THE MISSION. By Captain Marryatt. 2 Vols. 12mo. others? inquired Alexander; a hen or any land bird, if it falls

12s.

pons

asinorum" into a

CAPTAIN MARRYATT has, beyond any living author, the happy gift of interesting and amusing. No matter what the subject he touches, under his hands it is sure to have all the attractions of an Arabian tale, and so much so, that we verily believe if he were to undertake to edit Euclid, he would contrive by some undefinable process to turn the " Chinese Pagoda Bridge. We do not venture to say that such a faculty is to be placed on a par with the spirit of poesy or the inventive powers of science, but it is a rare faculty notwithstanding, and contributes its full quota to the general happiness of mankind, and that after all is the real object for which life and talent are perpetually exhausting themselves.

The "Mission" has nothing to do with religious missions, as the title might lead many to imagine; it is in fact a romance, somewhat disguised indeed under the shape of travels, but still no less a romance, the object of which, contrary to the general aim of such compositions, is to instruct as well as amuse, and both of these ends it accomplishes in an eminent degree. Yet the story is not much, amounting in its mere outlines to no more than what we shall now epitomise for our readers.

The daughter of an aged baronet in Berkshire, Sir Charles Wilmot by name, has been wrecked, a long time previous to the opening of the tale, in the Grosvenor East Indiaman, on the coast of Caffraria, to the southward of Port Natal. For years it was supposed that she had perished with the rest of the crew; but now, that the baronet had fallen into the decline of life, vague rumours reach him of her being still alive in some part of the interior; and nothing but his extreme age, and the infirmities incident upon it, prevent him from setting off at once for Africa. His nephew, Alexander, the heir of his name and wealth, observing the old man's anxiety, resolves to undertake the search for him, and, with that view, sails for the Cape on board of a free-trader, which intended to touch there.

On the voyage our hero makes acquaintance with two of the passengers-Mr. Fairburn, a resident at the Cape, and Mr. Swinton, a naturalist, an acquaintance which gives the author an opportunity of describing in a natural and graceful way the usual phenomena of a sea-life, as well as the condition of Eastern Africa. Thus, while the one voyager describes Caffraria, with its Dutch boors, and its native Hottentots, the other discusses, in the most familiar and agreeable manner possible, a multitude of scientific topics, which, to the uninformed, must be no less new than interesting. But the object of Captain Marryat from the first, is to awaken the slumbering faculty, and, by stimulating the curiosity, to excite an appetite for knowledge. It is difficult to roll back years, and invest one's self with all that freshness of feeling which makes " "ignorance be bliss," yet we can well imagine that hints, such as these we shall now quote, cannot fail to affect the novice, if he have any mind at all:

"The more you search into nature, the more wonderful do you find her secrets, and, by the aid of chemistry, we are continually making new discoveries. Observe, Mr. Wilmot,' said Swinton, picking up a straw which had been blown by the wind on the quarter

deck, 'do

you consider that there is any analogy between this straw and the fint in the lock of that gun?"" "Certainly, I should imagine them as opposite particles of nature as well might be.""

"Such is not the case. This piece of wheat-straw contains more than sixty per cent. of silica or flint in its composition, so that, although a vegetable, it is nearly two-thirds composed of the hardest mineral substance we know of. You would scarcely believe that the fibres of the root of this plant were capable of dissolving, feeding upon, and digesting such a hard substance; but so it is.'"

"It is very wonderful.'"

"It is, but it is not a solitary instance; the phosphate of lime,

which is the chief component part of the bones of animals, is equally

sought by plants, dissolved in the same manner, and taken into
their bodies; barley and oats have about thirty per cent. of it in
their composition, and most woods and plants have more or less." "
"I am less surprised at that than I am with the flint, which ap.
pears almost incomprehensible.'"

