One of the most beautifully got up cheap publications which we have seen
for a long time, is the new edition of Byron's _Poems_, just issued by Mr.
Murray. It consists of eight half-crown volumes, which may be separately
purchased, viz. Childe Harold, one volume; Tales and Poems, one volume; and
the Dramas, Miscellanies, and Don Juan, &c., severally in two volumes. Mr.
Murray has also made another important contribution to the cheap literature
of the day in the republication, in a cheap and compendious form, of the
various Journals of Sir Charles Fellows, during those visits to the East to
which we owe the acquisition of the Xanthian Marbles. The present edition
of his _Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, and more particularly in the
Province of Lycia_, as it embraces the substance of all Sir Charles's
various journals and pamphlets, and only omits the Greek and Lycian
inscriptions, and lists of plants and coins, and such plates as were not
capable of being introduced into the present volume, will, we have no
doubt, be acceptable to a very numerous class of readers, and takes its
place among the most interesting of the various popular narratives of
Eastern travel.
Most of our readers will probably remember the memorable remark of Lord
Chancellor King, that "if the ancient discipline of the Church were lost,
it might be found in all its purity in the Isle of Man." Yet
notwithstanding this high eulogium on the character of the saintly Bishop
Wilson, it is painful to find that his celebrated work, _Sacra Privata_,
has hitherto been most unjustifiably treated and mutilated, as was noticed
in our last volume, p. 414. But here we have before us, in a beautifully
printed edition of this valuable work, the good bishop _himself_, what he
thought, and {98} what he wrote, in his _Private Meditations, Devotions,
and Prayers_, now for the first time printed from his original manuscripts
preserved in the library of Sion College, London. Much praise is due to the
editor for bringing this manuscript before the public, as well as for the
careful superintendence of the press; and we sincerely hope he will
continue his labours of research in Sion College as well as in other
libraries.
There are doubtless many of our readers who echo Ben Jonson's wish that
Shakspeare had blotted many a line, referring of course to those
characteristic of the age, not of the man, which cannot be read aloud. To
all such, the announcement that Messrs. Longman have commenced the
publication in monthly volumes of a new edition of Bowdler's _Family
Shakspeare, in which nothing is added to the original text, but those words
and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read in a
family_, will be welcome intelligence. The work is handsomely printed in
Five-Shilling Volumes, of which the first three are already published.
BOOKS RECEIVED.--_Memoirs of James Logan, a distinguished Scholar and
Christian Legislator, &c._, by Wilson Armistead. An interesting biography
of a friend of William Penn, and one of the most learned of the early
emigrants to the American Continent.--_Yule-Tide Stories, a Collection of
Scandinavian and North German Popular Tales and Traditions._ The name of
the editor, Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, is a sufficient guarantee for the value of
this new volume of Bohn's _Antiquarian Library_. In his _Philological
Library_, Mr. Bohn has published a new and enlarged edition of Mr. Dawson
W. Turner's _Notes on Herodotus_: while in his _Classical Library_ he has
given _The Pharsalia of Lucan literally translated into English Prose, with
Copious Notes_, by H. T. Riley, B.A.; and has enriched his _Scientific
Library_ by the publication of Dr. Chalmers's _Bridgewater Treatise on the
Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Adaption of
External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man_, with
the author's last corrections, and a Biographical Preface by Dr. Cumming.
_Photographic Manipulation._ _The Wax-paper Process of Gustave Le Gray_,
translated from the French, published by Knight & Sons; and _Hennah's
Directions for obtaining both Positive and Negative Pictures upon Glass by
means of the Collodion Process, &c._, published by Delatouche & Co., are
two little pamphlets which will repay the photographer for perusal, but are
deficient in that simplicity of process which is so much to be desired if
Photography is to be made more popular.
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