230 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[AuG. 



immediate transcription as the only security. 

 Of their importance Mr. B. thus speaks : 



As the knowledge and consequent esteem of 

 our national records and muniments have in- 

 creased through the measures adopted by the 

 Record Commission, their use has every day be- 

 come more general, and their authority more 

 frequently consulted, both for literary and legal 

 purposes. Indeed the most sanguine expectations 

 that could have been entertained concerning the 

 advantages of this great national work, have 

 been amply realized. From the sources here laid 

 open, the laws, the history, and the constitution 

 of the kingdom are daily receiving elucidation, 

 and to the antiquary, the topographer, the genea- 

 logist, and to the nation in general, an inexhausti- 

 ble mine of information is discovered, which, be- 

 fore, had lain buried in obscurity. 



A Guide and Rocket Companion through 

 Italy, by William Cathcart Boyd, M. D. ; 

 1830. Dr. Boyd was prompted to compile 

 his valuable little volume from a conviction, 

 produced by woeful experience, of the utter 

 uselessness of the few works which he could 

 meet with professing to give the information 

 which every traveller naturally looks for. 

 Page after page he found spent in descrip- 

 tions of paintings, and statues, and 

 churches, alike wearisome and inaccurate, 

 while correct catalogues are always to be 

 had for a trifle at every town and all this 

 to the neglect of much that is valuable and 

 even indispensible for travellers to know. 

 Disregarding, then, these matters, which 

 may always be more faithfully learnt on 

 the spot, Dr. Boyd confines himself to 

 matters of practical utility to matters of 

 importance to be known beforehand the 

 posts and distances, rates of posting, monies, 

 expences of living, directions to travellers, 

 and hints, and a brief description of the 

 most interesting objects of antiquity 

 intending his book, in short, as a useful 

 little pocket companion, to be referred to 

 with confidence at all times when difficulty 

 presents itself; and, things continuing the 

 same, we have no doubt the book will fulfil 

 its purpose. 



To add to the value of his manual, Dr. 

 Boyd adds his experience as a physician, 

 and gives professional advice to invalids, 

 and all who wish to enjoy health, and pre- 

 serve it, as to residence, diet, clothing, and 

 regimen, with " prescriptions" in Latin and 

 English, for different cases. If more be 

 still desirable as to the actual circumstances 

 of I taly, he recommends Lady Morgan's work, 

 and that, it seems, is to be met with in all 

 the circulating libraries on the continent 

 this, by the way, we think is a mistake. 

 Lady M.'s work does honour, Dr. Boyd 

 says, to her head and heart. It is not every 

 one that will, or can, tolerate the taste of 

 this very clever woman. 



First Love, a Novel, 3 vols, \2mo 

 Though merely a romance another com- 

 plication of old characters and materials, of 

 angels and demons, of mystery and its 

 eclaircissement, the common stuff and staple 



of novels of the secondary, and of many of 

 the first class, time out of mind it is not 

 unskilfully put together the positions of 

 the parties are often interesting enough, 

 and the development of feeling and passion 

 consistent and effective. 



The hero of the tale is the heir of a 

 noble family exchanged by his nurse, and 

 stolen by an itinerant beggar for the sake of 

 his clothes forced to counterfeit lameness, 

 beaten, starved, and, finally, deserted. In 

 this forlorn condition the poor child is dis- 

 covered by a young lady in a most romantic 

 spot on the lakes of Cumberland, taken to 

 her mother, and kindly entertained. The 

 family consists of the benevolent old lady, 

 her daughter, and a nephew two or three 

 years older than the rescued child, and one 

 who gives very early indications of inbred 

 malignity. The young lady is on the point 

 of marriage, and the child is, to please her, 

 patronized, and in a manner adopted by the 

 mother. He is a most interesting boy 

 quite aristocratic in form and feature, and 

 even in manner, which gives rise to a con- 

 viction of some distinguished origin, and 

 which is fed and confirmed by some subse- 

 quent information, though both vague and 

 anonymous. In due time the bride has 

 twins, two lovely girls, and our little hero, 

 then seven years old, makes their earliest 

 acquaintance, and as they grow up, they 

 regard him as a brother. At a suitable age 

 he is sent to the naval college, and goes to 

 sea, and becomes every inch a sailor. He 

 enters into the service under the most fa- 

 vourable auspices, and is, after a change or 

 two placed in the ship of the noble 

 admiral, a sort of Lord Nelson, where 

 opportunities occur in abundance, none of 

 which are, of course, lost. At every return 

 to port he revisits the lakes, and is always 

 welcomed with delight by his little play- 

 mates, towards one of whom he begins to 

 experience feelings which differ somewhat 

 from the fraternal ones he before felt, and 

 which he still feels for the other. By this 

 time the nephew of his patroness turns out, 

 what his earliest bent seemed to promise, a 

 worthless profligate crimes of the darkest 

 dye are all but brought home to him. To 

 put him a little out of what is called harm's 

 way, he also is sent to sea, and in a few 

 years becomes the lieutenant of the young 

 hero whose activity and good patronage had 

 very early procured him a ship. In the 

 meanwhile, the brave and now distinguished 

 youth shrinks from the avowal of his senti- 

 ments towards the lady, nameless and a 

 foundling as he is, and she who has always 

 loved him as a brother, and still thinks her 

 feelings the same, is distressed at the re- 

 ports of his attachment to another. The 

 young men, belonging now to the same 

 ship, occasionally visit their common home 

 together ; and the nephew, who himself has 

 an eye to the lady and her immense pro- 

 perty, detects the real state of their mutual . 

 feelings, and treats the youth whom, when 