"Nothing is impossible with God; there is a rush in Holland which contains much more silex than the wheat-straw, and it is employed by the Dutch to polish wood and brass on that very account. We know but little yet, but we do know that mineral substances are found in the composition of most living animals, if not all; indeed, the colouring-matter of the blood is an oxide and phosphate of iron.""

And again

"What difference is there in the feathers of aquatic birds and

into the water, is drowned as soon as its feathers are saturated with the water.'

"There is, I believe, no difference in the feathers of the birds,' replied Mr. Swinton, but all aquatic birds are provided with a small reservoir, containing oil, with which they anoint their feathers, which renders them water-proof. If you will watch a duck pluming and dressing itself, you will find it continually turns its bill round to the end of its back, just above the insertion of the tail; it is to pro

cure this oil, which, as it dresses its feathers that they may carefully overlap each other, it smears upon them so as to render them impenetrable to the water; but this requires frequent renewal, or the duck would be drowned as well as the hen.'

"How long can a sea-bird remain at sea?'

"I should think not very long, although it has been supposed otherwise; but we do not know so much of the habits of these birds as of others.'

"Can they remain long under water? '

"The greater portion of them cannot; ducks and that class for instance. Divers can remain some time; but the birds that remain

webbed.

the longest under water are the semi-aquatic, whose feet are only half-
minutes walking along at the bottom of a stream, apparently as much
in its element as if on shore, pecking and feeding as it walked.'
"You say that aquatic birds cannot remain long at sea, where do
they go to?'

I have watched the common English water-hen for many

"They resort to the uninhabited islands over the globe, rocks that always remain above water, and the unfrequented shores of Africa and elsewhere; there they congregate to breed and bring up their young. I have seen twenty or thirty acres of land completely covered with these birds or their nests, wedged together as close as they could sit. Every year they resort to the same spot, which has probably been their domicile for centuries, I might say since the creation. They make no nests, but merely scrape so as to form a shallow hole to deposit their eggs. The consequence of their always resorting to the same spot is, that from the voidings of the birds, and the remains of fish brought to feed the young, a deposit is made over the whole surface, a fraction of an inch every year, which, by degrees, increases until it is sometimes twenty or thirty feet deep, if not more, and the lower portion becomes almost as hard as rock. The deposit is termed guano, and has, from time immemorial, been used by the Peruvians and Chilians as manure for the land; it is very powerful, as it contains most of the essential salts, such as ammonia, phosphates, &c., samples have been brought to England, and as the quantities must be inexhaustible, when they are sought for and found, no doubt it may one day become a valuable article of our carrying trade.'"

which are required for agriculture.

Within these last few years

naturalist; he contributes his full quota to dispel the tediousNeither is Mr. Fairburn less amusing in his way than the ness of a long sea-voyage, by his tales of the Caffres and their land; and with such pleasant companions the Cape is reached before the reader is aware of it, when it is agreed that the two friends shall accompany Alexander in his search for the young lady.

Ten days of rest are spent at Cape Town, which, of course, are employed in seeing and describing all that is worth notice, when the journey commences, a third ally being added to the party, a Major Henderson, an experienced hunter, who comes attended by a Parsee servant, and a singularly-intelligent Cape baboon, ycleped Begum. Their train now consists of four waggons, with their tilts and canvas coverings, four span of oxen, of fourteen each, eight drivers of the teams of oxen, twelve Hottentots and other hunters-for some of them were of a mixed race,-two Hottentots who had charge of the horses, and two others who had charge of a flock of Cape sheep, that were to follow the caravan and serve as food, until they could procure oxen by purchase or game with their guns; so that altogether the whole amounted to twenty men, with the addition of two Hottentot women, whose business it was to wash and assist in cooking. The waggons were filled with clothes, provisions, ammunition, and presents for the natives. Their plan of travel, too, had been digested with no less foresight; "they had decided that they would first prosecute the object of their journey by proceeding straight through the Caffre country to the borders of the Undata River, near or whereabout it was reported that the descendants of the whites would be found located; and as soon as Alexander had accomplished his mission, that they would cross the chain of mountains, and return through the Bushmen and the Koranna country. Their reason for making this arrangement was, that throughout the whole of the Caffre country, with the exception of lions and elephants in the forests, and hippopotami in the rivers, there was little or no game to be found, the Caffres having almost wholly destroyed it."

