ther harshly, all other writers who have treated on the same subject which he undertakes. Thus, p. 24, vol. ii., Hals is said to have written a "bedlamite account of Penryn." Poor Borlase's writings are pronounced "dreams," and " that visionary kind of history, which still haunts the scene of reality at times." He is said also to be lost in the "wild whirl of his ideas." Again, he is said to “ betray such a debility of intellect, as would bend to any force of hypothesis, and such a ductility of faith, as would ply with any impulse of temptation." His mind was coloured over with the tincture of druidism; and viewing objects through a druidical spectre-glass, beholds all nature under a wonderful transfiguration," &c. p. 281, vol. i.

This kind of language occurs continually; and almost every page contains some critical castigations. The whole work may be considered rather as a severe commentary on the writings of other authors, than a history of one place, one county, or one subject. With a mind singularly alert, a fancy always eager, and a disposition to diverge from the plain even path, into every field that skirts the road; Mr.

Whitaker takes a long time to get over a little ground: and though his readers may wish to accompany him to the end of his journey, they are tired with his excessive wanderings, and his incessant garrulity. We cannot better characterise this author and his writings than in the following terms, which were written by himself many years ago, as part of a critique on Gibbon's Roman History. Speaking of the various species of historical composition, he observes, that as we advance in the ornamental, we are receding from the solid and necessary, we lose in veracity what we gain in embellishments; and the authenticity of the narration fades and sinks away, in the lustre of the philosophy surrounding it. The mind of the writer, bent upon the beautiful and sublime in history, does not descend to perform the task of accuracy, and to stoop to the drudgery of faithfulness. The mirror is finely polished, and elegantly decorated; but it no longer reflects the real features of the times. The sun shines out indeed with a striking effulgence, but it is an effulgence of glare, and not a radiation of usefulness."

MR. MAWMAN, the author of the volume before us, is a respectable London bookseller, the successor of Mr. Dilly. In company with his friend Mr. Salte, he left London in the month of July 1804, and proceeded by rapid journeys through York to Edinburgh. Hence he went northwards, following the usual route of tourists through the nearer highland district of Scotland, and re-entering England at Carlisle, returned to the metropolis through Chester and Birmingham; having accomplished in a month a tour of about a thousand miles. The two friends were no doubt highly gratified by their excursion, and the idea would naturally occur to Mr. Mawman, that it would be a polite attention and elegant compliment to Mr. Salte to print an account of their

common tour, and inscribe it to his friend and companion. In this work Mr. Mawman evinces that though he sells books, he reads them; and displays a very creditable aptness at quotation from our English classics; but something more is wanting to merit the name of a good writer; nor can the requisite course of study be gone through, or the habitual facility be acquired, without a greater expence of time than can be spared from the superior claims of a large business. We have no objection, however, to admit Mr. Mawman as an honorary member of the corporation of authors, and trust that in consequence he will consider it as a duty to uphold on all occasions the dignity and claims of men of literature.

take notice of before, we proceed any

further.

The only possible reason for adopting so

preposterous a title as Beauties of Scotland, is obviously an endeavour to introduce the present work to the notice of the public, by taking advantage of the deservedly popular "Beauties of England and Wales," by Messrs. Britton and Brayley. In pursuance of this scheme, the title-page and name of the author Mr. Thomas Forsyth, are removed from their proper place the first half volume, to the beginning of the second and in order to favour the deceit (for we can call it by no softer name) we are informed on the cover of the second half volume that this work is an "extension of the Beauties of Eng land and Wales." In what sense this assertion can be considered as true, we are wholly at a loss to conceive, except a similarity in title, in type, and form, can entitle it to this appellation. The arrangement of the two differs very materially, and in our opinion to the disadvantage of Mr. Forsyth's book. In the "Beauties of England" there is a profuse reference to authorities at the bottom of the pages, and a very valuable list of books and maps terminates the description of every county: whereas in the Beauties of Scotland there are no references, not even to sir John Sinclair's statistical survey, to which the author has been so materially indebted. The prominent excellence of the "Beauties of England" is the minute accuracy of its architectural details, and the copious though select antiquarian information that it evinces. In the Beauties of Scotland," on the other hand, there is usually a profound silence, and sometimes a profound ignorance on subjects of architecture and archæology. Both works display a considerable number of engravings; so far they resemble each other, but in merit of execution they differ very widely: those in the Beauties of Scotland are much smaller than necessary, and have every appearance of impressions from old plates retouched; a suspicion which is strengthened by no name appearing, either of draftsman or engraver.

