1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



567 



quires to be lifted lightly along, 

 cumbered with a draff-chain. TJ 



which, if he had had any eyes, he might 

 have seen in every street at home. 1 he 

 wood-sketches are by Brooke, both design 

 and cutting, and are admirable in their 

 way. If the writer had called his book 

 Reynolds's Annual, the thing would 

 have been intelligible, and just in his 

 way approaching a pun. 



Cabinet Cyclopedia. Vol. XVII. Hy- 

 drostatics and Pneumatics. This is a po- 

 pular book on the subjects of hydrostatics 

 and pneumatics, which, with the aid of 

 a few diagrams, to the exclusion of ma- 

 thematical forms, gives a competent no- 

 tion of the principles upon which the 

 general conclusions are built, relative to 

 water and air. Dr. Lardner has made a 

 ^ood use of his acquaintance with the 

 familiar facts which illustrate the prin- 

 ciples of science ; but there is an absence 

 of Hie and vigour, and a clumsy kind of 

 arrangement of materials, which combine 

 to throw an air of heaviness andprosiness 

 over the work, and which must be attri- 

 buted to an inability to convey his ex- 

 tensive knowledge in the most direct 

 form. We do not charge him with a 

 want of logic, technically, but with a 

 slip-sloppiriess of connection, and a 

 round-about sort of phraseology, which 

 retard precisely where the reader re- 



unen- 



drag-chain. The stu- 

 dent, however, must not expect the 

 writer in these matters to do every thing 

 for him he must bring his whole atten- 

 tion with him, and not hope to read as 

 he runs ; if he does he will surely be 

 disappointed; but we believe, for his 

 comfort, the first chapter that on Pres- 

 sure of Fluids is the most repulsive, 

 and one that best justifies our complaint. 



Hints addressed to the Small Holders 

 and Peasantry of Ireland on Road-making, 

 Ventilation, Qc., by Martin Doyle. Mar- 

 tin Doyle thoroughly understands his 

 countrymen all their wants and their 

 prejudices their shrewdness and their 

 humour ; and while he aims at correcting 

 the one, frankly indulges the other. His 

 books are full of useful information and 

 excellent advice skilfully adapted 

 brought home not only to their under- 

 standing, but their feelings, and enli- 

 vened by little anecdotes, told broadly, 

 but all to the purpose. They are pub- 

 lished at Dublin, are cheap, and we be- 

 lieve largely circulated by benevolent 

 people, Road-making is the introductory 

 object, and much information relative to 

 the craft is given ; but the main purpose is 

 to enforce an honest and active perform- 

 ance of duty. Example will, however, 

 doubtless work more effectively than pre- 

 cept, and they must see their superiors 

 mend their manners, before they will at- 

 tempt it themselves. Roads in Ireland 

 are almost universally jobs they are 



granted to landlords to enable them to get 

 their rents, to whom they are actually 

 paid from the county rates ; but Martin 

 Doyle's business lies wholly with the 

 workmen. In the rest of the publication, 

 cleanliness, pure air, and temperance, 

 form the burden of Martin's song; but 

 whether he will get his countrymen to 

 sing it read it we mean is another 

 question ; that is, we take it, at least 

 as unlikely, as to get the advice reduced 

 to practice. But here and there, where 

 there is already a predisposition, pro- 

 selytes will be made ; and at all events, 

 if nothing is attempted, nothing can be 

 done, nor any thing expected. Martin 

 has the merit of doing all that books can 

 do. He is a very clever fellow. 



Mattaire on Greek Dialects, by the Rev. 



J. Seager This volume completes Mr. 



Seager's epitomising labours. With Vi- 

 ger, Hoogeveen, Bas, and Herman, the 

 Greek student has a set of scarcely dis- 

 pensible subsidia, at all events, in a more 

 accessible form than before. Of the 

 former works we have been inclined to 

 wish the compression still farther com- 

 pressed, especially Hoogeveen and Her- 

 man ; but Mattaire is scarcely suscep- 

 tible of more, for its usefulness consists 

 in the details. Mr. S. has laboured zea- 

 lously, and must be allowed to have dis- 

 cerned well of Greek literature. Mat- 

 taire's arrangements were not to be in- 

 terfered with, or a separation of the^Eolic 

 from the Doric dialect might have been 

 desirable. 



Epitome of English Literature. Vol. I. 

 Paley's Moral Philosophy Books mul- 

 tiply so rapidly that the most pains- 

 taking reader can throw but a glance at 

 half of them, and old books, in their full 

 dimensions, stand no chance of perusal 

 at all. To obviate this crying evil, the 

 projector of this publication himself the 

 first of book-schemers proposes to cut 

 down the best of them to a portable com- 

 pass, expressly to enable them to jostle 

 tor a reading with the novels and trifles 

 of the day. We have ourselves little 

 tolerance for a scheme which is to make 

 skeletons and 'syllabuses of works, the 

 merit of which often largely consists in 

 dilatation and detail ; but, what is worse, 

 individual peculiarities must vanish or 

 merge in the one uniform taste of the 

 despoiler of genius, and, like the reports 

 of parliamentary speeches, henceforth 

 speak all the same language. It is, in 

 fact, a conspiracy for murdering indivi- 

 dual reputation, and among those who 

 are to be thus sacrificed, we see the 

 names of Burnett, Clarendon, Gibbon, 

 Hume, Robertson, Bacon, Locke, Ad- 

 dison, Johnson, Milton, and Swift. Thus 

 stript and skinned, in what will Hume, 

 for instance, differ from the scores of 

 epitomes of English history ? But what 



