1 832.] Monthly Review of Literature. 



much admired, at least in its present place. We beg leave to ask Mr. Le Bas 

 if the following is a specimen of his " classical style. " Speaking of the papacy 

 he says : " The elective conclave was a scene of eternal rivalry, intrigue, and 

 conflict. And yet did this rope of sand, as it must have appeared to ordinary 

 eyes, coalesce into such a union of strength and flexibility, that it was able to 

 twine itself round the mightiest of mankind, to bind kings as it were with chains, 

 and nobles with fetters of iron." 



The following remark, among others, appears to us not only a puerile contra- 

 diction but false philosophy : " In the proportion as the race of man improves, 

 in the same proportion, frequently, are his passions brought out in bolder relief. 

 The tale of his absurdities and his atrocities becomes more fearfully and more 

 distinctly legible." We could not help stumbling over a sophism or two in the 

 life. In page 323 we find the author stating, that the sentiments of the soundest 

 thinker of our own times, on necessity, may be summed up in the language of 

 Dr. Key : " Disputes on liberty and necessity are vain and idle ; as much so as 

 if you were placed within a spherical surface and I without it, and we were to 

 enter into abstruse arguments on the question whether the surface between us 

 were concave or convex. In my situation it is convex, in yours it is concave." 

 We should be sorry to be ranked in Mr. Le Bas's list of "soundest thinkers." 

 In taking leave of this volume, we would assure the author that all our censures 

 are inflicted in the spirit of the text " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," 

 and recommend the clergy of the present day to emulate the disinterestedness 

 and other virtues of the illustrious Wiclif. 



NlCOTIANA, OR THE SMOKER'S AND SNUFF-TAKBR*B COMPANION, BY 



H. J. MELLER, ESQ. 



THE devotee to the immortal weed may peruse this little but elaborate treatise, 

 and be prepared in future to give " an account of the faith that is in him." 

 Mr. Meller is neither a lukewarm nor superficial advocate ; he has armed him- 

 self before entering the arena, and hanging up his glove in defiance of all the 

 enemies of the 



"Joy of the palate, 

 Delight of the nose, 



by a laborious investigation into its history " from the earliest period to the 

 present time." Raleigh, Bacon, Locke, and hundreds more of the great and 

 good are summoned from their graves to give evidence in the good cause. We 

 trust, therefore, our sensitiveness will no longer be so grievously wounded by 

 gross blunders about the divine weed, but that every student of the noble arts 

 of smoking and snuff-taking will duly qualify himself with a course of Meller ; 

 he will then be enabled " to keep his acts" against all opponents, and descant 

 on the various characteristics of the Nicotiana Fructuosa, the Alba, or Auguste- 

 folia with unerring fluency. In fine, we recommend every possessor of a meer- 

 chaum to place Nicotiana in the most favoured nook of his book-shelves ; every 

 owner of a tabaticu, to study the amusing anecdote of the far-famed Lundy Foot 

 and his man Larry ; and above all we enjoin every neophyte in the mysteries of 

 the cigar to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the mems. and maxims of 

 Mr. Meller, and he will then no longer commit the heretical crime of decapi- 

 tating his " brown-vested darling," and still less would he think of polluting with 

 sugar his cup of mocha, " that inseparable associate of the weed of strange 

 power." 



WAVERLEY NOVELS. VOL. XXXI. QUENTIN DURWARD, 



THE chief feature of this reprint, like that of its predecessors, is the introduc- 

 tion and notes by the author. The introduction speaks of the times, on the 

 principal events of which the novel is founded ; but dwells more particularly on 

 the character of Louis XL, who figures so conspicuously in the work. Among 

 the notes we find an interesting history of the Gypsies or Egyptians, Bohemians 

 as they were then termed. We had marked a passage for extracting, but are 