The first part of their journey lies through a country thinly

inhabited by the Boors, or descendants of the old Dutch | from running, and there it stood to be fired at. 'The female elesettlers, whose habitations and modes of life are altogether African, or, at least, unlike to anything we see in Europe. Inns there are none, and hospitality, as a necessary consequence, is an universal virtue amongst these people, who present a strange compound of goodnature and cruelty, civility and rudeness. Here they pick up a poor little Bushman boy, about twelve years old, half-starved, and quite naked, who had been abandoned when in a fever by the natives; and as he seems well inclined to follow them, they christen him Omrah, and put him into a waggon with the baboon, Begum, to amuse him, whose race he seems not a little to resemble, although his limbs are remarkably delicate and well-made. He is quite as active, and as full of fun, not to say mischief; is scarcely three feet and a half high, and is all pantomime, trying to talk to his new masters by signs and gestures. It was requisite to notice this young Bushman, as he is destined hereafter to play an important part in the safety of the caravan.

for a short time. The elephant then returned, as if to make sure of its destruction; for it kneeled down on the body, and kneaded it with his fore-legs; then, rising, it seized it again with its trunk, carried it to the edge of the jungle, and hurled it into the bushes.'

"The horses, exhausted from want of water, continued to pant so fearfully, that it was nearly half an hour before they ventured to mount, that they might return to the caravan. In the meantime the heavens had become wholly obscured by the clouds, and there was "It was a large male elephant which killed the soldier just every prospect of a heavy shower; at last a few drops did fall. after Mr. Moodie's escape. Shortly afterwards a shot from one of "For more than three hours, they were tantalized by the lightthe hunters broke the fore leg of this animal, and prevented himning flashing and the thunder pealing, every moment expecting the

food-gates of the heavens to be opened; but, as before, they were [COUNT KÖNIGSMARK.

doomed to disappointment. Before the morning dawned, the clouds had again retreated, and when the sky was clear, they found by the stars, that their horses' heads were turned to the northward and eastward. ......

"Day dawned, and there were no signs of the caravan. A thick vapour was rising from every quarter, and they hoped that when it cleared up, they would be more fortunate; but no, there was the same monotonous landscape, the same carpet of flowers without perfume. The sun was now three hours high, and the heat was intense; their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths, while still they went on over flowery meads; but neither forest or pool, nor any trees which might denote the bed of the river, caught their earnest gaze. "The heat was now so great, that it became almost insufferable, and at last the horses stood still. They dismounted, and drove their horses slowly before them over the glowing plain; and now the mirage deluded and tantalized them in the strangest manner. At one time, Alexander pointed with delight (for he could not speak) to what he imagined to be the waggons; they pushed on, and found that it was a solitary quagga, magnified thus by the mirage. Sometimes they thought that they saw lakes of water in the distance, and hastened on to them; and then they fancied they were close to rivers and islands, covered with luxuriant foliage, but still were doomed to disappointment; as all was the result of the highly rarefied air, and the refraction of the sun's rays on the sultry plain. What would they have given for a bush, even to afford them any shelter from the noonday sun, for the crowns of their heads appeared as if covered with live coal, and their minds began to wander.

