REVIEWS, 47 



Instances of a contrary kind are only exceptional ones, and prove the rule 

 to be as I have just stated. Let me here disavow any personal pique in 

 the matter, every review of my own works having benn favourable. 



No doubt they, the Reviewers, are paid well for the work they perform, 

 and it answers their purpose to do as they do, but that the greater portion, 

 by about ten thousand to one, of what they put in print on the subject, 

 is not the sort of thing that the author, whose work is reviewed, either 

 wants or wishes, or cares a groat about, is shewn at once by the fractional 

 part of the same which he extracts, or his bookseller for him, for the 

 purpose of notifying to the public, through the condensed medium of an 

 advertisement, what is, in the estimation of the said Reviewer, the character 

 of the volume or volumes in question. Such is my opinion of professional 

 "Reviews and Reviewers," and entertaining it pretty strongly, and having 

 at the same time, a most profound contempt for the Editorial ^^We," 

 I do not intend to follow what I pronounce to be on their part a bad 

 example, but to take a precisely opposite course, in noticing from time to 

 time any works which ladies or gentlemen, authoresses or authors, may feel 

 disposed to forward to me for the purpose; that is to say, I shall be as 

 brief in such notices as I possibly can, and shall give only an indication 

 of the character of each work, to be useful, (if a good character of it 

 appears to me to be deserved,) to the said authoress or author. I have 

 spoken. 



Nunhurnholme Rectory, Decemher, 1855. F, 0. MORRIS. 



t\mtm. 



The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Great Britain; an attempt to classify 

 them according to their Geognostic Relations. By John Gilbert Baker, 

 London : W. and F. G. Cash. 

 This is a small work of thirty pages. Its title indicates its nature. 



It is well and carefully done, as might be expected from the high botanical 



character of the author. The subject has been hitherto neglected both by 



botanists and geologists. 



The Entomologist's Annual for 1856. London: Van Voorst. Price 2s. 6d. 

 This work supplies, and well supplies, an evident desideratum. It gives 

 much useful information, such as a list of new species discovered during 

 the preceding year, a list of British Entomologists, etc., etc. The writer 

 is perhaps rather too off-hand in some of his observations. 



