454 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



A new feature in literature, or rather a variation upon an old one, is 

 about to be introduced by Mr. Thomas Roscoe and Mr. Leitch Ritchie. 

 On the first of January will be published the first monthly volume of a 

 cheap series of original tales and romances by the most popular authors. 

 It is to be called Schinderhannes the Robber of the Rhine. 



Mr. Taylor has a life of Cowper now ready for publication. The new 

 volume of the Continental Annual is in a state of forwardness ; likewise 

 Miss Sheridan's Comic Offering. Historical and Antiquarian Notices of 

 Crosby Hall is just published. 



The Penny National Librarv who would not have a library on such 

 terms ? numbers of the History of England, Universal Biography, 

 Grammar and Dictionary, Law Library Geography and Gazetteer, 

 Ancient History, Shakspeare's Plays, besides Standard Novels, &c. 

 " all for the small charge," as the showmen say, "- of one shilling." At 

 that rate the whole catalogue of the British Museum ought to be em- 

 braced for five pounds. 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



LORD BROUGHAM DISPLAYED. Bv JEREMY BENTHAM. LONDON. 1832. 



WE think that the executors of Bentham might have shown their discre- 

 cretion, and evinced their regard for that illustrious man by suppressing the 

 present pamphlet. 



We honestly confess our opinion that this production is not calculated to 

 raise him in the estimation of the world either as a philosopher or as a man ; 

 and, however strange and audacious it may appear to his disciples to avow that 

 belief, we do not hesitate to say that we think Bentham was not altogether the 

 amiable and upright philosopher that they have taken so much pains for years past 

 to represent him. We think we discover no small portion of unbecoming acri- 

 mony of bad feeling, and of mean envy in many of his writings, and in none 

 more than in this attemted exposure of a friend. Far be it from us to insult the 

 memory of a great man, but when we see daily the arrogant insolence with 

 which all who presume to differ from Bentham's views and utilitarian philoso- 

 phy are assailed when also we find, as in the work before us, a total disregard 

 of all such ceremony as common feeling and common decency would dictate, 

 we cannot restrain ourselves from the natural inclination to protest against such 

 an unworthy exhibition. 



The object of Mr. Bentham's pamphlet is to throw ridicule, and to bring 

 odium and contempt upon Lord Brougham's recent improvements in the Chan- 

 cery Practice, with many observations upon the Bankruptcy Court Bill recently 

 passed, and much gratuitous information of bad, if not base, motives of the 

 Chancellor. All this was hardly to have been expected from Mr. Bentham, and 

 we are led to the unavoidable conclusion that the philopher was impatient of all 

 legal improvements that did not directly emanate from himself. 



But we will say no more upon this point. Jeremy Bentham's fame will rest 

 upon other works than pamphlets of this description, in which we discover but 

 the dregs and lees of a great mind converted into an offensive weapon of attack 

 against a friend, whose only present fault appears to be that he has dared to 

 reform the law without consulting Mr. Bentham at every step. 



HISTORICAL AND PRACTICAL TREATISE ON ELEMENTAL LOCOMOTION. BY 

 ALEXANDER GORDON, CIVIL ENGINEER. 



LECTURES ON THE STEAM ENGINE. FOURTH EDITION. BY DIONYSIUS LARD- 

 NER, D.D., F.R.S., &c., &c. 



IN these works there is so striking a similarity in some of the plates and in- 

 dices that we are compelled to suppos^that there has been unfair play in one or 



