for his country and for Italian glory, awakened by the elegant words of his master, could not remain cool in a heart like his; and in fact it increased almost to a degree of mania. He fought sword to sword with a French gentleman, his superior in age and strength, because the latter had spoken ill of the Italians-wounded him, and compelled him to confess the wrong in the presence of the King and Court. After various vicissitudes, having left Naples, on the fall of the royal family, Fieramosca followed the fortunes of Spain, in order to oppose in some manner the other too predominant power; and because Spanish pride appeared to him less intolerable than the vain-boasting of the French: besides, it seemed to him that an enemy who could only reach them by sea might be held of smaller account, and he considered that if the French could be driven out by their arms, it would be a less arduous enterprise to establish a good state of things in Italy.

Thus far we have described the intrepid warrior from whom the volume takes its title. His daring courage was put to the proof at an early age, by the challenge of La Motte, a French prisoner, who insultingly backed the valour of his own countrymen against the Italians. The challenge was accepted, twelve on a side were selected, and the day of engagement appointed. At the head of the Italian list was Fieramosca. The trial of strength took place, and the description is fervid and soulstirring. It terminated in favour of the Italians and the total discomfiture of the French, and places the prowess and skill of Hector in a prominent and engaging point of view.

An historical narrative, without love, the ladies say, is an insipid affair. There is no lack of that ingredient, however, in the volume before us; and the valiant and intrepid hero is so scathed by a hopeless passion, that he eventually becomes a martyr to its sad and fatal entanglements. There is a powerful and high-wrought picture of his last moments of misery and despair, and of the desperation and madness which hurried him to his appalling extinction. This is a description of harrowing passion and reckless hopelessness which is rarely excelled, if ever equalled, and is beyond all doubt the best imagined and most happily described of the many well delineated representations with which the volume abounds.

The principal defect in this work is, that the narrative is too crowded with incidents, and that there is not lucidness enough in the arrangement. This, however, must not be charged to the translator, who has aimed at faithfulness, excepting in one or two instances in which he has judiciously shaded the warmth of colouring peculiar to the temperature of the south. Even the best translations usually abound with foreign idioms, and with other encroachments on the vernacular language; in the work under consideration, however, there is less of this defect in style than is usually observable. Altogether, we are disposed to concede to the translator much praise for his fidelity, and his discriminating taste and judgment in pruning, when pruning was absolutely necessary. We may venture to predict, we think, notwithstanding the trivial defects we have pointed out, that this interesting volume will become a favourite with all such readers as delight in history and romance judiciously and pleasurably blended.

The Revolutions of the Globe familiarly described. By Alexander Bertrand, M. D., translated from the French by J. C. Horry. London: Ridgway and Sons.

To present a comprehensive view of the actual state of any science claims the next grade of merit to that of advancing it. The work before us appears to aim at conveying a knowledge, in a popular style, of the

present state of geological science; its facts are brought out clearly and broadly, without reference or leaning to any particular theory. But its theories are also ably discussed in the Introduction, and in an Appendix added by the translator. This arrangement appears particularly judicious in a science which, although still in its infancy, has experienced so many revolutions; for while we have in the body of the work, as far as a book can form a substitute for the study of the actual phenomena, its facts plainly and succinctly laid before us, unencumbered by theory, we may also benefit by the deductions of those who have preceded us in our labours, by consulting the commencement and concluding part of the volume.

