6 



VIII. 

 Just Published in Foolscap 8vo., Price 5s. 



The Book of Aphorisms. 



BY A MODERN PYTHAGOREAN. 



" We should have noticed this spirited and delightful 

 volume long ere now — and would have made a point of 

 doing so, had its tendency and nature been in the least 

 degree ephemeral ; but to the reader of the Anatomy of 

 Drunkenness and the Philosophy of Sleep, it will require 

 no rhetorical effort of ours to show that no serious and 

 deliberate publication of Dr. Macnish's can be so. These 

 two acknowledged works have been before the world for 

 years — th-ey rose instantly into popularity, and continue 

 popular ; and we have no doubt that this last brochure, ' to 

 make a third will join the former two,' in the good graces 

 of the reading public. These Aphorisms exhibit keen 

 observations of life, manners, and authorship — are gilded 

 with the play of a delightful fancy ; and without the cynical 

 moroseness of Rochefoucault, the pert paradox of Hazlitt, 

 or the sententious indelicacy of Sterne ; convey wholesome 

 advices, and pleasant remarks, in a way that cannot fail to 

 amuse while they instruct. Some are on light subjects, and 

 some on weighty ; and number three never predicts what 

 number four is to tell us ; but the variety is of itself charm- 

 ing, and we sit down as it were to a breakfast a la fuurchette^ 

 where one helps himself to tea, and another to coffee, a third 

 commencing with a sliced tongue, and a fourth with devilled 

 turkey, while a fifth prefers broiled salmon steak, and 

 wonders at a sixth, his neighbour who is gobbling up Ger- 

 man sausage, 



" To review such a book as the present, which, so far a9 

 matter goes, has neither beginning, middle, nor end, and 

 which, like the Hebrew, we may, if we choose, begin t« 

 read backward, were a preposterous undertaking. The 

 only way is to give a dozen consecutive Aphorisms, by way 

 of extract, opening the book at random. 



" He who could write these six hundred and seventy-live 

 Aphorisms, could readily add a thousand more to them. 

 Let him do so, and that speedily, in the shape of a second 

 series. When both are bound together, they will make a 

 delightful travelling companion. 



" The getting up is exquisite in every respect. Well done, 

 Glasgow !" — Edinburgh Evening Post. 



