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THE PRACTICE OF THE COURT OF SESSION. By JAMES JOHNSTON DARLING, Writer to the Signet. 2 VOLS. 8vo.*—The increase in the number of appeals to the House of Lords, from the Court of Session, led to the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission, in 1824, to investigate the state of the forms of proceeding in the Scottish courts. The result of this commission was, that a great many alterations were recommended, principally with the view of preventing the intermingling of law and fact, in judicial pleadings, as has been too long the practice of our courts. In the year 1825, the new system came into operation; but we have not hitherto had any book to explain the new forms, as modified by numerous regulations of court; and, by upwards of 1000 adjudged cases. The present volumes, therefore, can hardly fail to be useful to the law practitioner. The compilation has evidently been the result of much personal labour; and there is hardly a proposition contained in it, which is not supported by a reference to an adjudged case, or other authority.

From personal knowledge of the author, we can confidently recommend his book to the legal profession, as the work of a man, by his talents, business habits, and perfect familiarity with the details of which his book treats, peculiarly qualified for the work he undertook.

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will be anonymous.

A New-Year book will appear at the

TIST'S ANNUAL." It is to consist of an original epigram for every day of next year, with some extra merriment, in the shape of a few comic tales, for Christmas week, and to be illustrated by eight humorous sketches; while the bulk of the whole book, it is promised, is not to exceed that of a modish snuff-box.

Mr. Mayne is preparing, for the press, a third edition of the "Siller Gun," considerably enlarged, and accompanied with notes and illustrations. We are sufficiently acquainted with the merits of this admired of Sir Walter Scott to assure readers of Scottish poesy, that, by its fine feeling, and correct delineations of character, it will furnish them with a source of gratification.

The Cabinet Annual Register, and His. torical, Biographical, Political, and Mis cellaneous Chronicle of 1832, is announced for publication on the 1st of February next, with additional claims to public favour and patronage.

THE MASQUE OF ANARCHYwith a

An original poem, by SHELLEY; Preface by LEIGH HUNT;-ROMANCE IN IRELAND, and some other volumes, are received too late in the month to afford time for reading them with the requisite attention, or allotting the necessary space to them; in fact, just as we are going to press. To be noticed in the current month, books must be sent early.

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Dr. Williams on the Structure and Functions of the Skin, 8vo. 5s. 6d.

holydays, named, “THE EPIGRAMMA- Valpy's Shakspeare, with Illustrations, Vol

審 W. Tait, Edinburgh.

I. 5s.

Valpy's Classical Library, No. 35, Euripedes, Vol. II. 4s. 6d.

Memoir of T. Hardy, written by Himself, 4s. 6d.

The Parliament-House Book, for 1832,1833, 5s.

Myren's Digest of the Laws, Duties, and
Practice of the Customs, &c. for 1832, 1833,
3s. 6d.

New Gil Blas; or Pedro of Penaflor, 3 vols.
post 8vo. 14. 7s, bds.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol IV. Part I.
4to. Seventh Edition, 18s. bds.
Bateman's Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous
Diseases, 8vo. Seventh Edition, 15s. bds.
Foreign Quarterly R view, No. XX, 6s.
De Porquet's Fench Dictionary, nglish
and French-French and English, 4s 6d.

bds.

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401

The Amethyst, or Christian's Annual, 1833,
8s. 6d.

The Crooked Sixpence, or, Little Harry, by
The Christian Remembrancer-a Pocket-
Mrs Bourne, 2s.
Book, 1833, 2s. 6d.

Christmas Tales, by W. H. Harrison, 8s.
Hook's Lectures on our Lord's Ministry,
8vo. 10s. 6d.

Coghlan's Scriptural Commentary, 2 vols.
8vo. ll. 4s.

Phelan's Memoirs, by the Bishop of Lime
Darling's Practice of the Court of Session,
rick, 2 vols. 8vo. 17. 1s.
2 Yo s. 8vo. ll. 5s.

Alison's Outlines of Physiology and Patho
logy, 8vo. 1. 1s.

Dr. Hamett's Official Reports on the Cho-
Steggall's Essay on Poison, 12 coloured
lera in Dantzick, 10s 63.
plates, 18mo. 5s.

Rev. J. Taylor's Child's Life of Christ, 4s.
6d.

Gibson's French, English, and Latin Voca-
bulary, 12mo. 25.
Bi hop Hall's Century of Meditations, &c.

