550 
much as possible; for though, in compli- 
ment to established custom, we wear the 
mask ourselves, we think the custom would 
be much ‘more honoured in the breach 
than the observance.” 
Scrapiana Poetica. Part I. By the 
Author of “ Juan Secundus.” 8vo. pp. 53. 
—Those readers and critics of exquisite 
taste, who can relish (understand is out of 
the question) such super-poetical ideas— 
phrases we should say, as “ strains wrap- 
ping tender youth in bliss and harmony,” 
* hearts guiding the tender wings of fancy 
on,” and “rays of memory being free to 
hallow dark tombs,’ &c. may, perhaps, 
wish for a second part, another fifty-three 
pages, of the Scrapiana of Juan Secundus.. 
Foreign Scenes and Travelling Recrea- 
tions. By Joun Howrson, Esq. 2 vols. 
8vo.—The general fault of the sketches of 
foreign countries, manners, customs, &c. 
is, that they are too apt to be painted in all 
the glowing colours of first impressions— 
and thereby the mind is misled, and reality 
falls far short of expectation. Mr. Howi- 
son may be said to have been fully aware 
of this; and perhaps, in an over-anxiety to 
be correct, has, to a certain degree, gone 
into the opposite extreme. Nevértheless, 
his two volumes contain more_ real infor- 
mation than we usually meet with in works 
of this description. There is more of actual 
locality in the manners and characters he 
delineates—and his descriptions are natural 
and finished. His reasoning is, in many 
instances, pertinent: and, upon the whole, 
it is a work that will afford to the reader 
both amusement and information. 
The Novice, or Man of Integrity. From 
the French of L. B. Picarp. Author of the 
Gil Blas of the Revolution, &c. 3 vols. 8v0.— 
Between Paris and London there appears, 
at present, a mutual struggle for pre-emi- 
hence in the art of novel-writing—and the 
readers of both nations are made arbiters 
between them. As fast, almost, as a work 
is produced in one city, it is translated into 
the language of the other. 
We mentioned, in our number for March 
last, that L.B. Picard was an author of no 
little merit, and that he was looked upon 
with much pride by the French, and with 
reason; for he is-a man of considerable 
judgment and genius, and a severe scruti- 
nizer of the fashions and opinions of the 
world. Whilst reading him, we are apt to 
say, “Is the world really as it is here re- 
presented?” But, if we look around, we 
find it so. We should haye no reason to 
complain of our English publishers, if they 
never presented us with worse novels than 
the translation now before us. ‘We do not 
mean to say Li. B. Picard is equal to our 
Great. Unknown ; for he wants two very 
great requisites for the highest mastery of 
his art—taste and feeling. But then, he 
has judgment in an eminent degree; and 
the unusual merit of making his moral 
striking and interesting, without the osten- 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
(July 1, 
tation of parade or sermonizing. This 
work, unlike the ‘‘Gil Blas of the Revolu- 
tion,” contains the adventures of a youth 
passing through the world with the perse- 
vering determination not to forsake the 
path of integrity. Of course, he has many 
temptations to encounter. Through his 
career he moves, however, with undeviat- 
ing integrity, though frequently impeded or 
embarrassed, by love, by false opinion, and 
the customs of the world. He gets through 
the adventures. of ten years, however, with 
little vicissitude of fortune, and finishes, 
in point of rank and station, just where he 
began—with the respect and love of the 
moralist, and the contempt, the pity, or the 
dread of the worldling, or Gil Blas: which 
is the best (and it ought to be enough to 
satisfy him) which the man of uncompro- 
mising integrity, especially in public life, 
can generally expect. ~ 
London in the Olden Times, or Tales in- 
tended to Illustrate the Manners and Super- 
stitions of its Inhabitants from the Twelfth 
to the Sixteenth Century. Post 8vo.—The 
title-page to this well-written, interesting 
and, we may add, erudite little’volume, is 
so explanatory of its object, and of the 
species of instructive entertainment to be 
expected from it, that we need only say, 
that the reader will not find the expecta- 
tion disappointed; that, while the tales 
themselves have a romantic interest, ac- 
cordant with the real history of the age to 
which they refer, and the mystifying in- 
fluence of the superstitions which assumed 
the name of religious devotion in those 
days, they exhibit human nature under the 
modifications of the customs, ceremonials, 
and moral and intellectual habitudes, which 
the superstitions and institutions of the 
period had a natural tendency to produce; 
and that the volume may therefore be re- 
garded as a collection of dramatic illustra- 
tions of a portion of the genuine history of 
the state and progress of human character, 
as it occurred in the centuries referred to, 
in the metropolis of our own country. 
Dramatic Table-Talk, 3 vols. 12mo.— 
A jest-book in three volumes! and _ that 
made up altogether of theatrical anecdotes 
and bons-mots/!! And yet there are more 
readers, we suspect, than ever the divine 
Milton had in his life-time, to whom a 
voluminous collection of such table-talk 
will be acceptable; and who will treasure, 
more devoutly in their memory than they 
would the sublimest passage in the Para~- 
dise Lost, the. precious paragraphs shew- 
ing how Maister Kuke, with Richard’s 
hunch upon his back, when a small glass of 
whiskey was presented to him by a Scotch 
manager, said that ‘‘it would not hurt him 
if it was vitriol;” and how Jemmy Bos- 
well, the lexicographic bear-ward,* imi- 
tated 
* Boswell, who had introduced Dr. Johnson to 
Macpherson, as to other literary Macs in Scotland, 
called upon him the next day to know how he liked 
the 
