1830.] 



Dotnestlc and Foreign. 



215 



tory ; and referring to the anticipations of 

 their general conversion, he concludes 

 thus : " Christianity, to work any change 

 on the hereditary religious pride of the Jew, 

 on his inflexible confidence in his inalien- 

 able privileges, must put off the hostile and 

 repulsive aspect which it has too long worn ; 

 it must, shew itself as the faith of reason, of 

 universal peace and good will to men, and 

 thus unanswerably prove its descent from 

 the all-wise and all-merciful Father. " 



Excitement ; or a Book to induce Boys 

 to read; 1830 This well chosen collec- 

 tion comprises remarkable appearances in 

 nature signal preservations and such in- 

 cidents as, in the editor's judgment, are 

 particularly fitted to arrest the youthful 

 mind. The collector was prompted to make 

 the selection, and publish it, by the remark 

 of an Edinburgh professor amounting to 

 this that, let any boy be as thoughtless 

 and volatile as you please, if you can hit 

 upon a train of thought that suits his state 

 of mind, you are sure to secure his atten- 

 tion ; and if this faculty be thus once 

 excited to one class of objects, it may be 

 afterwards more easily directed to others. 

 The language is obviously that of Mr. 

 Dugald Stewart, or cne of his disciples, and 

 is, at best, but a sort of ex uno disce omnes 

 argument. We like the city preacher's 

 (Cecil) remark a great deal better it has 

 no theory mixed up with it. ( No sermon,' 

 said Cecil, < put my mind half so much on 

 the stretch as a sermon to children ; stories 

 fix children's attention. The simplest 

 manner in the world will not make way to 

 children's minds for abstract truths. With 

 stories I find I could rivet their attention 

 for two or three hours.' The collection 

 itself consists of passages chiefly from po- 

 pular works, most of them very well known 

 a lion hunt in Africa, from the notes of 

 Pringle's Ephemerides the Boiling Springs 

 in Iceland, from Henderson's Journal 

 Signal Preservation in the Life of Captain 

 James Wilson Destruction of a Whaler 

 by a Whale, from a narrative from the 

 mate, Owen Chase, of Nantuckett the 

 Black-Hole of Calcutta the Boa Con- 

 strictor's swallowing a Goat, from Mac- 

 leod's Voyage of the Alceste the Sufferings 

 of the Judsons during the Burmese War 

 Lion Fight, from Croly's Salathiel Anec- 

 dotes of Lions, and an Elephant Hunt, 

 from Thompson's Travels and Adventures 

 in Southern Africa the Ashantees, from 

 Bowdich's book the Wreck of the Me- 

 dusa Sharks in the South Sea (original) 



Siege of St. Sebastian (original,) with a few 

 others, and among them, His Majesty's 

 Visit to Scotland in 1822, taken from letters 

 addressed to Sir W. Scott, on the moral 

 and political character and effects of the 

 said visit, which were written, it seems, but 

 not generally known to be so, by James 

 Simpson, a Scotch advocate, better known 

 as the author of < a Visit to the Field of 



Waterloo.' This account of his majesty's 

 visit we never read before ; it is impossible 

 not to be borne along by the eloquence and 

 enthusiasm of the writer, and as impossible 

 not to exclaim absurd at the end of it. 



Ruins of Ancient Grandeur in Idumsea 

 an extract from a work by Alexander Keith, 

 minister of St. Cyrus, entitled ' Evidences 

 of the Truth of the Christian Religion, de- 

 rived from the Fulfilment of Prophecy,' 

 is a remarkable passage. We can only 

 direct the reader's attention to it. 



Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 

 2 vols ; 1830. This is a posthumous pub- 

 lication the work of a Norfolk clergyman 

 a man whose life was actively and usefully 

 spent in the education of youth and the du- 

 ties of a country magistrate, utterly unknown 

 to literary fame, though respected by the few 

 who knew his acquirements, and were able 

 to estimate them. The Editor of the per- 

 formance is Dawson Turner, one of his 

 early pupils, who has put together a few 

 particulars concerning the author, and the 

 circumstances which led to the composition 

 of the work. The Vocabulary itself is of 

 very considerable value, as a mere collection 

 of ancient words still in use among the 

 illiterate, but faithful conservators of them, 

 in a region, in some respects, as remote as 

 any corner of the kingdom, and as unlikely 

 to be corrupted by affectations and improve- 

 ments in matters of language. But the 

 distinguishing merit of the book is the 

 sound view the writer takes of the matter 

 historically the independent consideration 

 he gives to it his contempt of mere theo- 

 ries, and disregard of great names the 

 true clue which his shrewd understanding 

 afforded him, and the steady use he made 

 of it, in tracking the labyrinths of his subject. 

 The preliminary essay is one of the most 

 intelligent things we have seen a long time. 

 The basis of ,the EnglisrV language is irre- 

 fragably Saxon. No one word, now in use, 

 is clearly traceable as Celtic, in spite of all 

 the efforts of Whittaker, and others of his 

 school. The fact of a Saxon basis is esta- 

 blished, beyond all further discussion, by 

 Sharon Turner, in his History of the 

 Saxons, if other evidence be wanting. Take 

 a proof : 



" Then when Mary was come where 

 Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at 

 his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou 

 hadst been here my brother had not died. 

 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and 

 the Jews also weeping which came with her, 

 he groaned in spirit and was troubled^ and 

 said, where have ye laid him ? They said 

 unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus 

 wept. Then said the Jews, behold how he 

 loved him." 



Excepting the names, this passage con- 

 tains seventy -two words, all of which are 

 Saxon, but the two printed in italics, and 

 none of which are yet obsolete. Mr. Forby 

 establishes the same point by tracing the 