32mo Is. 4d

Taylor's Short-hand, by Cooke, fc. 4s.
Missionary Annual, 1833. 12s.
Calendar of the Seasons; or, Diary of the
Year, 12mo. Is.

Croker on the Theory of the Latin Subjunc-
Christian Poetry, 32mo. 2s. 6d
Whewell's First Principles of Mechanics,
tive Mood, 12mo. 4s.

8vo. 6s.

Discourses on the four Gospels, by Thomas
Townson, D.D. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
Irish and English Dictionary, Svo. 123.
De Lolme's Tableaa General de la Langue
Francaise, 16mo. 7s. 6

Essay on Mineral and Thermal Springs,
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Manual of Prayer, by T. H Horne, B. D. 3s.

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Liston's Elements of Surgery, Part III. 8vo. 9s.

Medico-Chirurgical

XVII. 8vo. 15s.

Transactions,

Vol.

House of the Thief, 18mo. 2s. 6d.
Georgiana and her Father, 18mo. 2s. 6d.
Guide de la Conversation Anglaise et Fran-
caise, 18mo. par Hamoniere, 3s fid.
The New London Medical Pocket Book,
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Tidds Uniformity of Process Act, with
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New Rules, 3s. 6d.

Romance in Ireland; Siege of Maynooth,
2 vols. post 8vo. 16s.

Hiley's English Exercises and Composition, 12mo. 2s. 6d.

Little Library; the British Story briefly told, 4s.

Robinson Crusoe, by G. Cruickshank, 2 vols.
in one, I 1s.

Hogarth's Works, Il. 19s.
Dramatic Souvenir, 8s.
Planchie's Lays and Legends of the Rhine,

10s. 6d.

Day's Latin Syntax, 12mo. 3s.

Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, 4. 4s.

Kearsley's Tax Tables, 1832, 1833, s.

Williams' Abstracts, 1832, 8vo. 9s.

THE FINE ARTS.

FINDEN'S LANDSCAPE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, PART VIII. Of seven engravings three are from the drawings of Mr. J. M. W. R. A. Turner;-the Temple of Minerva, Cape Colonna ;-Bacharach on the Rhine; and the Castle of St. Angelo. The works of this gentleman are as popular as, if not the most popular of, any living artist. He has contrived to attain a reputation, the right to which it is, at this time, something hazardous to question; and, what to him is of equal, perhaps more sterling value, acquired plenty of that metal which the brilliant tints of his pallet invariably symbolize. Impalpable glory is a very fine thing, no doubt, but genius, unluckily, is enshrined in carnal chambers, and vulgar flesh must be fed to repair the tenement so prone to daily dilapidation; true worldly philosophy points to the mode by which man's wasting lump of clay, dried in the sun, may be still kept fitted for the abiding place of the immortal spirit; and Mr. Turner has so far followed the guidance of the finger of philosophy. The measure of his mind's ambition is full; his name is mighty among the sons of earth; and of bread and butter the choicest, he lacketh no supply: this is true glory.

Skilful of head, and expert of hand is Mr. Turner; nature-whom no man has more libelled or falsified in the extravagance of his imagination-nature possesses nothing too great or too gorgeous for the pencil of this fascinating colorist. He will not only robe his mountains, his seas, and his cities, with the golden magnificence of a summer sunset, but, in the calmness of his imperturbable confidence, will fling you into his kit-cat mighty Sol himself, in all the rich and yellow luxuriance of his unbonneted rotundity! The moon he, of course, plays with as a cat is wont to amuse the mice; and upon our honour and our conscience, we believe that if he had to depict a snow scene, no pigment, from vermilion to Zedoary-root, would he deem too warm to be therein introduced. He sees as through a glass, but not darkly, and that glass must be a multiplier, cach separate plane of which is different in tint. It were monstrous, therefore, to suppose that the burin of the engraver could ever impart any thing of the sparkle and glitter of his splendid pencil; yet the graphic copies of these luminous originals, humbled as they are down to mere gradations of black and white, are eminently beautiful. Mr.

Turner is a man, too, of placid waters and troubled skies, and hence his "lights and shadows" are pleasant to look upon. In viewing his cloud scenery, if you be at all addicted to the synthetical processes of mind, you shall be assured that storms are brooding as confidently as though you heard their moans and felt their gusty precursors; but if you carry your vision below, to the still and gentle waters under the earth, mirroring the objects planted upon its surface in all their multi. generous variety, straightway you shall loathe your logic as spurious and unsound. It is by this huddled but happy confusion of gradatory tints, it would seem, that he manages to charm; and that he does charm, appeal to the first picturegazer you meet. But we have become stupified by our own magniloquence and the glare of his remembered pictures, while we should have talked in sober criticism of Finden's Illustrations; and now we have brief space left.

