gleanings of the original collection," which will not add any thing to the reputation of their author. What can be the utility of preserving such juvenile attempts as the following; which, we are confident, the writer's own maturer taste, as well as his increasing seriousness, would not have suffered to meet the public eye? • SONG. Sweet Jessy! I would fain caress That lovely cheek divine; Sweet Jessy, I'd give worlds to press Yet Jessy, lovely as * * * The only view in which this miscellany can be considered as important, or valuable, is on account of the insight which it affords into the history of the author's mind: but then it must be remembered that his mind was not of so very superior an order as to make that history a matter of great general interest. We may remark that we have in the present volume a more correct account of his conversion, than that which appeared in the former parts of the work. We have great pleasure in recording the following anecdote, and in transcribing Professor Smyth's appropriate and beautiful lines: A tablet to Henry's memory, with a medallion by Chantrey, has been placed in All-Saint's Church, Cambridge, at the expense of a young American gentleman, Mr. Francis Boott, of Boston. During his travels in this country, he visited the grave of one whom he had learnt to love and regret in America; and finding no other memorial of him than the initials of his name upon the plain stone which covers his perishable remains, ordered this monument to be erected. It bears the following inscription by Professor Smyth, who, while Henry was living, treated him with characteristic kindness, and has consigned to posterity this durable expression of his friendship: Warm with fond hope and learning's sacred flame, The martyr-student faded, and expired. Too early lost, midst studies too severe ! He told the tale, and show'd what White had been; Nor Nor told in vain, Far o'er the Atlantic wave And raised this fond memorial to his fame.' Art. 33. Elements of the Game of Chess, or a new Method of Instruction in that celebrated Game, founded on scientific Principles containing numerous General Rules, Remarks, and Examples, by means of which, considerable Skill in the Game may be acquired, in a comparatively short Time. The whole written expressly for the Use of Beginners, by William Lewis, Teacher of Chess, and Author and Editor of several Publications on the Game. 12mo. pp. 240. Longman and Co. 1822. We took notice of Mr. Sarratt's abstruse treatise on Chess in our lxxiid vol. p. 351. That work aspired to instruct the adept, while the present intends to prepare the learner, and is altogether an elementary book. It begins by teaching simply the moves, and proceeds to such combinations of moves between two or three pieces as are of most frequent occurrence; and it is subdivided into fifty-eight chapters, each of which has a separate scope. In the preface, the author justly observes: The great objection to the works hitherto published, as far as regards the mere learner, is that they commence too soon with all the pieces, and the reader is expected to manœuvre all, before he understands the use of one or two; the powers of the pieces are imperfectly taught, and the numerous combinations and difficulties which so early present themselves to the reader confuse and fatigue him, and he begins to fear that very considerable time must elapse before he can become, with great study and patience, even a moderate player; hence we often hear of persons relinquishing the game because the difficulties they meet with are so great; of others who have been deterred from attempting it because they have been told "that it is extremely difficult," that it requires extraordinary talent to play well, &c. &c. I am however inclined to think that if the reader will peruse the following pages with attention, and not be too anxious to begin playing a whole game, he will be gradually learning what every chess-player ought to know, and without which it will be impossible for him ever to be a firstrate player; and he will afterwards play games with more profit and delight than if he had at once begun playing with all the pieces, probably losing game after game, and as is usually the case without any real improvement.' Mr. L. acknowleges some obligations to Nieveld's La Superiorité aux Echecs mise à la Portée de tout le Monde, printed at Campen in 1792; and certainly he could not have taken a better model for lucid instruction, for the analysis of intricacy, and for the gradual progress from simple to complex difficulty. Chess, beyond every other game, has continued to assert a diffusive and a lasting popularity in all nations and climes; it has defied the caprices of fashion, and converted the highest intellect to its worship. A former A former publication of this writer was noticed by us in vol. xciii. p. 218. Art. 34. Tracts. By Sir Thomas Browne, Knight, M.D. 12mo. pp. 182. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London. 