MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 185 



minate that eminence in reputation which is now engrossed by a few indivi- 

 duals, who are overloaded with work in short, that it would give character 

 and stability to a department of knowledge which, as com pared with classical 

 learning, has been greatly underrated and neglected, but which is, nevertheless, 

 of the greatest importance to the best and most permanent interests of this 

 country and of mankind." 



We wish that every lover of English science and of the success of English 

 mining projects would exert himself as does Mr. English. 



Thoughts on Physical Education. By CHARLES CALDWKLL, M. D. 



Longman & Co. 



THIS is a very excellent little work. It is the production of an intelligent 

 and philosophical mind. Whether all the positions of the author are tenable 

 is another question. Some of them appear to us, to say the least, to be of a 

 debateable nature. Even, however, when they may be deemed unsound, the 

 author displays much argument in his manner of defending them. The work 

 contains a great deal of highly valuable matter. We have not, indeed, often 

 so much that is at once really useful and interesting in a volume of such 

 limited dimensions. 



The Young Divine ; or a Plain and Easy Introduction to the Know- 

 ledge of the Scriptures. By the Rev. W. FLETCHER, F.R.A.S. 

 N.Hailes. 



THIS little work promises to be very useful to the young. It gives a plain 

 and concise view of the character and contents of the various books of Scrip- 

 ture, and also explains several terms and texts which must appear mysterious 

 to young persons. 



The Magician. By LEI TCH RITCHIE. 3 vols. post 8vo. Macrone. 



IT is so much the fashion for an author whom the success of an album or an- 

 nual tale, or the flattering reception given by private friendship to a few short 

 and unmeaning rhymes, to launch his little stock of talent in the perilous ven- 

 ture of a three-volume novel or romance, that we have ceased, out of pure 

 ennui at the task, to notice such sapless productions. Still, when the name 

 of a man of distinguished talent is attached to a work of a class that undoubt- 

 edly admits the display of the highest possible abilities, we have a natural 

 curiosity to ascertain how far his reputation is correctly founded. In the pre- 

 sent case we have not, on the whole, been disappointed. Mr. Leitch Ritchie 

 is one of the very few English writers whose knowledge of the history and 

 antiquities of France is sufficient to enable him to write an historical romance 

 having for its subject the events of the French annals. He has not, in our 

 opinion, chosen the best or most pleasing page of those annals; but, after 

 making due allowances for the sombre and supernatural Mrs. Ratcliffe-like 

 character of the story, we may justly compliment the author on the talented 

 manner in which he has brought before modern readers a story of that olden 

 time when credulity and superstition had not been chased away by the dis- 

 coveries of physical science in our own day. As the true story on which the 

 romance is founded is given in a postcript at the end of the last volume, we 

 give it to our readers as a more suitable development of the work than our 

 own meagre outline of the tale would furnish. 



" At the gradual intermingling of the East with the West, of the unstable 

 with the stable form of civilization, magic necessarily declined in importance. 

 The massacre of the Magi, after the fall of Smerdis, scattered abroad the se- 



