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 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



A GLANCE AT THE LAST MONTH'S LITERATURE. 



WE have done little in literature during the last four weeks ; but 

 considering the general scantiness of good publications, the shortest 

 month in the year cannot be called barren. Works of all sorts and 

 sizes, quartos and octavos, the press has poured upon us in abun- 

 dance, our tables groan, and our already creaking shelves are 

 crammed. Would to God they were burdened \vith milk and honey 

 to overflowing, then in our hearts we might rejoice but of many 

 works now before us we can only say, 



" Trunks and tarts must tell the rest." 



The taste for monthly volumes still increases indeed, it is our be- 

 lief that it will never be on the decline, so long as works of standing 

 interest are brought before us "in goodly garbs and shapes." Burns, 

 Scott, Shakspeare, and Gibbon are well worthy of being reproduced 

 in this fashion ; but to talk for an instant of " Standard Novels" by Mrs. 

 Shelley, the Miss Porters, and Madame de Stae'l is ridiculous. They 

 may produce works in which the public will feel the most vivid in- 

 terest for a time but they can hardly be dignified with the name of 

 Standard. It will be found that works are but seldom returned to 

 where fresh sentiment, truth, or imagery is not found ; the world 

 must always be led by men of education and knowledge, and so long 

 as admiration is extended by these persons towards other great 

 writers, so long will the world be willingly led by their opinion. 

 Crabbe is a writer of great power, and unequalled in his way ; but Mr. 

 Murray's skill in adornment, and Stanfield's fertile pencil will never 

 force his works into the hands of the poor ; his descriptions are, in 

 truth, a worse kind of reality, a heightened picture of a barbarous 

 action, which the mind shudders to behold. 



Miss Edgeworth has favoured the world with another novel 

 worthy of her name. She seems to be an indefatigable writer age 

 has not damped her energy, nor physical exhaustion prostrated her 

 intellectual faculties. She is as fresh and as vigorous as ever. 

 " Helen" is a work of a person whose insight into nature is keenly 

 observing. 



Other works of an original stamp have come before us. The 

 " Young Muscovite," by Captain Chamier, and the (t Frolics of 

 Puck," the latter is a bold attempt to revive the times when fairies 

 tripped tfye green. 



We are glad to see that history is not altogether dismissed from 

 the ranks of literature. Information on general topics is always de- 

 sirable, and wherever the wish can be attained, our welcome should 

 be cheering : of the colonial boundaries the larger bulk of people 

 know little or nothing, and even a higher class have not had it in 

 their power to increase or rectify the notions they may have formed 

 of our extensive transmarine dominions. Mr. Montgomery Martin's 

 valuable work on the colonies should therefore be warmly welcomed. 



