MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 293 



Wales, there is a more English appearance about Cape Town than any colo- 

 nial station I have visited. The squares are well laid out, the streets extremely 

 clean, the public edifices numerous and substantial. Throughout the week 

 there is a continued busy hum of industry ; and, on the Sabbath morn, the 

 melody of the church going bell, and the groups of well-dressed individuals 

 flocking to their respective places of worship, may readily induce the traveller 

 to forget that he is on the southernmost extremity of Africa. 



" The Castle, situate on the left of the town (entering from Table Bay), is a 

 strong fortification commanding the anchorage, and, if well defended, capable 

 of successful resistance against any force which may be brought against it. 

 The fortress is pentagonal, with a broad fosse and regular outworks. It con- 

 tains within its walls most of the public offices, and barracks for 1,000 men. 

 There are other works defending Cape Town. Fort Knokke, on the east, is 

 connected with the castle by a rampart called the sea-lines ; and further east 

 is Craig's tower and battery. On the west side, and surrounding the Lion's 

 Rump, are Rogge, Amsterdam, and Chavonne batteries, all bearing upon the 

 anchorage. The entrance of the bay is commanded by a battery, called the 

 Mouille. 



" The colonists are indebted to the paternal sway of the Earl Caledon for 

 the laying down of hydraulic pipes, by means of which a plentiful supply of 

 excellent water is furnished to every part of the town, and ships' boats are 

 supplied at the landing place with a beverage which, even after many months 

 keeping at sea, I found equal to that of the Thames." 



Mr. Martin's work, so far as we have had leisure to examine it, is well 

 worthy of public notice. The Author has not, by these smaller publications, 

 injured the reputation which his larger work on the colonies has so justly won 

 for him. 



Notes of a Ramble through France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. By a 

 Lover of the Picturesque. Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 



THIS volume is respectably written, in so far as mere composition is con- 

 cerned, but there is nothing but words in it. There is, as Falstaff would have 

 said, " a most plentiful lack " both of incident and of sentiment. The work 

 is [made up of the most common-place circumstances of the merest trifles. 

 What could have induced the author to " go to press " we cannot divine. 

 We should think, however, the success of this effort at authorship will not be 

 such as to encourage him to make a second attempt " in a hurry." 



Diary of a Desennuyee. 2 Vols. 8vo. Colburn. 



WE have often in society heard the question asked " who wrote the Diary of 

 a Desennuyee ?",and with such empressement that we were led to suppose ere 

 we read the book that it must be a second Waverley. The work is not 

 entirely without merit. Many of the lady's remarks on society are caustic 

 and satirical, and she is evidently in her own circle a person of distinguished 

 abilities. It is still very questionable whether the authoress would add to 

 her private reputation by the abandonment of her literary incognito. The 

 first volume is chiefly an acconnt of the gay widow's London season ; the 

 second describes her introduction to the beau monde of Paris. The French 

 fashionables must be pre-eminently silly people, if they are half so silly as 

 those represented by the Desennuyee. 



Such books as those ^before us will we suppose always obtain the support 

 of a certain class who prefer namby-pamby common-place and scandal to the 

 genuine productions of the imagination :" and the reviewer has fully dis- 

 charged his duty by entering his protest against the whole system. A short 

 time ago the Quarterly Review passed a sweeping censure on the novels of 

 France : it would not be difficult to write an article equally severe and more 

 to the point on the novels of our own country. We may perhaps revert to 

 the subject. 