We present our readers with a short extract, but strongly recommend the perusal of the entire work :

:

"Bones of fossil elephants have been found, at all times; but, till lately, the nature of these bones was always misunderstood. It is to the discovery of them, that we owe the fabulous histories of the digging up of the bodies of ancient giants; for, at a period when anatomy had made so little progress, the love of the marvellous could so much the more readily seize such events, to accredit the ideas which affect the imagination; as the elephant is (except as to size) one of the animals whose skeleton presents the most resemblance to that of man. An entire volume would be taken up in detailing the accounts of fossil bones of great quadrupeds, which ignorance, or fraud, have represented to be the remains of human giants. The most celebrated of all, is that of the skeleton which, in Louis the XIIIth's reign, was pretended to be that of Teutobochus, King of the Cimbri, who fought against Marius. The following are the circumstances which gave rise to this tale:

"On the 11th of January, 1613, in a sand-pit, near the Chateau de Chaumon, between the towns of Montricoux, Serres, and Saint Antoine, some bones were found, several of which were broken by the workmen. A surgeon of Beaurepaire, named Mazurier, informed of this discovery, possessed himself of the bones, and contrived how to turn them to good account. He gave out that he had found them in a sepulchre thirty feet in length, upon which were incribed the words Teutobochus Rex. He added, that, at the same time time, he found fifty medals, bearing the head of Marius. He inserted these stories in a pamphlet, by means of which the curiosity of the public being aroused, he exhibited, for money, the bones of the pretended giant, as well at Paris as in other cities. Gassendi names a Jesuit of Tournon, as the author of the pamphlet, and proves, that the pretended antique medals were fabricated; as to the bones, they were those of an elephant."

The Works of William Cowper; his Life and Letters by Wm. Hayley, Esq. now first completed by the introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence. Edited by the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, A. M. Vols. I. and II. London: Saunders and Otley.

Hayley's Life of Cowper is familiar to most reading men, but it has never been considered a perfect work. His mind, however literary and elegant, was not precisely qualified to present a religious character to the view of the British public; we are not surprised, therefore, that his reflections should be occasionally misplaced and injudicious. In his anxiety to refrain from exhibiting Cowper too prominently in a religious garb, he has ingrafted defects, and rendered his work faulty and incomplete. The termination of the copyright of Hayley's Life of Cowper, and sole and undisputed access to the private correspondence collected by Dr. Johnson, it appears, has enabled the editor to present, for the first time, such a complete edition of the entire works of the author of "The Task" as no other person can hope to accomplish, because all others are debarred from the sources of his exclusive derivation. Upwards of two hundred letters are thus incorporated with the former work of Hayley in their due and chronological order; and the merits of this private correspondence are attested in a letter addressed to Dr. Johnson, by that distinguished literary judge the late Rev. Robert Hall, of which the following is an extract:-"I have always considered the letters of

Mr. Cowper as the finest specimen of the epistolary style in our language; and these appear to me of a superior description to the former, possessing as much beauty, with more piety and pathos. To an air of inimitable ease and carelessness they unite a high degree of correctness, such as could result only from the clearest intellect, combined with the most finished taste. I have scarcely found a single word which is capable of being exchanged for a better. Literary errors I can discern none. The selection of words, and the construction of periods, are inimitable; they present as striking a contrast as can be well conceived to the turgid verbosity which passes at present for fine writing, and which bears a great resemblance to the degeneracy which marks the style of Ammianus Marcellinus, as compared to that of Cicero or of Livy. In my humble opinion, the study of Cowper's prose may on this account be as useful in forming the taste of young people as his poetry. That the letters will afford great delight to all persons of true taste, and that you will confer a most acceptable present on the reading world by publishing them, will not admit of a doubt."

This work is got up in a style of neatness most creditable to the publishers-it is a choice specimen of the typographic art. The plates, by Finden, are beautifully graved, and the subjects are chosen with the discrimination which taste and genius only can impart. We may truly affirm that the volumes are altogether as tasteful in appearance as they are precious in matter.

Provincial Sketches. By the Author of "The Usurer's Daughter,” "The Puritan's Grave," &c. &c. London: Churton, Holles-street.