"At night, they sat down by the side of the horses, and, worn out with fatigue and exhaustion, fell into a troubled sleep; a sleep which, tantalizing feelings as had been created by the mirage during the day. They dreamed that they were in the bowers of paradise, hearing heavenly music; passing from crystal stream to stream, slaking their thirst at each, and reclining on couches of verdant green. Everything that was delightful appeared to them in their dreams; they were in the abodes of bliss, and thus did they remain for an hour or two; when they were wakened up by the roar of a lion, which reminded them that they were without food or water in the desert.

if it relieved their worn-out frames, condemned them to the same

"They awoke speechless with thirst, their eyes inflamed, and their whole bodies burning like a coal, and the awful roar of the lion still reverberated along the ground. They started on their legs, and found Omrah close to them, holding the bridles of the horses, which were attempting to escape. They were still confused, when they were fully restored to their waking senses by a second roar of the lion still nearer to them; and, by the imperfect light of the stars, they could now distinguish the beast at about one hundred yards' distance. Omrah put the bridles of their two horses in their hands, and motioned them to go on in the direction opposite to where the lion was. They did so without reflection; mechanically obeying the directions of the man-child; and not perceiving that Omrah did not follow them. They had advanced about one hundred yards with the terrified animals, when another loud roar was followed up by the shriek of the other horse, announcing that he had become a victim to the savage animal. They both started, and dropping the reins of their horses, hastened with their rifles to the help of Omrah, of whose absence they now for the first time were aware; but they were met half-way by the boy, who contrived to say with difficulty, Lion want horse, not little Bushman.' They waited a few seconds, but the cries of the poor animal, and the crushing and cracking of its bones, were too painful to hear; and they hastened on, and rejoined the other horses, which appeared paralyzed with fear, and had remained stationary.

"They again led their horses on for an hour, when they arrived at a small pile of rocks; there they again lay down, for they were quite exhausted and careless of life. Not even the roar of a lion would have aroused them now, or if it had roused them, they would have waited for the animal to come and put an end to their misery. But another and a softer noise attracted the quick ear of Omrah, and he pushed Alexander, and put his finger up to induce him to listen."

Here, like the poet with his story of Cambuscan, we break off; but in this case the reader is better off than old Geoffrey left him, since he may, if he chose to seek for it, find the conclusion of our tale elsewhere. DOUGLAS JERROLD'S SHILLING MAGAZINE. nuary to June. Post 8vo. 7s.

Vol. I. Ja

THE peculiar talent of Jerrold shines out much more in works of this kind than in dramatic writings. His antithetic style, his inextinguishable proneness to satire, his sharp contrasts of character, are all here in place, and instead of being demerits, afford so many grounds to praise him. His object, too, is conceived in the best spirit, being to advocate the cause of the oppressed many; but he is not much of a philosopher, and deals rather with details than first principles. All we can say is, in the words of Cato on a certain occasion, "I macte virtute puer,"-reading only Douglas Jerrold for puer.

An Historical Romance. By Captain Chamier. 3 vols. post 8vo. 17. 11s. 6d.

In an evil hour a certain Count Rosen suggested, it seems, to Captain Chamier the story of Königsmark as affording the groundwork for a romance, and referred him to the English Causes Célèbres;" he might as well have dispatched the worthy Captain to the marble quarries of Carrara, and told him to hew out a figure of Apollo. But we suspect shrewdly that Count Rosen is a wit of the hoaxing species, one of those who delight in mystifying simple folks, and who on this particular occasion was willing to see how absurd his friend could make himself. If so, the joke has succeeded to a wonder. Although no great admirers of Captain Chamier at the best of times, we never gave him credit for being so abominably dull and tedious as he has shown himself in Count Königsmark. His naval writers, might be tolerated, for he was writing on a subnautical novels, although far inferior to those of most other jeet which, from his habits of life, he understood; but now that he launches into history and tales of Lapland witches, it is quite manifest he has fallen upon matters of which he literally knows nothing. Hard words these, it must be granted, but not a whit more than the Captain has deserved. For instance, in the very commencement of this precious farrago, he opens upon us the floodgates of his learning, and informs the world, with infinite pomp and all the consciousness of superior knowledge, that "it of Christianity, as the heathens had no knowledge of a Christian is evident a witch could only have existed SINCE the existence devil." (Vol. i, p. 13.) We much fear that the Captain "has prayed his Bible ill," or he must have heard of such a personage as the Witch of Endor, who flourished, according to vulgar knowledge, not quite two thousand years before Christ was born. Nor is the Captain's acquaintance with the classics much more intimate than his knowledge of the Bible. In a very rare author, never read by school-boys, called Quintus Horatius Flaccus, is an epode, in which a certain witch, Canidia by name, cuts a conspicuous figure, performing the rites peculiar to her tribe. Had he pushed his researches a little farther, and looked into the works of two other equally rare authors, Virgil and Ovid, he would have discovered the very cream of witches, dame Hecate; or supposing that he had forgotten, which is not impossible, the little Latin he may have known at one time, he had only to consult the pages of rare Ben Jonson, when he would have found at once that the old Romans were much more familiar with witches than himself. Of course we do not expect that the captain of a man-of-war should be particularly conversant with the classics; neither is it at all necessary that the writer of romance should be a scholar, or we should not have so many blockheads, both male and female, compounding novels, and, what is more, very popular novels; but when Captain Chamier makes a parade of his acquaintance with Bodinus, Wierus, Larchemar, Godelman, and Erwickins--not one of which, we would wager a crown, he can read without help-he provokes judgment. By his own scales he has been weighed and found wanting. But it is time to say something of the story.