We should be sorry, however, if from the comparison which Mr. Forsyth's book has provoked, our readers were to imagine that it is a publication of much promise and little performance: on the contrary, we are disposed to think very highly of it, and are persuaded that it needed no other passport to public favour than its own merit. It professes to give a clear and full account of the agriculture, commerce, mines, manufactures, and popula

tion of each county in North Britain; and this promise, as far as the work has hitherto proceeded, is faithfully performed. There are also various anecdotes and historical and biographical notices interspersed, by which the proper statistical part is agreeably relieved and enlivened. The style, if not brilliant, is thoroughly perspicuous, and by no means dull and Mr. Forsyth, when he shall have finished his undertaking, may congratulate himself on having made a very valuable addition to the statistical topography of his native country.

The work begins with a detailed account of Edinburgh and Leith, which if estimated by the number of pages that it occupies (2-40), may be regarded as long; yet when we consider that this city is not only the metropolis of Scotland, but the seat of an university, which may rank among the very first in Europe for active usefulness, and of various other learned and scientific institutions, the notice which it here receives will by no means be considered as disproportionate. The antiquary, and indeed the man of general li- · terature, may wish that more attention had been paid to the curious remains of antiquity, within the circuit and in the immediate vicinity of this noble city, but Mr. Forsyth is not one of those who much "regret the destruction of the remains or vestiges of ancient magnificence," and the rapid manner in which he mentions the "Gothic ruins" of the chapel of Holyrood abbey, and that exquisitely beautiful and nearly perfect specimen of ancient architecture, the chapel at Roslin castle, will but little tend to reconcile our episcopalian archeologists to presbyterian topographers. For our own parts, however, we are at all times glad to be excused from exploring damp and ruinous vaults, and think that it is much better to have too little than too much of antiquarian lore. The following account of the university of Edinburgh will probably be interesting to our readers:

Edinburgh the university naturally takes the "Among the literary establishments of lead. Having been instituted after the Reformation, among a frugal people that had no love for ecclesiastical dignities, it differs greatly from the wealthy foundations which receive the name of universities and colleges in England, or in the catholic countries of the continent of Europe. The university of Edinthe privilege of conferring degrees. It conburgh consists of a single college, which enjoys sists of a principal, with a salary of 1117. 2. 0, whose office is in a great measure nominal,

were formerly considered as essential duties of every man of rank.

"Upon the whole, students at the university of Edinburgh may be said in a great degree to educate themselves and each other. The celebrity of the medical professors, and of the men of letters whom Edinburgh once produced and still contains, has here excited among young persons a powerful spirit of literary emulation or ambition, which has not yet daninished. The students form themselves into clubs or societies for mutual improvement in medicine, natural history, and general literature. Some of these societies have existed for a considerable time, have obtained royal charters, and number among their members many of the most distinguished Iterary characters. The members write essays, which are publicly read, and the sentiments the y contain discussed at their weekly meetings. In some societies, in which elocution is accounted of importance, particular questions are discussed in those branches of scence for the investigation of which the society has been instituted; and very eager, and sometimes eloquent, debates occur. As the science of medicine is that on account of which this university is most celebrated, the societies of students in this department are

most numerous.

"Some of the most eminent professors are said to have disapproved of these societies, as having a tendency to withdraw the students from laborious and patient study, to generate a presumptuous disrespect for their teachers, and to render them superficial reasoners, at tached to the particular systems of Brown, Cullen, or whatever else is in vogue, rather than able physicians and modest inquirers after truth. There is perhaps some truth in this censure. At the same time, from the distinguished character which men bred at the university of Edinburgh maintain, in all quarters of the globe, it seems probable that the energy of spirit, and the freedom of investigation, to which this mode of education gives rise, greatly overbalance the inconve

niences attending it. In this world, good and evil, like light and darkness, are apt to tread extremely close upon the footsteps of each other; and we must remain satisfied with what is good, or at least with what is tolerable, without always requiring what is best.

"This university, which is now attended by from 1200 to 1400 students, and consists of the classes already enumerated, arose slowly to its present importance. At first, in 1593, only one professor was appointed, Mr. Robert Rollock; but afterwards it was made to consist of a principal, a professor of divinity, four teachers of philosophy, and a professor of Latin, called Humanity. Originally each professor continued to teach the same students till they left the university; but the improved plan was soon adopted of confining each professor to one particular branch. By degrees the various other professorships were instituted which have been already enumerated. The medical school was instituted in the course of the late century. Dr. Monro senior, having given leçtures privately with great success upon anatomy, was invited by the magistrates of the city to assume the character of a professor in the university. Other professorships in this branch of science were instituted in a similar manner, in consequence of the previous success of the first professors in the character of private lecturers. It may be remarked also, that in another department, the chair of rhetoric and belles lettres was not instituted till the late celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair had first been able to secure the attendance, in his own house, of a considerable number of students upon his course of lectures."

The remainder of the volume describes the counties of Mid and East Lothian and Berwickshire.