This is anything but a dull and narcotic volume-in fact it is full of wit and humour, and evinces an intimate knowledge of real life in situations the most opposite to each other, and the most grotesque. It is thrown into distinct stories, the titles of which are-The Rival Farmers-The Country Newspapers-The Snug little Watering Place-Amateur Concerts-Itinerant Lecturers-Itinerant Artists-The Public LibraryGentility-Village Choristers-and Dame Deborah Boreham's Almshouses. They are all good of their kind, are replete with droll and whimsical incidents, and so faithful to nature, that the dullest soul must be struck with their aptitude and comicalness.

It unfortunately happens that we did not receive this exquisite morceau before our pages for the present number were fully occupied; we must defer, therefore, all extracts to the ensuing month, when, if not too much pressed for room, we will advert to the subject again, and give such a specimen from the work itself as shall make it speak in its own commendation.

Wanderings through North Wales, by Thomas Roscoe, Esq. Author of "The Landscape Annual," embellished with highly finished engravings, by W. Radclyffe, from drawings made expressly for the work, by Cattermole, Cox, and Creswick. Part II. London: Simpkin and Marshall, and Charles Tilt.

This charmingly illustrated work, of which we had occasion to speak so warmly in our preceding number, has presented another admirable specimen of the taste and skilfulness of its designs and execution. It contains three sweetly delineated views, by Cox, of Harlech Castle, Bridge over the Llugwy, and Snowdon, engraved in Radclyffe's best style. If we have spoken highly of the first number, we are bound with equal justice to speak as favourably of the present-and we have considerable gratification in being enabled to state, from the most authentic source, that it has received all the encouragement which we predicted.

Indeed, if works of this stamp are not liberally encouraged, how can it be expected that a taste for the fine arts can flourish-without the aid of liberal patronage, of what avail are the toils of the artist and the lifedestroying intensity of the lettered? Of the three plates in this number we scarcely know to which the preference is due, they are all so inimitably finished. The descriptive part of the work, too, we perceive, maintains its high reputation-and it is, altogether, one of the very rare productions on which the asperities of criticism cannot justly alight.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC.

WORCESTERSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

ON Tuesday, the 31st of March, Mr. B. Maund, F. L. S., delivered a Lecture "On Geology corroborative of the Mosaic Writings," to a very crowded assemblage of the Members of this Society, at the Guildhall.

In reference to the relation between the modern science of geology and the Mosaic writings, the Lecturer observed "The subject has been embarrassed by the misconceptions, as well of the friends as of the opponents of Revelation. If sceptics have presumed to argue without a sufficient acquaintance with the facts of science, it is not less true that those of established religious principles have injured the cause of revealed religion by a similar defect of information. Some, too, may have done the same by an unphilosophical timidity in approaching the subject. Some well-meaning, but weak-minded persons are afraid of discussion on such subjects, lest something should be found in the page of nature subversive of their established faith. This, however, is paying a very poor compliment to Revelation. This weakness of mind (although it may be an amiable one) is inconsistent with a sincere and enlightened love of truth. Let Revelation and Science be brought fearlessly into opposition. Let facts supersede surmises, and Revelation will trample on Scepti

cism."

The Lecturer then explained in a very clear and lucid manner the rapidity with which the secondary strata are sometimes deposited; and remarked,-"We have satisfactory evidence not only of the mutability of rocks, but also of the rapidity of their solidification. In a chalk formation in Ireland, where convulsions have rent the strata asunder, and protruded from beneath into the chasm, or dyke, a quantity of basalt in a state of fusion, its great heat combined with the superincumbent pressure, has, for several feet from the dyke, converted the chalk into granular marble. Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, has, in like manner, been divided, and the injection of greenstone, in a melted state, has converted the sandstone near it into a compact jasper-like rock. Red sandstone, under similar circumstances, has been converted into hornstone-slate clay into flinty slate-sandstone, of the Isle of Skye, into solid quartz-and in Anglesea an instance is noticed, by Professor Henslow, where common shale became highly indurated, and was found to contain garnets, the result of its change of character."