Count Königsmark being troubled with the desire of knowing his future fate, and there being no witches nearer home than Lapland, thither he goes accordingly, accompanied hy his man, Vratz, who plays the part of buffo to his master's tragedy, and is intended, like the servants of the Cobourg melodrama, to be vastly funny. So striking is the similarity, that there can be no doubt the Captain had Osbaldiston in his eye when he painted his hero, while in portraying Vratz he has evidently drawn no less on his Cobourg reminiscences. Be this as it may, the curtain rises and discovers them in Lapland, where they make acquaintance with a dwarf, Borosky, who has come upon the same errand, and would fain persuade Königsmark from trying Königsmark however persists in consulting these Lapland drumthe experiment, which he affirms has made himself miserable. mers, who at his request beat their drum and show his fortunes. As good luck will have it, our hero is not at all frightened during the ceremony; nay, he is able to track his path "through the labyrinth of windings" to the shore, rows himself quietly back to the mainland, and having secured the boat, bursts into the tent where he had left his companion, and falls senseless on the fern. The author takes advantage of this convenient melodramatic fit to play the witch in a retrospective way, and reveals to us the prior life of his hero, as he himself gathered it from his friend, Count Rosen, and the English "Causes Célèbres."

burial to my bones that are rotting beneath your bed." To
this Königsmark objects, that when morning comes,
he may
fancy it has all been a dream, whereupon the ghost puts an
iron ring upon his finger, and satisfied with this token,-which,
by the by, he cannot get off again-he denounces the assassins
when he arrives at Rome.

From Rome, where they meet with no adventures, they go to Naples.-Ditto.-On to Sicily, where they learn that the Knights of Malta are going to fight the Turks, and resolve to join them; but first our Swede has recourse to the gamblingtable to recruit his finances, the gamblers' bank being the only bank he knows of. At first he is stript of everything, when he stakes the iron ring, and, as he cannot get the ring off his finger, the hand with it. By good luck, or by the interference of the ghost, out of gratitude for the burial of his old bones, he now wins everything, and, narrowly escaping assassination by the disappointed gamblers, gets on board the vessel bound to Malta. Strange things these for a bearded gentleman to write, and he, too, captain of a man of war!