The Bacharach, already named, is a delightful little vignette, Turner every inch of it; and notwithstanding its closely packed contents, every item is clearly made out, and every line tells. St. Angelo, we like less; the contrast of shade with the lights is too harsh and inharmonious. There is a solemn grandeur about the scenery and sacred ruins of the Tem ple of Minerva which we are much pleased with; the moon, peering through the black obscurity beyond, is a fine conception. Mount Etna, by Purser, is pretty, but too thin, and faulty also in its aerial perspective. St. Sophia, by Roberts, is capital, and gives, in a small space, an excellent notion of the vastness of that magnificent structure. Gastineau's Simplon, and Callcott's Verona, are both clever productions.

Had we not exhausted all our stock of hard words and expletives, we should have spoken, as becomes us, in praise of the engravings; they are worthy the name subscribed to them-whether rightfully or wrongfully, is no business of ours.

Upon the whole, this number is among the very best of those which have been yet published.

LANDSCAPE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PROSE AND POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT; with Portraits of the Principal Female Characters. No. 7.The present number contains a view of

Chapman and Hall.

The Fine Arts.

"Durham," by our friend Robson, that wholesale dealer in indigo and orpiment, than whom no painter, this side immortality, knows better how to make a picture, and a pleasing one: of "Newark Castle," by De Wint, a sombre structure enough, rearing its dreary crest into a fine fresh morning sky: of "St. Anthony's Chapel," a moonlight scene, by G. Barret, but nevertheless in all the blackness of desolation and of the "Tolbooth," by Nasmyth, a correct representation, and a pretty picture to boot. The portrait of "Amy Robsart," to which we have made allusion in another notice, and the autograph of Sir Walter, precede the whole; and these together, compose a number which fastidious, hypercritical, and penurious enough must they be who begrudge half-a-crown for its contents. Rumour reports an extensive sale for this little work; we hope, and cannot doubt, it

will continue.

PORTRAITS OF THE PRINCIPAL FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. PART II.*-Surely, no title could have been more luckily, if not appositely, given to portraits such as these. To foist a heap of beautiful faces, namelessly, upon the rude gaze of an unmannered world, would have been a violation of all decent dues; but to give to each the protection of name and identity, and of such exultation, too, was at once a wise and cunningly devised precaution.

We have not yet seen, and never expect to see, any one sketch, portrait, or design, intended as a representation of SCOTT's ideal characters, male or female, that has at all approached our own individual conceptions. Revert to that lovely face which CHALON has called Flora M'Ivor; we can fancy her haughty step and noble presence at such a place as Almacks, the shaft of contempt ready to leap forth from the bow of her beautiful lips, and her proud eye to look into the very earth any presumptuous miserable, who dared the wound of the one or the encounter of the other; but that face no more belongs to our Flora than it does to the Flora of Chalon himself. Artists, indeed, are by no means expert in portraying the actual visions of even their own mind, be they self-created, or raised by other powers; a one idea is ever predominant, and haunts their eye, and guides their hand, in spite of their better judgments. The academician WESTALL is a notable instance of this: in every one of his pictures, and he has consumed much canvass, may be seen this one, enduring, unvarying idea. Whether he paints a hero, an angel, a murderer, a babe, a bel

Chapman and Hall, London.

dam, withered age, youth, elegance, penury, divinities, or devils, you may testify to their parentage before any police office magistrate in London, without chance of perjury. That fine creature, in a brown study on a rock, which he has christened " contemplation," is evidently the sister of his arch-angel Michael, mother of the Lady of the Lake, own-aunt to Musidora, and surely, though distantly, a-kin to Dirk Hatteraick. The truth is, and it is a secret which every painter will be indignant at the telling, each and all of them to a man, designs his images as he best can; he may groupe, drape, and attitudinize his figures, variformly enough; but in their fancy faces there reigns the one idea; and he may as well attempt to change the identity of his own by the contortions of smiling, frowning, or grinning, as try to rid his mind of the master image that dwells in his eye, and is traced by his educated but unconscious hand. Cannot any one, at all conversant with works of arts, at once, and without difficulty, name the artist, upon the first glance at his production, having no more for his guidance than the general acquaintance with the peculiar something that is invariably stamped upon them all?

