We have received from Messrs. Rivington, four volumes of their new and
complete edition of _The Works and Correspondence of The Right Honourable
Edmund Burke_, and we do not know that a more valuable contribution could
be made to our stores of historical and political literature, than this
handsome collection of the writings of one whom Sir Robert Peel pronounced
"the most profound of the philosophic statesmen of modern times." Dear to
all lovers of literature as must be the memory of Burke, the friend of
Johnson, who declared, "he was the only man whose common conversation
corresponded with the fame which he had in the world," and of Goldsmith,
who complained that--
"He to party gave up what was meant for mankind;"
and that he
... "too deep for his hearers still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;"--
the present aspect of the political world compels us to look at him rather
as a politician than as a man of letters. Considering, therefore, not only
the profoundly philosophical character of his political works, but also the
elevated tone of political morality which is displayed in the writings of
Edmund Burke--a wisdom and a morality rendered still more attractive by the
unrivalled eloquence with which they are enunciated--the present handsome
and cheap collection of {525} those writings is alike creditable to the
enterprise of the publishers, and well calculated to exercise a beneficial
influence upon the political condition of the country. It would indeed be
well if all who aspire to seats in the new parliament would fit themselves
for such positions by a study of the writings of Edmund Burke.
Mr. Willis has just issued a neat reprint of what has now become a very
scarce volume, _The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, a work which may be
regarded as a model of political satire. It is accompanied by occasional
notes elucidating allusions now become obscure through lapse of time, and
the blanks in the text have been filled up with the names of the various
persons introduced or alluded to. Some attempt has also been made to
identify the various authors by whom the several articles were written; but
we are surprised to find this so imperfectly executed, for when the editor
speaks of the authorship being in many cases mere matter of conjecture, it
is clear that he did not know of the very curious, and, we may add,
authentic list, furnished to the third volume (p. 348.) of this journal by
Mr. Hawkins of the British Museum; who has also given a history of the
work, and of the manner in which it was conducted, which ought to have been
made use of.
BOOKS RECEIVED.--_Legal Iambics in Prose, suggested by the present Chancery
Crisis_, a quaint discourse, in which there is no small learning and
humour, and to which may be applied, with some variation, Gay's well-known
Epilogue:
"Our pamphlet has a moral, and no doubt
You all have sense enough to find it out."
_An Essay upon the Ghost Belief of Shakspeare_, by Alfred Roffe, is a
little pamphlet well deserving perusal, in which the author--who holds that
ghost belief, rightly understood, is most rational and salutary--endeavours
to show that it must have had the sanction of such a thinker as
Shakspeare.--_Rome in the Nineteenth Century, containing a complete account
of the Ruins of the Ancient City, the Remains of the Middle Ages, and the
Monuments of Modern Times_, by Charlotte A. Eaton. _Fifth Edition_, Vol.
I., the new issue of Bohn's _Illustrated Library_, with its thirty-four
engraved illustrations, will be found a very useful and instructive guide
to the "Eternal City."--_The Heroides, the Amours, Art of Love, &c., of
Ovid, translated_ (with the judicious exception of the more questionable
passages, which are left in the original Latin), forming the new volume of
Bohn's _Classical Library_. In his _Standard Library_ we have now the fifth
and concluding volume of what has been well described as "the enthralling
Biographies of Vasari." Thus for considerably less than one pound has the
English lover of Art the means of possessing one of the most interesting
and instructive works on the subject of his favourite study ever produced.
The work deserves, and, we trust, will meet with a very wide circulation.
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