MONTHLY REVIEW OP LITERATURE. 487 



Mr. Donald Walker's Improved Spelling-Book. 



WE have much pleasure in announcing, that this valuable publication will be 

 ready for delivery on the llth of November, and will entirely supersede the stupid 

 books so long held to be indispensable to the education of our youth. The com- 

 bined merit of the work is above all praise. 



The Life and Confession of Humphrey Humbug, M.D. F.R.S. &c. &c. 

 Related by himself. 



Tins autobiography is orMly enough dedicated to O'Connell we say oddly, be- 

 cause as Daniel is the Humbug par excellence of the day, we imagined until a 

 close examination of the work corrected our mistake that the Agitator had re- 

 lieved himself from the fatigues of pocketing and expending " the rint" by divulg- 

 ing the unde derivuntur of his extensive genius for "humbugging." This is not, how- 

 ever, the fact: the life-writing humbug is one of a different species a universalist, 

 inventor ot club-houses patentpills patron ofnewspaperhacksand book-makers, 

 opera-dancers, and card-parties. His reminiscences will be amusing enough to 

 those who are not much shocked at a little vulgarity. 



Sonnets by Edward Moxon, Part II., London. 



No style of composition demands so much from poets as the sonnet. Unity of pur- 

 pose, richness of imagery, and the most scrupulous justness of diction, are required 

 within the limits of fourteen lines. How few are there who comply with these 

 conditions ! Even the sonnets of Shakspeare, delicate and touching as they are, 

 frequently betiay much discursiveness and want of purpose. The sonnets under 

 consideration, however, evince a sympathy with, and an admiration for the loveliest 

 and most tender beauties of nature, the result of a pure and highly cultivated moral 

 taste. They are not, like their ' kindred in verse," destined to become what is 

 termed "popular." Such poetry is "caviare to the general." But those who have 

 the intellectual capacity to understand, and the heart to appreciate the warm, yet 

 homely feelings they pourtray, will peruse Mr. Moxon 's effusions with peculiar 

 delight. 



Report of a Committee appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty to 

 inquire into the Efficacy of Mr. Kyan's Patent for Preserving Wood 

 from Dry-rot. 



CONSIDERING that the adoption of this patent by government promises a saving 

 of eighty thousand per annum to the country, the subject is one of no small im- 

 portance. The wood, it appears, is prepared by means of a solution of mercury, 

 into which it is steeped, and which neutralizes the albumen, or chief origin of the 

 disease, called Dry-rot. We wish the Patentee, Mr. Kyan, every success. 



