546 



PART II. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. Sylva Britdnnica ; or Portraits of Forest Trees distin- 

 guished for their Antiquity, Magnitude, or Beauty. Drawn from 

 . Nature by Jacob George Strutt. Imp. 8vo. London, published 

 > by the Author, 8. Duke Street, St. James's. 



We should be sorry to be accused of puffing, or deemed 

 chargeable with being lavish in bestowing praise, where the 

 same is not justly due. We can, however, without scruple, 

 conscientiously assert that this is, in our judgment, really one 

 of the prettiest and most elegant books we have ever seen. 

 Our opinion of Mr. Strutt, and of his merits as an artist and 

 man of taste, is already known to our readers, from the re- 

 marks we made in a former Number, when his Delicice Sylvd- 

 rum passed under our review. We availed ourselves of that 

 opportunity to make incidental mention also of his previous 

 work, the Sylva Britdnnica, The pen was scarcely laid aside, 

 and the ink was only drying on our paper, when, behold ! 

 forth issues from the same source another Sylva Britannica^ 

 the larger work having produced a little one. Whether Mr. 

 Strutt has duly consulted his own interest in putting forth 

 this second, and comparatively small, edition (which will be 

 likely, we think, to interfere with, if not entirely to supersede, 

 the sale of the former one), is no business of ours ; and we 

 shall not stop to enquire. Should it be thought that the pub- 

 lications in question are in some respects too dissimilar to 

 bear exactly the same name ; it may be urged, on the other 

 hand, that they are in essentials far too much alike to justify the 

 imposition of a different one. As some little confusion, how- 

 ever, perhaps disappointment, may occasionally arise between 

 the booksellers and their customers, from the circumstance of 

 the name and title of the parent having descended unimpaired 

 to the offspring, we shall proceed to point out in what re- 

 spects they agree, and in what they differ. 



The work, then, in imperial octavo, whose title stands at 

 the head of the present article, is, in fact, a smaller edition of 