We are not sure what we are driving at in all this, except it be that it is idle to expect any facial semblance between these fancy portraits, and the originals whose names they bear, as conceived by the minds of others; and that it is foolish to quarrel with the names so applied to them, when that of "Betsy Fusby" would not have taken one charm away from that which is here called "Rowena." thought was a capital one; for this gallery of sweet countenances has gladdened the eyes of many whose hearts are warm, but whose heads are too dull to create the

like.

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The present Number contains the usual quantity of four portraits; to one of "sweet pretty which, a face, the name of " Amy Robsart"-the fond, confiding, loving, lovely Amy-has been appended by Mrs. Carpenter. We never read a temper rightly by such an index, however, if sharp wit and a stinging tongue lurk not beneath those downcast eyes and compressed lips. Depend upon it, all the Leicesters on earth would never have made an Amy of the owner. charming creature, but not Amy Robsart. The outlined bust is very graceful.

She is a

The beauty of Mr. Boxall's "Diana Vernon" is marred by the profusion of coal-black hair by which the face is surrounded. The eyes are bright and fullfull to a fault; but there is little of the mind in them which must have lurked half seen in those of the original Di

This seems more the miniature of a hoyden of fifteen, detected by papa in her brother's clothes.

The Lady" ROWENA" of Mr. Stone is a pleasing portraiture of youthful innocence and feminine loveliness. The face is in shadow, relieved by a pencil of light, which slightly strikes upon a portion of her polished forehead, as it emerges from the side hair. To our taste it is far and away the prettiest in the number.

But what shall we say of Mr. Rochard's notion of "Isabel de Croye." We have tried hard to admire it, but failed. The feeling most powerfully excited, after a calm and prolonged examination, has been that of wonder-two-fold wonder; firstly, how in the world a woman could allow herself to be so disfigured by any rascally perrukier in the arrangement of her raven black, Irving-like hair; secondly, can it be a mere "accident" of art, a means of relief, devised by the artist; if the latter, grace defend the taste of Mr. Rochard!

We may more particularly advert to the excellence of the engravings by and by. This number contains, besides, a facsimile of the writing of Sir Walter, and a poem on his death by Mr. Swain-a very spirited thing.

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"THE DEATH OF CHATHAM." Copely was an American artist, the father of Lord Lyndhurst, who, Mr. Cunningham goes rather out of his way to inform us, "has, in our own day, filled the seat of Lord High Chancellor, with honour to himself, and advantage to his country." This picture, as a work of art, is not to our taste; but it claims a place in this selection, from the interest connected with the scene. The portraits are likenesses of the leading Peers of the time. The third engraving is a landscape of Wilson's, teeming with ideas and fine combinations.

PROGRESSIVE DRAWING-BOOK. By CHILDS. Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, (complete). STUDIES OF FOREST TREES. By Same No. 1.The great objection that may be urged against lithographic drawing-books generally, is, that the free "handling" of the artist on the stone, is reversed in the printed impressions, and therefore that they mislead rather than improve the learner in his attempts at fac-simile copying. In the above works this fault does not appear, and they may safely be put into the hands of the student as an excellent exemplar. The subjects are pictur esque and well-selected; and the arrangement of the studies calculated to impart a knowledge of chiaro-scuro, as well as the first rudiments of the art. This is as it

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EDINBURGH THEATRICALS.

THE DRAMA,

IT is impossible to trace exactly the progress of the blight which has come over our theatre, and dimmed the lustre, not of its actors, but of its audience. There is something in the temper of the age. A reading public can scarcely be a theatre-going public. Their habits of mind are too different to admit of their receiving each pleasure from the other's pursuits. Then again, as a learned financialist on our establishment, more conversant with the pages of "the Black Book" than those of Shakspeare, would say, "people must work harder now to keep their ground in society, and have less time for amusement." And "last not least," the theatre is not so fashion

able a lounge as it once was. A few young men of good principles still make it their haunting place when they have nothing better to do; but they are but a handful compared with those of a former age. The time was when the wives and daughters of advocates and physicians (the thrice distilled quintessence of Edinburgh aristocracy) could slip quietly into the pit to enjoy a favourite play; but now the ermine of their high caste would be sullied for ever by such an action. What with all the world (of Edinburgh) being now takers and givers of evening parties, and what with that confounded central chandelier which makes the pit so conspicuous a situation, no genteel person dare now be seen in it. Even Peter

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