694 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



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SUNSHINE; OR LAYS FOR LADIES. WILLOUGHBY, 1832. 



Our notice of this little volume was accidentally shut out last month. Its 

 title, which so completely explains the book, recommends it at this season most 

 especially. It comes like a glimpse of May-day merriment in December, like a 

 summer-fe'te celebrated over a Christmas-fire. The style and spirit of the " Lays" 

 will be altogether misunderstood, if it be not remembered that they are " Lays 

 for Ladies.' The writer, (who should not have hesitated to give his name,) 

 affects not to plunge into the world of passion, and grapple with the deep re- 

 solves and stubborn purposes of the heart ; but simply to sport with its fancies 

 and playful waywardnesses, its light and airy varieties, its graceful and gentle 

 emotions. His region is the drawing-room, not the shore and the wilderness ; 

 he feasts only on the sweet-meats of Apollo's banquet; he flies for ever about the 

 brilliant surface of society, and turns 



" The sunny side of things to human eyes," 



But he writes with grace and a good-natured purpose ; and his lays must ensure 

 him a warm and pleasant welcome in all circles where warmth and pleasantry 

 prevail. Extract is impossible, or we should set the claims of these Lays in a 

 more unquestionable light before the reader. 



THE BUCCANEER, A NOVEL. IN 3 VOLS. BY MRS S. C. HALL. 

 BENTLEY, 1832, 



This department of our work has, this month, been made up earlier than usual. 

 The Buccaneer, therefore, arrives in time for a mere announcement of its appear- 

 ance, and its high claims to success. We cannot attempt to shew this month on 

 what those claims rest. We cannot enter into the diversities of character and situa- 

 tion that are here set before us, by a writer who, though she had not previously 

 given us a proof of her capacity to work out a great theme upon a great scale, 

 had given repeated proofs of a deep and peculiar insight into character, of a 

 happy power of seizing upon points of humour and individuality of impression, 

 of a quick and ready aptitude in the delineation of national manners, and of a 

 mature understanding of the great moral purposes which fiction may and ought 

 to be the instrument of working out. In the Buccaneer, Mrs. Hall has exerted 

 her powers of construction, and her skill in the deveiopement of character, in a 

 wider field than she has heretofore ventured upon. Her attempt will more than 

 realize whatever anticipations her sketches of Irish character may have excited. 

 It equally demonstrates her qualifications in a dramatic as in a moral scale. 

 This will be recognised by all who may refer to her bold, striking, and original 

 delineation of the mental features of the immortal Usurper, or to the numerous 

 graphic scenes and incidents which diversify this novel. 



What we have here said is merely by way of apology for not saying more this 

 month. We are restricted by space only ; the plot and characters of these three 

 volumes would furnish matter for three pages at least. 







AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



FEW people, we apprehend, have been longer or more diligent in the vain 

 attempt to render themselves weather-wise than we have but with all our expe- 

 rience, we do not recollect an instance of such a long continuance of easterly and 

 northerly winds as the late and present : more especially on the commencement 

 of autumn, when we generally look for south-western gales and moist weather. 

 To repeat what we before noted of the mildness of these unseasonable easterly 

 winds, which has certainly been most favourable to the lands, and, in a consider- 

 able degree, operative towards the declared extinction of the cholera and to con- 



