1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



459 



the jealousies of a lady, who has figured 

 before in the story, but we had forgotten 

 her. By the demon-like manoeuvres of this 

 lady, a meeting is brought about between 

 the enraged husband and Fitz swords are 

 drawn and, provoked beyond endurance, 

 Fitz runs him through the body and 

 shortly after, in the hot fit of a fever, and 

 the recollection of a sort of a prophecy of his 

 father's, does the same for himself. 



The story hangs loosely together, and 

 there are more agents than business. Stand- 

 wich has more instruments than he requires ; 

 there is a Jew who quotes half the bible ; 

 and a desperate virago who has a finger in 

 every thing, and effective in nothing. An 

 old schoolmaster has some humour, and we 

 looked to see him again; but the writer, 

 apparently, had too much on her hands, 

 and perhaps forgot him. 



Library of Entertaining Knowledge, 

 Vols. I., II., III., IV. Without doubt 

 the term useful would be the more appro- 

 priate epithet for this collection of sterling 

 information, in which the imagination and 

 all its vagaries are studiously excluded. To 

 be sure it is no easy matter to make every- 

 body fix the same sense to the same word, 

 and doubtless the " Diffusion Society" 

 think it as much becomes their gravity, to 

 identify the utlle with the dulce, as Cicero 

 did with the honestum* But every man to 

 his taste the books are valuable books, 

 under whatever title they pass into the 

 hands of their readers. The first volume, 

 called the Menageries, is occupied with 

 quadrupeds solely, not arranged after any 

 recognized system, but according to the 

 writer's convenience or sense of the " en- 

 tertaining ;" leaving the forms to be learnt 

 from the wood-cuts, which are very respect- 

 able, but not of equal quality. The text is 

 confined to descriptions relative to the habits 

 and propensities of animals, varied and il- 

 lustrated with abundance of familiar anec- 

 dotes, for very many of which the very 

 intelligent compiler himself stands sponsor. 

 The second volume concerns vegetable sub- 

 stances, and embraces trees and fruits the 

 main objects pursued are to point out the 

 uses of the first, and to tell the history and 

 cultivation of the other. The third is filled 

 with accounts of men who have successfully 

 pursued knowledge under difficulties col- 

 lected expressly for the purpose of exciting 

 emulation. The diligence of the writer has 

 suffered few remarkable cases to escape him ; 

 and the only faults we find are the abundance 

 of the instances and the brevity of the no- 

 tices singly they whet without satisfying 

 the appetite, and collectively they blunt and 

 confound its perceptions. The fourth, fan- 

 tastically entitled Insect Architecture, is 

 replete with accurate and specific informa- 

 tion relative to the more striking instances 

 of Insect economy. It of course forms only 

 one division of the subject of Insects, and 

 will be followed, according to the announce- 



ment, by a volume of Insect transforma- 

 tions. 



If the treatises on mathematics and sci- 

 ence, x published under the auspices of the 

 same society, were written with half the 

 simplicity, with half the desire to inform, 

 that distinguishes this series of Entertain- 

 ing Knowledge, they would fulfil the hopes 

 so confidently, but, as it proves, so delu- 

 sively, held out to us. Many of the trea- 

 tises we allude to are of a very superior cast, 

 but for that very reason calculated only for 

 the cultivated and accomplished precisely 

 for those who do not want them who have 

 already free access to the gates of science, if 

 they choose to walk in. What is wanted 

 for the uneducated for those who are 

 wholly unused to abstractions, is the easy, 

 even more than the cheap. 



The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., 

 author of the Topography of Leeds, by the 



Rev. J. Hunter, F.S.A., 2 vols., 8vo 



Thoresby was one of the most indefatigable 

 collectors on record, and one of the most in- 

 discriminate nothing came amiss " cu- 

 riosities, natural and artificial," two terms 

 which embrace the universe, were equally 

 and eagerly swept into his net. Inheriting 

 from his father the nest-egg of a museum, 

 it was the pride and pleasure of his exist- 

 ence to add to its treasures, and next to 

 adding, of course, to exhibit them to won- 

 dering gazers. His actual grasp was limited 

 only by his narrow means he was a mar- 

 ried man with a family, and in business as 

 a clothier, but not very successful, and no 

 wonder ; for if his body was in the market, 

 his soul was in his library. His collections, 

 however, as such things will, grew insen- 

 sibly, and attracted visitors far and near ; 

 and he was thus by degrees brought in con- 

 tact or correspondence with all the men of 

 his day eminent in the line of antiquari- 

 anism. His native town, an ancient and 

 extensive one, presented a fertile field for 

 the range of his inquiries ; and his scribing 

 labours, at least those which appear in in- 

 dependent publications, were mainly spent 

 in scanning its antiquities, and illustrating 

 its records. His " Ducatus Leodiensis" is 

 a choice specimen of the topography of the 

 old school, where every acre and house are 

 described with the solicitude of a surveyor 

 every parochial tradition and event, great 

 and small, is recorded ; and every family of 

 any local distinction since the flood, be- 

 pedigreed. His own museum constituted 

 magna pars of the town, and accordingly 

 the Museum Thoresbyanum occupies more 

 than half of his goodly folio. The interests 

 of the world seemed centered in Leeds, and 

 his Vicaria Leodiensis furnishes " learned 

 men, bishops and writers," enough to stock 

 a kingdom. Numbers of his correspondents 

 had the benefit of his assistance Bishop 

 Gibson, in his Camden Calamy, in his 

 Memoirs of Puritan Ministers Stevens, 

 in his Monasticon ; and the works of Oba- 



3 N 2 