We shall resume our account of this valuable and interesting work in our next volume,

TWO more volumes on South Wales! exclaimed we, as opening one of our bookseller's huge parcels we laid our hands on the work before us. What in the name of wonder can be found respecting Monmouthshire and South Wales, that has not been said over and over again, usque ad nauseum? Has not every cranny in every old wall been examined with miCroscopical attention, and its length and breadth and depth ascertained to a tenth of an inch? Has not every genealogy, in all its various ramifications, been traced upwards and downwards and sideways, so

that we are now as well acquainted with the stock and progeny of all the Welsh princes, as with our own great-grandmothers? Has not every monumental hic jacet been transcribed with most meritorious fidelity? and are not all the great and little men who have had the honour of being born or even of residing within this selected territory, already biographized, and hung round with rags and tatters of anecdote like any scarecrow? What that is worth gathering can be expected from so exhausted a soil? for who in these days of antiquariapism would de

viate from the straight Roman high-road, into the wild paths of nature, or condescend to inspect a thronged manufactory after a solitary moonlight ramble through the roofless echoing aisles of a ruined abbey? So thought we on opening the present book; but finding that it is written by a gentleman who last year came under our notice as a naturalist, and that it is the result of five annual visits, we took courage, cut the leaves open, and, though we were alarmed now and then, in the early part of the work, by the red faces of Roman bricks and potsherds, persevered to the end, and shall be well inclined to employ our first leisure in reperusing a book from which we have derived more pleasure and more information than from any publication of its class that has fallen under our notice for a long time past. We shall proceed therefore to give a summary analysis of its contents.

Chapter 1. carries Mr. D. and his readers from London into Monmouthshire, by the way of Bristol. The extraneous fossils in the limestone strata of St. Vincent's rocks, near the latter place, give occasion to a short but unsatisfactory discussion concerning the cause or causes which have filled the beds of Floetz and secondary limestone with these indisputable remains of organized bodies.

In the second chapter the author gives a particular account of the Roman remains of Venta Silurum, now Caer Gwent, in which various errors and incongruities of former describers are corrected and explained.

Chapter 1. is, for the most part, devoted to Caerleon. This place, first remarkable as a permanent station of the Romans, and afterwards still more renowned as the princely residence of Arthur and his valiant knights, was afterwards the scene of various bloody contentions between the Welsh and Saxons and Normans, and at length, together with the rest of the principality, became a part of the English dominions, under the triumphant and vigorous reign of Edward the first. Since that period it has remain ed in safe but inglorious obscurity, and has dwindled to a small, straggling, thinly inhabited country town.

* Ruins of Roman buildings, pillars, pavements, bricks, monumental stones, urns, sarcophagi, and coins, must have once been numerous here beyond all conception; since, after an interval of fourteen hundred years, during which they have been certainly sought after, and applied to various purposes, the

store appears inexhaustible. Some few of the more industrious among the labouring poor, find every winter a profitable employ ment, in digging at a venture for the stones, far greater number of small houses about the and even bricks and tiles; many, if not the place, have been also built, and are kept in repair with the materials purloined from the subterraneous resources. There is no kind of restriction upon the inhabitants, to prevent their digging for these materials in the broadway, which has hitherto furnished them with plenty. The space enclosed within the wall, if examined with the like unceasing perseve Last winter, in clearing the bear-house field, rance, would perhaps be no less productive. opposite to that in which Arthur's table is contained, in order to set potatoes, a vast number of large and small stones were found, more than a dozen of which were estimated at little less than half a ton, or a ton weight each; and some much more. The expence trifling, rarely exceeding sixpence or nineof raising these stones out of the ground is discovery of these was of some consequence pence per ton, except for the largest; the to Mr. Hughes, who has a lease of the ticid, the whole being of fine free-stone."

After describing with the zeal, but without the usual tediousness of an antiquary, the remains of old Caerleon, Mr. state. Caerleon stands upon the Usk, and Donovan proceeds to mention its present is celebrated it seems for the firmness and considerable degree indebted to the folflavour of its salmon, for which it is in a lowing peculiarity in the mode of cook ing:

"The fish is no sooner caught in the adjacent river, than it is conveyed to the town; and if sold, the purchaser, after cutting into pieces of a convenient size, parboils t in spring water. After this, the pieces are allowed to cool, and when required for the This mode of dressing salmon has evidently table, they are boiled in the former liquer. the ascendancy over any other that can be devised, in towns and other places remote from the haunts of this useful fish; the flesh acquiring by that means a degree of firmness and delicious flavour, very far superior to what might be conceived.

"The fish, it appears, must be parboiled immediately after it is taken; or at the farprecaution can be taken, they tell you, the salmon is good for nothing."

thest before the tide returns; and unless this

Newport and its vicinity furnish the principal materials of the next chapter, and these consist, for the most part, of antiquarian details. The fifth chapter is devoted to a description of Cardiff, once celebrated for the strength of its fortifications, but now rising into commercial