The scene now shifts with as little connexion as those in a Christmas pantomime, and we are introduced, without any object, as it should seem, to Lady Elizabeth Percy, then in her eleventh year, the daughter and heiress of the house of that name. A long description ensues of the young lady, her old fool of a grandmother, Lady Algernon, of the Countess of Northumberland, who has married Montagu, and of John Lock, anent whom, as a Scotchman would say, Captain Chamier manifestly knows as little as the philosopher himself, in all probability, knew of navigating a man of war. After this display, hey presto! the scene again changes, and we are whisked off to Paris and the family of Montagu, the English ambassador, to whom Königsmark is introduced by letter, being on his travels through various parts of Europe after his Lapland expedition. In the Countess he recognises a striking likeness to the young girl he had seen in the bowl of the Lapland witches, and he is therefore anxious to set off for England, that he may judge how far her daughter, Lady Elizabeth, is likely to be the genuine original, since it is plain that mamma herself is too old for a heroine. As an underplot to this exquisite fable, Montagu A grand battle now takes place between the Turks and the is employed in paying his court to the Duchess of Cleveland, Maltese, when, according to the custom in all such cases, made who being just then out of favour with her royal keeper, and provided, the hero and his servant enact wonders. Amongst Charles, has come to Paris, while Lord Ogle, the only son of other things, Vratz rescues a lady, who, in return, tells them the Duke of Newcastle, is busily soliciting the countess to how she was stolen by banditti from her parents when too bestow upon him the hand of her daughter, the young Lady young to recollect them-how the brigand chief and his misElizabeth Percy. We are forced to be thus minute, as other-tress having robbed the robbers, ran off with her-how they wise this jumble of fine names would be perfectly unintelligible, left Sicily and were wrecked, she alone being saved from and it really would be a pity to lose anything of so rational a drowning, when she fell into the hands of Greeks, then subject tale, wherein the hero travels all the way to England to see a to Turkish rule-how she was seized by the Turks, and girl of eleven years old, because her image has been previously placed on board the ship, which had just been taken by the shown to him in a Lapland witch's punchbowl. Sterne has Maltese-all of which has been told before, not once, nor enumerated many sorts of travellers, the wise, the foolish, twice, nor thrice only, but at least some hundreds of times. the idle, the inquisitive, and others, but not a word has he The two virtuous companions, upon considering these said of the punchbowl traveller; that was reserved for Captain matters over, agree that they are likely to get a handsome Chamier, and let him have due honour accordingly; if there reward for restoring the lady to her parents, if they can only were only a single sheet of foolscap left in all England, it find them out. But having placed their protégé under the should be twisted into a cap of maintenance, and devoted to care of a sanctified female, instead of going to Calabria, the his service. place indicated in her story, they set out for Alexandria, where they amuse themselves by consulting a Mahommedan conjuror, who plays off the old trick of showing absent people in the palm of a boy's hand previously blackened with ink. Amongst other sights, he shows them the Lady Elizabeth going to church to be married, whereupon Königsmark thinks it high time to be looking after his interests in that quarter, after having first paid a visit to Isabella. Back therefore they go to Malta. But the protégé has vanished; the woman to whom she was intrusted, and who wants to make a matrimonial bargain of her, has hidden her away. Königsmark, however, ferrets her out, escapes with her in a felucca, deserting his companion, a storm arises, and they are wrecked on the Calabrian shore. But now, on a sudden, the scene shifts to Paris and the intrigues of the ambassador, where, without any previous warning, Königsmark makes his appearance. Then again we are whisked off to Madrid on the eve of Charles II.'s marriage with his first wife, Maria Louisa of Orleans; and here also is our indefatigable traveller, with Isabella disguised in male attire. Here they met with adventures which have been told over and over again, and always infinitely better; such, for instance, as a bull-fight, a subject rarely omitted by any tourist recording his Spanish travel. In this fight Isabella saves Königsmark from the bull, in requital for which kindness he falls in love with a certain Donna Maria, and she becomes jealous after the Italian fashion. At this crisis a letter comes from Vratz, saying he has discovered that she is the daughter of a Count Manfridi, stolen from her father's castle by Calabrian brigands