1822. We were much disappointed not to find in this re-impression our old favorite the Religio Medici. As to the Quincunx, curious as it is, we do not regret its absence: but the charity, the humanity, and the philosophy displayed in the Religio Medici, amply atone for all the paradoxes and whimsies that are mixed up in that delightful piece, and might well have procured for it a new edition. The present volume, however, is composed only of the Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial; the letter to a friend on the death of his intimate friend; and the Museum Clausuni, or catalogue of rarities. The last is merely quaint and singular; while the Letter is full of apophthegms and pointed remarks, not more strangely expressed than shrewdly conceived, and mingled with considerable feeling and kindness: - but the Urn Burial is the complete specimen of the author's manner, exhibiting his profound erudition, his multifarious knowlege, his vigorous and rich imagination, his pregnancy of expression, his fondness of mysterious and transcendental speculations, and, above all, that sanctitude of moral reflections which stamps a beauty and sublimity on all his happiest effusions. CORRESPONDENCE. Agricola will never find us inattentive to the interests and present sufferings of either the cultivators or the proprietors of English soil: but, as impartial judges, we must view both sides of the question, and sum up according to the evidence; not allowing compassion for one part of the community, however numerous and important, to outweigh a due consideration for the welfare of the it whole. The facetious Mr. Jarvey may ride or drive his hobby-horse as he pleases, but he must not expect to knock down our judgment and taste, and trample it under foot, because they may not exactly 1 coincide with his fancies and partialities.. We shall be glad to hear farther occasionally from our respected correspondent Observer; whose acute remarks and extensive in-.formation render his communications always valuable and acceptable. *** The APPENDEX to this volume of the Monthly Review will be published with the Number for January, on the 1st of February. ART. I. Voyage en Suisse, &c.; i. e. Travels in Swisserland during the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819: with an Historical Essay on the Manners and Customs of Antient and Modern Helvetia, in which are delineated the Events of the present Time, and the Causes that led to them. By L. SIMOND. 2 Vols. 8vo. pp. 1150. Paris. 1822. Imported by Treuttel and Co. Price il. 1s. WH HEN we alluded to the appearance of this work in an article in a former Appendix, we inadvertently mentioned it as the production of the well known writer on Political Economy, M. Simonde de Sismondi: but M. SIMOND is a different person, who has been already introduced to the British public as the author of a work intitled "Voyage d'un Français en Angleterre." The favorable reception, which that narrative of his travels in this country experienced, we now find induced him to scale the rocks and thread the vallies of Swisserland; armed with pen and ink in front to seize on immediate incidents and observations, and with a corps de reserve of dusty chroniclers in rear, Tschudi, Muller, Mallet, &c. &c., with whose assistance he has achieved a history from the earliest times. This latter portion, fortunately, is put into a separate volume; so that the reader who feels no very intense interest in the victories of Julius Cæsar over the hardy mountaineers of Helvetia, nor any unquenchable curiosity as to the precise year in which certain learned and pious missionaries APP. REV. VOL. XCIX. emigrated Gg emigrated from the freezing climate of the Hebrides to preach Christianity among them at the sources of the Rhine, will not find himself taken by surprize and unexpectedly involved in the historical labyrinth of dark ages; though, if he wishes to explore it, he may borrow the taper which M. SIMOND has lighted from antient lamps, and now offers for the purpose of guiding his steps. After having said farewell to Fontainebleau, which, like Versailles, presents the spectacle of fallen grandeur, the traveller proceeded southward towards Dijon, exclaiming; We have this day seen a few habitations sprinkled over the country, which announce the proprietors to be something above the rank of peasants: but the sight of them reminds us how rare they are! Less rare are the chateaux; that is, certain isolated groupes consisting of a small embattled edifice, flanked with turrets, lofty, narrow, dirtied with smoke, and shut up within a court; with some twenty miserable hovels clustered round the walls and resting against them, as if to secure the protection of the seigneur. Yet these little groupes in the midst of the country are connected with nothing, and such specimens of feudality are like plants preserved in a herbal. The poor country-squire had probably deserted his mournful mansion before the Revolution, and betaken himself to some neighbouring town, where he was dignified with the title of Monsieur le Comte, or Monsieur le Marquis, decorated with the cross of St. Louis, deriving a scanty income: from his fines and quit-rents, passing away his time in old-fashioned gallantry with the dowagers of the place, patched and painted,' wearing large sleeves three rows deep, hoop-petticoats, pointed heels four inches high, and making a party every evening for Monsieur le Marquis. None of this set believed that a single invention or discovery had been made since the age of Louis XIV.; for not a single book approached this provincial circle. The utmost that was read in these southern provinces was Le Courier d'Avignon; and when the Revolution broke in and dissolved the society, like Attila and the Huns emerging from the depths of their forests in the fifth century, it was a phænomenon of destruction incomprehensible, and unforeseen; coming no one knew whence; a barbarous enemy speaking another tongue, and to whom it had had no means of making itself understood.' - Such sketches of the state of society in the provinces, before the Revolution, are not without interest: but the Boeotian fog of ignorance was dissipated by that event, books are no longer excluded, and the Courier d'Avignon is not the only journal that is now read. The |