58C MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



of improvement, it is on the whole extremely well done, and Miss Ward 

 will receive thanks from those who do not read Italian, and congratula- 

 tions from those who do. The former will be grateful that so curious a 

 book is made accessible to them; the latter will be gratified by the general 

 fidelity of rendering, and excellence of style in the translation. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH ISLES ; IN 2 VOLS. BY MARY 

 MARTHA RODWELL. LONDON : LONGMAN & Co. 1834. 



WE have long wanted such a practical work as this ; written, too, in a 

 manner calculated to attract the attention of juvenile readers, and fix on 

 their memory the leading geographical points on our insular kingdom. 

 The plan of skeleton maps, with figures of reference, adopted by Miss 

 Rodwell, is excellent, because it compels the reader to search for informa- 

 tion. Her work will doubtless become a standard publication for schools 

 and young persons : we need only add, that while it offers to the juvenile 

 portion of the community every necessary information adults, more espe- 

 cially those whose education has been neglected, will find much to instruct 

 them in Miss Rodwell's complete and truly valuable work. 



TREATISE ON THE PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND ITS EFFECTS 

 ON SOCIETY. EDINBURGH ; ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK ; 

 NORTH BRIDGE. LONGMAN ; LONDON, 1834. 



WE learn from the preface that this production is the result of such hours 

 as could be snatched from other and more immediate pursuits ; and with- 

 out flattery to its anonymous author, we must be allowed to say that of all 

 the works which have come under our notice of late, this Treatise on the 

 Progress of Literature is the most able and instructive one on which the 

 impress of an enlightened mind is most obviously, palpably, arid unerringly 

 stamped. Thoughtful, philosophical, and historically accurate, it contains 

 the observations of a man of sound judgment, extensive reading, and refined 

 taste ; and whatever may be his private occupation, whatever his objects, 

 we earnestly hope such extra time may be afforded him for the future, as 

 to permit of his employing his leisure after a manner equally polite, bene- 

 ficial, and elevated. 



The earlier sections of the first chapter contain an account of the 

 general character and progress of literature in ancient time, and affords to 

 the merely English reader a popular and inviting abstract of its history 

 and character, recommended by a learned ease and purity of style seldom 

 observable in writers upon classic subjects ; while to the scholar they 

 equally furnish information and entertainment entertainment without 

 flippancy, and information without pedantry. 



From the first section to the second the author takes a gigantic stride, 

 and with one foot resting upon the classic times of Virgil and Horace, 

 claps the other lightly upon the wonders of the fourteenth century, step- 

 ping from thence to the fifteenth with all the velocity of Time himself, and 

 by that means, we think, imitates some of our youthful tourists, whose 

 boast is generally founded upon the fact, or not the fact, of their having 

 raced over some beautiful country with unprecedented rapidity, or during 

 the night, leaving all opposition lame upon the road. With this movement 

 we have alone to complain. Might not our author have tarried awhile, 

 and with a poet's eye, from the high top of some cloud-touching hill, have 

 watched the gradual waking of that glorious day that shone upon the 

 world, chasing the ignorant shadows from the earth, and bringing on that 

 intellectual sun, that afterward with such rare light 



" Trick'd his fresh beams, and with new-spangled ore, 

 Flamed in the forehead of the morning sky;" 