These and other evidences were adduced by the Lecturer to shew that rocks may be rapidly formed, and also solidified, and that the extravagant theories adopted by some geologists are not founded on that basis of inductive truth which should be the guide of all scientific inquiry. These arguments were not advanced to confine the geologist to a consideration of the present order of things belonging to our planet, for Mr. M., like most other geologists of the new school, admits that its surface may have undergone many successive changes, and have been inhabited by many races of living beings, each being adapted to the state of the globe during the period of its existence.

After some explanatory remarks and evidences of the Deluge, its effects, &c., the Lecturer thus concluded:

"These evidences have been summed up in so masterly a manner by Dr. Buckland, that I cannot do better than quote the words of that eminent geologist.

"The proofs of an universal deluge are to be found in the following facts :—

"1. The general shape and position of hills and valleys; the former having their sides and surface universally modified by the action of violent waters; and presenting often the same alternation of salient and retiring angles that mark the course of a common river. And the latter, in those cases which are called valleys of denudation, being attended with such phenomena as shew them to owe their existence entirely to excavation under the action of a retiring flood of waters.

"2. The almost universal confluence and successive inosculations of minor valleys with each other; and final termination of them all in some main trunk which conducts them to the sea; and the rare interruptions of their courses by transverse barriers, producing lakes.

"3. The occurrence of detached insulated masses of horizontal strata, called outliers, at considerable distances from the beds which they once evidently formed a continuous part, and from which they have at a recent period separated by deep and precipitous valleys of denudation.

""4. The immense deposits of gravel that occur occasionally on the summits of hills, and almost universally in valleys, over the whole world, in situations to which no torrents nor rivers, (such as are now in action) could have drifted there.

"5. The nature of this gravel, being in part composed of the wreck of neighbouring hills, and partly of fragments and blocks that have been transported from distant regions.

"6. The nature and condition of the organic remains deposited in this gravel; many, though not all of them, identical with species that now exist; and very few having undergone the process of mineralization.'

"Their condition resembles rather that of common grave bones than of those fossil bones which are found imbedded in the regular strata; being in so recent a state, and having undergone so little decay, that if the records of history and the circumstances that attend them, did not absolutely forbid such a supposition, we should be inclined to attribute them to a much later period than the Mosaic Deluge, and certainly there is, in my opinion, no single fact connected with them, that should lead us to date their origin from any more ancient era.

"7. The total impossibility of referring any one of these appearances to the action of ancient or modern rivers, or any other causes that are now, or appear ever to have been, in action since the last retreat of the diluvian waters.

""8. The analogous occurrence of similar phenomena in almost all regions of the world that have hitherto been scientifically investigated, presenting a series of facts that are uniformly consistent with the hypothesis of a contemporaneous and diluvian origin.

"9. The perfect harmony and consistency in the circumstances of those few changes that now go on; e. g. the formation of ravines and gravel; mountain torrents; the depth and continual growth of peat bogs; the formation of tufa, sandbanks, and deltas; and of the filling up of lakes, estuaries, and marshes. These changes are progressive, and have been so from the last great catastrophe of the earth, and their present state perfectly coincides with the hypothesis which dates the commencement of all such operations at a period not more ancient than the Mosaic deluge.

"All these, whether considered collectively or separately, present such a general conformity of facts tending to establish the universality of a recent deluge, as no difficulties or objections, that have hitherto arisen, are in any way sufficient to

overrule."

ON THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VEGETABLE
ORGANIZATION.

On the evening of the 14th of April, a lecture "On the Progressive Development of the Vegetable Organization," was delivered before the Worcestershire Natural History Society, by Dr. Streeten. After stating that the subject formed a counterpart to the Development of the Animal Organization, so ably treated by Mr. Walsh upon a former occasion, the lecturer proceeded to describe a globular vesicle, as affording the most simple idea of a primary cell. The Lepraria viridis, or powdery green substance, so common on trees, old palings, and in damp situations, was instanced as apparently consisting of these simple vesicles, slightly