708 Monthly Review of Literature. [JUNE, 



CALABRIA, DURING A MILITARY RESIDENCE OF THREE YEARS; IN A SERIES OF 

 LETTERS. BY A GENERAL OFFICER OF THE FRENCH ARMY. FROM THE 

 ORIGINAL M.S. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 1832. 



THE volume before us consists of a series of Letters addressed by a French Officer 

 to bis father, during a period of three years, viz. from November, 1807, to October, 

 1810. The title-page of the work gives us to understand that they were written by 

 a General Officer of the French Army. This statement, which may be true, is, 

 nevertheless, calculated to deceive the public. The boyish epistles of Sir Arthur 

 Wellesley might, with equal propriety, be published as a series of letters by Field 

 Marshal the Duke of Wellington. 



The period of our author's residence in the Calabrias, however prolific of inter- 

 esting events from the abdication of Joseph to the accession of Murat, and from 

 thence until the abandonment of his expedition against Sicily is one upon which 

 the writer expends very little additional information. The battalion to which he 

 belonged was sent into the Calabrias for the purpose of exterminating the brigands, 

 and the present letters are devoted almost exclusively to a description of the wild 

 and romantic country through which he passed from Naples to Reggio. 



We have no doubt whatever of the faithfulness with which the author has 

 sketched his descriptions, although we cannot pay him the compliment to call 

 them vivid, as the translator in his preface has chosen to designate them. The 

 reader will, however, be repaid by a perusal of these letters ; and when it is 

 remembered how little of this wild and mountainous region is known, we may well 

 be grateful for any account of a country endeared to us by so many classical 

 associations. 



MANUAL FOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA. BY CALVIN COTTON, A.M. OF AMERICA. 

 WESTLEY AND DAVIS, 1832. 



A LITTLE book worth the perusal of those who feel the necessity of leaving the 

 homes of their fathers to seek a better fortune on the other side of the Atlantic. 

 We would, however, advise the author, should the public demand a second edition, 

 to deal somewhat more in a matter-of-fact way ; and to omit many of those very 

 general remarks which are better suited to such professional works as school 

 geographies and gazetteers. 



A little more attention to consistency would, also, not be amiss. For instance, 

 we are told in one place, that " the government of the Canadas is, probably, the 

 best and most grateful of any of the British provinces in the world ;" and he pro- 

 ceeds to inform us, that the government at home has endeavoured to remove, as 

 much as possible, all occasion of dissatisfaction, and to make their own subjects 

 contented with a comparison of their own condition with that of their neighbours 

 of the United States. And yet in another place he tells us, that from present pro- 

 babilities, the number of emigrants to the Canadas in the present year, (1832), will 

 be not less than 100,000 ; of whom much more than a moiety, he considers, will 

 pass directly through the Canadas to the United States, principally from the dis- 

 appointments and discouragements they are likely to meet with on their first arrival. 



We have a right to expect more minute information than we meet with under 

 the head of " The Value of Labour and General Expenses of Living in the United 

 States," which are not to be comprised in three small pages ; and we think there is 

 very little use in informing the emigrant, although the truth of the assertion cannot 

 be questioned, " that if a man disburses 5 a week for his food, lodging, clothing, 

 and other needful comforts, and receives for his services 15, he can lay up 10!" 



THE EXTRAORDINARY BLACK BOOK. LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, 1832. 



THE Black Book is, indeed, " an Encyclopedia of English Politics." We know of 

 no work which contains so vast a body of information alike useful to all classes 

 from a " Patriot King " to the industrious operative. The present edition is greatly 

 enlarged, and the errors unavoidable in a work of this nature and extent have been 

 carefully corrected. 