On the road to Calais, Königsmark and his retainer are attacked by thieves, whom they defeat, and a very sorry piece of business it is, not quite so interesting as the dullest of the police reports, besides being introduced with no other earthly object but to add a few pages to a tale already much too long. In the next chapter we find them at Petworth, the ancient mansion of the Percies, the introductory letter of the Countess having served them as an 66 open sessame to the castle, if not to the liking of the old dowager. Lady Elizabeth of course turns out to be the lady of the punchbowl, as any reader, at all versed in such matters, must have long ago expected. And yet after all she is a queer sort of heroine, having red hair, and eyes that are described as being neither black nor blue-possibly they were green or yellow-something that Captain Chamier was ashamed to acknowledge, and therefore hints at with all the delicacy of Desdemona, who cannot bring herself to repeat a certain ugly epithet, with which her black husband had just been honouring her. Königsmark, however, is far from being so nice; he frankly owns to his follower, Vratz, that he is in love only with her money. After this, who would look out for a bride in a witch's punchbowl?

During this time the Duchess of Cleveland has become the actual mistress of Montagu, to the great grief and indignation of his wife, the Countess of Northumberland. A war commences between the ladies, but before the campaign has well commenced, we are summoned away to attend upon Königsmark, who, thinking reasonably enough that the bride of the punchbowl is quite young enough to wait a few years for him, has left England, and is now on his road to Italy. But thus it is with Captain Chamier; he is always beginning, never ending, and his story has as many fragments as a ravelled skein of silk, which has been cut in the hopeless effort to untwist it.

On the road, as a matter of course, they stop at an inn, where the host shows a villanous complexion, and there is every reason to suspect they will have their throats cut; this is as sure an incident with novel-writers of Chamier's grade, as a white horse in one of Wouverman's pictures, or, tol de rol, in an old comic ballad. They go to bed-no door to the roem, but plenty of thunder and lightning-enter a ghost-said ghost declares he has been unlawfully murdered by the landlord, who robbed him of his wife, cash, and life, all at once. "How can I serve you?" quoth the traveller. "By avenging me upon my wife, and her paramour, and by giving canonical

Cobourg theatre again-that Lady Elizabeth has lost her lover, and is quite ready to marry him-that the dwarf Borosky is at Hamburg devoted to his service-and that he himself is waiting for him at Paris. Accident, and her own jealousy, here separate Isabella from her faithless lover, who is now again at Paris, where he bargains with Colonel Brett, the friend of Montague, to obtain for him the hand of the wealthy Lady Elizabeth, but is finally outwitted, the heiress being bargained away and sold to Mr. Thynue. Hereupon he returns for a while to Sweden, then amuses himself for a time with cruising against the Algerines, and eventually pays a second visit to England. Here he employs Vratz, a Captain Stern, and the dwarf Borosky, to murder Mr. Thynne, that he may marry his rich widow. All parties, however, are discovered, and brought to trial, but by the self-devotion of Vratz, Königsmark is acquitted, while himelf and his two companions are condemned. At this

verdict, the wife of the Spanish ambassador faints, being no WOMAN'S INFLUENCE. By Mrs. Brereton. 3 Vols. other than Donna Maria, who, after her intrigue with the Post 8vo. 17. 11s. 6d. Count, had got comfortably married.

A MODERN library-companion, that in a great measure fills up the hiatus between the cessation of Watt's great work, the THIS was originally published in parts, and at long intervals, "Bibliotheca Britannica," and the commencement of Churton's in the "Phonotypic Journal." It comprises contributions" Literary Register." It gives a classed catalogue of the best towards a more accurate analysis and symbolisation of spoken sounds, with an account of the principal phonetic alphabets hitherto proposed.

XENOPHON'S EXPEDITION OF CYRUS. By T. W. All-Blair's Sermons. 1 Vol. New Edition. 8vo. 98. press. 12mo. 4s.

XENOPHON'S Anabasis, translated literally, and with a strict adherence to the idiom of the original, the great object being to familiarise the youthful student with the idiomatic peculiarities of the Greek language. Notes are subjoined, explanatory of obscurities in expression, and of any confused order in construction. The use of such a work must be too evident to gain anything from our commendation.