wide plains, its thick forests, and its energetic and naturally graceful sons and daughters, have come upon us as things strikingly new, even in these times of book-making, when we had considered the whole world, material as well as immaterial, ransacked from beginning to end. In no one instance are we led to imagine the author as glossing over puerile or insignificant points to serve his purpose. If he has exaggerated, such exaggeration does not appear. In clothing the fierce savage in the garb of romance, he seems in no way to have overstepped the boundary of either propriety or probability. He has made us deeply interested for those "children of the sun" who are as yet indebted to civilization for no progress in the paths of refinement, but who remain, as they have been for centuries, the same as Nature made them. But although the main object of the writer has been to paint the "land of the savage" and its wonderful creations, he has by no means confined himself to it. He is as much at home upon the ocean-and there are many scenes on ship-board equal to the best of the great sea-lord, the author of "The Spy." One in particular (in the first volume) we would point outa mutiny on board the Ganges, headed by the hero of the novel, Paul Laroon, who here, as elsewhere, is the guardian spirit of the young and beautiful heroine, Bertha. If he subsequently quits her, somewhat incomprehensibly, and out of keeping with his character, to join the standard of the chieftain Makanna, he makes her ample amends by the watchful care with which he afterwards tracks her footsteps when dangers throng around her-" the ladye of his love." We trust we have said enough to induce all who love the wild and wonderful to peruse this work. They will find it, as one of amusement, second to none that have of late issued from the press; but they will not find its merits terminating in the fulfilment of this object. It abounds in deeply interesting descriptions of a land and a people too little known to civilized Europe, and, in especial, to Christian England. The author's mind is of a very high order-we augur for him great success. The Recess, or Autumnal Relaxation in the Highlands and Lowlands being the Home Circuit versus Foreign Travel. By Frederick Fag, Esq. We remember reading, towards the close of last autumn, in the newspapers, that more English travellers had been landed on the continent during the preceding summer than in any year during the peace. If John Bull would but make use of that common sense which it may be taken for granted he possesses, and consider the small share of pleasure he has had to compensate for the perpetual series of petty annoyance, imposition, 66 chicanery, and deceit, which marked his path, we will wager the beauty of England to a nut-shell that not one thousand of the seventy-five thousand who went upon excursions have returned with feelings sufficiently strong to induce them to essay their fortune a second time. Once departed from the hotel at Dover the scene changes, for even the continental spirit has contaminated a part of our countrymen; and the imposition begins when the traveller puts his foot on board the steamer. In every country the same results ensue, though the means employed may differ. The Frenchman will politely, nay elegantly, bow and compliment whilst he puts his hands deep into John's pocket. The more prudent Englishman who, afraid to venture into France, will commence by Holland, finds himself subjected not only to be robbed, but it is done in the careless, indifferent tone that means, you have no resource, you must pay;" whilst along the banks of the Rhine a race have sprung up whose origin is coeval with the existence of steam-boats and English travellers. Travel further on, get into the regions of classic Italy, rich in records of antiquity, whose inhabitants once gave laws to the world, whose land abounds with oil and honey, what is met here but disgusting servility and hypocrisy, coupled with the fear of the brigand's knife? And these are the delights that our aristocrats hasten in shoals to enjoy. Of the thousands who annually emigrate, how many have returned improved, how many have been benefitted by the sight of the gems of literature and art, of which they knew nothing before they went, and in their bird-of-passage trip, even if inclined, they had no time for studying? A book such as that of Frederick Fag, Esq., where reflection is combined with accurate observation, ought to achieve much in destroying the appetite for exotics which exists to so great an extent among our countrymen. The name of Fug is clearly a fiction,-a nom de guerre, the style is so exactly that of the author of "Changes of Airs, or Pursuit of Health," that little doubt can be entertained of the claims of both works to a common parentage. The plan of the Northern Tour" is the same as the Italian. Description is almost wholly omitted, and reflection substituted. By this plan novelty and freshness have been attained, where, if the usual mode had been employed, nothing but a mere repetition of previous authors would have filled the pages of this volume. The avowed object of the work is laudable,—that of inducing people to travel for health and pleasure in their own country, rather than in foreign climes; and the author exemplifies and points out the numerous sources of excitement and consequent gratification which the various localities and objects of interest in our own isles present to the mind devoted to contemplation. A pleasant, though sometimes very keen, vein of satire, amounting even to cynicism, pervades its pages. The author halts on Westminster Bridge, and surveys the northern shore of the Thames, characterizes and philosophizes upon each structure as the eye wanders from edifice to edifice. The terse sentence on the Millbank Penitentiary will convey a notion of Frederick Fag's tone and manner:-" That," says he, " is a refuge for the profligate, where penitence weeps over sins, not because they are wicked, but because they are punishable,-on crimes, not because they were committed, but because they were detected." Under the form of an allegory, the State Galley, or Constitution Yacht, is examined. The law is characterized, and, as our author draws up his post horses some goodly half hour on the bridge, he indulges in a train of thought and reflection indicative of a vein of deep meditation and accurate knowledge of the world. Once on board the steamer, the bile collected by modern Babylon is dissipated, and Fag indulges in a laughter-moving burlesque upon Campbell's " Ode to the Ocean;" and having occasionally indulged in a little turbulent ebullition of romantic delight, which gives new relish to the pungency of his humour, he thus speaks of Edinburgh; |