MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



rian, we see not the use of all this. We know not what the author would be 

 at we see not in which direction his finger of scorn is pointing ; and while we 

 are smiling at the folly of Mr. Cyclovate, he, perhaps, intended to direct us to 

 the nonsense of Mr. Scrinium. Mr. M'Corquodale, the Political Economist, is 

 no great philosopher, we perceive ; but Mr. Pertinax, his opponent, is no 

 Socrates. What, then, does the author mean ? Let him doff his visor, and we 

 shall be happy to hear him ; until then, if he means any thing beyond a joke, 

 we cannot apprehend his satire. 



DR. LARDNER'S CABINET CYCLOPAEDIA. HISTORY. THE WESTERN WORLD. 

 VOL. II. THE UNITED STATES. LONDON : LONGMAN & Co. 



THE History of the United States, of which the second and last volume is 

 before us, is in every respect an admirable work. Far from administering to 

 that ungenerous and weak spirit of nationality, in its worst sense, which it 

 seems to be the particular desire of some in this country to perpetuate ; the 

 present work has been written in a liberal, candid, and free spirit ; and the 

 author has done his countrymen the justice of believing that impartiality, even 

 where America is concerned, will be more acceptable to them than the basely 

 virulent and unfair attacks of those who, though they may be foes to America, 

 are no friends to England. 



The style of this work, without making pretensions to brilliancy, or being 

 chargeable with undue profuseness of diction, pursues the direct tenor of its 

 way, in a strong, nervous, and animated current, neither thundering or foaming 

 with frothy verbiage, nor expanding into imagery, but flowing freely on, as 

 something which is intended to have an end. 



We consider the two volumes of which this history is composed, indispensable 

 to all who take an interest in the fate of our great offspring. A contemplation 

 of the history of this wonderful people is also fraught with matter of much 

 moment to the mother country ; and it is, perhaps, not impossible, that England 

 may one day have occasion to borrow from America, in exchange for the arts she 

 has learned from us, the one great art of good and prosperous government. 



LETTERS FOR THE PRESS. BY THE LATE FRANCIS ROSCOMMON, ESQ. 

 LONDON : EFFINGHAM WILSON. 1832. 



AN introductory notice assures us, that the present series of Letters was ad- 

 dressed by their author, since dead, to the editor, who, we hope, still lives. We 

 know riot whether the common fiction has been resorted to upon this occasion, 

 of laying the author decently at rest before his productions see the light. Au- 

 thors are not like trees, which require to be set in the earth before they put forth 

 leaf or blossom ; and if a man has a good story to tell, or an apt remark to 

 make, we do not think that he looks more wise or entertaining in a shroud. If, 

 on the contrary, a dunce expects to conceal himself behind a coffin-lid, let him 

 be straightway advised that such ligneous contrivances avail him nought ; and a 

 wooden-headed anti-nous, however impregnable his skull, is forthwith made to 

 emit a hollow sound from that vacant region, fearful to the spiral ear of the 

 sympathetic blockhead. 



We mean not to apply these threats to the author before us we merely in- 

 tended to convey a hint that we saw through the nom de guerre of Francis Ros- 

 common. The present Letters are upon a great variety of topics, and are 

 evidently written by a man of some reflection, and of respectable and elegant 

 acquirements. We shall, perhaps, be conveying our meaning of the merits of 

 the book before us, in a concise manner, by stating that, although there is 

 no great profundity of thought, and no very remarkable acuteness displayed, yet 

 the style is both clear and elegant, and the work is evidently (a rare case in these 

 times) the production of a gentleman. 



