Domestic and Foreign. 



99 



hearsay, as about his own personal 

 knowledge. We have already had a 

 translation, and the name of the new 

 translator cannot, that we know of, have 

 any weight. Assurances, however, are 

 given in the preface of extensive re- 

 searches on the part of Mr. M ernes, 

 employed in comparing the statements 

 of the last volume, especially with the 

 evidence to be obtained from the works 

 of others, and with information col- 

 lected, in many instances, on the spot. 

 Much fuss is made about these re- 

 searches they are even assigned as the 

 ground of some unusual delay in the 

 periodical publication. " Such investi- 

 gations require time ;" doubtless, they 

 do, and the common result of such re- 

 searches is something beyond a general 

 assurance a bare testimony, that 

 " never was a more veracious historian 

 than Bourienne." The translation is 

 not at all superior to the old one, which 

 by mere chance we happened to read 

 it is even fuller of Gallicisms and mis- 

 conceptions. Liberties, too, are taken 

 with the original text by both parties, 

 which, of course, depreciates the value 

 of both. The reader, who recurs to 

 translations, requires, like a judge in a 

 court of justice, the writer's sentiments, 

 his ii'hole sentiments, and nothing but his 

 sentiments ; and we are quite sure 

 neither translation will answer these 

 demands. 



Edinburgh Cabinet Library. VoL I. 

 Competition in book-making, as Paine 

 said of paper money, is strength in the 

 beginning, and weakness in the end. It 

 begets a few good articles to begin with, 

 but by overstocking the market, quickly 

 terminates in monopolies, and monopo- 

 lies, of course, in idleness and deterio- 

 ration. All these libraries, as the 

 publishers style them, can never find a 

 market. Murray, and Lardner, and 

 Constable, have got possession the rest 

 must go. The first volume of the 

 Edinburgh presents a fair sketch of the 

 different attempts that have been made 

 to traverse the Polar Seas, from the 

 days of poor Sir Hugh Willoughby to our 

 own but not superior, and scarcely 

 equal, to a similar sketch in the Cabinet 

 Cyclopaedia perhaps, however, by the 

 same Hugh Murray. He seems to hold 

 a patent for the execution of these sub- 

 jectshe is every where, with his name 

 or without it. Two Scotch professors of 

 authority discuss the climate and geo- 

 logy of the polar regions, and Hugh 

 Murray has had his own chapter on 

 zoology overhauled by some other 

 doughty professor so that the volume 

 is quite a pic-nic concern. Too many 

 cooks, they say, spoil the broth, and we 

 are sure both the climate and the geo- 

 logy are defective for want of data, or 



to prosecute the metaphor, of ingre- 

 dients. The volume is handsomely ^ot 

 up; and the series is to be occupied 

 solely with realities, in contradiction to 

 works of fiction, on which the editor 

 sarcastically includes history and bio- 

 graphy, and especially that of statesmen, 

 or we misunderstand the prospectus. 

 The publishers do not .subject them- 

 selves to the mechanical necessity base 

 mechanics of a monthly periodical 

 issue. We scarcely expect to hear of 

 them again. 



By the way, it grows late to hope for 

 Captain lioss's return this season. 



Family Library. Dramatic Series. 

 Vol. II. After a long delay not occa- 

 sioned, apparently, by any arduous la- 

 bours on the part of the editor we have 

 a second volume of Massinger, embrac- 

 ing the Duke of Milan, the City Ma- 

 dam, and the Picture, with but little 

 mutilation, together with a couple of 

 acts of the Unnatural Combat, and a 

 scene or two of the Roman Actor. The 

 Unnatural Combat is curtailed, " as 

 notwithstanding very forcible and elo- 

 quent passages, the tenor of the inci- 

 dents is offensive and disgusting, and 

 every reader of good taste and feeling 

 will be thankful for being spared the pevu- 

 sal of them" which is a sort of Irish con- 

 ception, for it, in fact, implies a perusal , 

 and if it did not, cannot readers be suf- 

 fered to judge for themselves^ and throw 

 the book aside, when the subject really 

 gives offence and disgust ? The Roman 

 Actor is still more curtailed of its pro- 

 portions, and with less reason "the 

 main plot is unpleasing, and the piece 

 has the air of detached scenes," and so 

 the editor resolved to give it the reality, 

 and print scarcely one-fifth of it. Ac- 

 cording to the original prospectus, in. 

 decorum and the sense of the word is 

 specific enough was to be the sole ground 

 of omission ; but now the offensive, the 

 disgusting, the unpleasing, and even the 

 unskilful, all very indefinite terms, are 

 new causes for clipping. By the way, 

 the editor must have been napping when 

 he suffered a passage in the Picture, 

 page 356, to be reprinted it is as coarse 

 as" any thing that has been cut out. 

 The few notes are generally Gifford's. 

 The editor gives one of his own upon 

 the word petard thus, "i. 0., an engine, 

 containing gunpowder, used in blowing 

 up towns ." In the same speech occurs 

 basiliscos, which is left unnoticed, though 

 certainly a term less familiar than pe- 

 tard ; it is better to be silent than to 

 blunder. 



Divines of the Church of England, by 

 Isaac Barrow Of all the indefatigable 

 men our literary annals can furnisn, 

 none ever came near to Isaac Barrow. 



