226 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



kings who have governed it ; but also of the collateral branches of the royal 

 families of England, and of the foreign alliances into which many of them have 

 merged. The work is also accompanied by genealogical charts of the several 

 dynasties, and of the families that have emanated from them ; and the whole of 

 this elaborate volume is arranged and put together in the most convenient and 

 attractive form. 



We regret very much, that it is not in our power honestly to applaud the 

 style in which some portions of this work are written. Where Mr. Fisher con- 

 fines himself to the detail of historical facts, he gets on well enough ; but his 

 conclusions respecting them, and the reflections suggested to his mind by their 

 recital, are sometimes of a nature to excite a smile, in spite of the mortification 

 we feel at the manner in which the valuable labours of our author are marred by 

 their introduction. For instance ; describing the last illness of the Princess 

 Amelia, the youngest daughter of George III., Mr. Fisher says, 



" Through all the vicissitudes of pain and languor, the moral qualities of the Princess 

 Amelia gleamed with splendid worth ; and not one was more excited, next to submission to 

 the trials Heaven had imposed, than her filial affection to the fond and venerable parent 

 whom she was unconsciously doomed to hasten, from grief at her departed excellence, into 

 that barren state of existence in which reason, unhinged, vibrated in unrestrained modula- 

 tions through the chaos of imagination, never more to be restored by the great spirit that 

 moved upon the face of the waters." 



This mode of writing is calculated to excite a belief of our Author's assent to 

 Dr. Johnson's Logic, 



" Who writes of madness, should himself be mad." 



We have not quoted the above passage for the purpose of turning into ridicule 

 the labours of a diligent and deserving man ; but in order to shew how sedu- 

 lously some authors take pains to impair the value of their laudable exertions. 

 We can, nevertheless, strongly recommend Mr. Fisher's book to our readers. 



A KEY TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. LONDON : LONGMAN & Co. 



1832. 



THE present somewhat bulky volume should be in the hands of every one of 

 our Members of Parliament, and of all such as are or may be qualified to sit 

 under the new Bill, and of those (and they are not a few) who are curious in the 

 acquisition of such recondite learning as ancient regulations and standing orders, 

 and who dogmatize on such matters with portentous shakes of the head, and 

 unanswerable declensions of chin upon the shirt-frill. To all such, we say, 

 this work is highly necessary, deeply instructive, nay, absolutely indispensable. 

 We can but marvel at the patience, the research, and the indomitable industry 

 of the man who could get together so much valuable information, with so little 

 interesting matter wherewith to lighten and to alleviate his labours. 



TALES AND NOVELS, BY MARIA EDGEWORTH. IN 18 VOLS. VOL. I. 

 LONDON : BALDWIN & Co. 1832. 



THE first volume of the present series contains the admirable " Castle Rack- 

 rent," and the " Essay on Irish Bulls ;" and the eighteen volumes are intended 

 to comprise the whole of Miss Edgeworth's novels and tales, with the exception 

 of her excellent juvenile tales, which it is proposed to publish in a smaller form. 



This edition is well-timed, when the press is teeming with trash of the most 

 miserable and mischievous description ; and we sincerely hope, that the object 

 of the publishers may be answered ; which, however, we very much doubt. 

 The taste of the present day is in no state to which the wholesome style the 

 genuine humour the unaffected pathos, and the vigorous delineation of charac- 

 ter, to be found in Miss Edgeworth. Now that her friend Sir Walter Scott is, 

 to the intellectual world, no more and since it is highly improbable that Miss 

 Edgeworth will favour us with another novel what a herd of incapables 

 remain ! Submitted to the mercy of the shoulder-knot and silver-fork school, 

 or the impertinence of some little drawing-room minx, who chatters her would- 



