a Journal in North Britain and Ireland, and also of Travels in Malta and Sicily, appears to have made independent and accurate observations, and to 'have attended to the geography and history of the places which he visited. His feeling is liberal, and his style animated, though somewhat ambitious. A Narrative of an Expedition through Upper Mississippi in 1832, by HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, may be relied on for accuracy of observation and judicious opinions. Reminiscences of Spain, by CALEB CUSHING, is a well-written book. It is a sort of miscellany, made up of historical and geographical sketches, moral essays, tales, and poems, after the manner of some of Washington Irving's works. Four Years in Great Britain, by CALVIN COLTON, in two volumes, is a work drawn up with care. Had the author, however, abounded less in the description of wellknown places and objects, and given more of his feelings or details of adventure, the volumes would have been still more interesting. Ship and Shore, and Visit to Constantinople and Athens, by WALTER COLTON, are books of merit. The author manifests a fine taste, and unusual powers of description. Though digressive, he is instructing; and though humorous, he often adopts a serious, moralizing strain of remark. Poetry, sentiment, and story, are happily combined in his pages.

*

The letters and journals of many of the American Missionaries, in which they have given accounts of the countries where they have laboured; of the manners, character, and superstitions of their inhabitants; and of their own adventures, are among the most authentic and valuable publications of the kind, that have issued from the American press. And the same is true of the researches of those, who have been temporarily commissioned by missionary societies, to explore unevangelised countries, for the purposes of religious and other intelligence. These works have greatly extended the boundaries of geographical science, as well as of our knowledge of the spiritual wants of men. A journalist has correctly remarked, that the literature of Christian Missions already forms one of the most interesting and extensive chapters, in the general literary history of our times.'

*AM. ED.

STEWART. ANDERSON.-D'ISRAELI.

295 SAMUEL NEWELL, who died in 1821, JAMES RICHARDS (1784-1822), PLINY FISK (1792-1825), GORDON HALL (1788-1826), and ANN H. JUDSON (1789-1826), are among the number who have obtained a deserved reputation by writings of this description. A Tour in Armenia by ELI SMITH and H. G. O. DWIGHT is one of the best books of travels that have appeared, especially in regard to that country. It is full of interesting adventure, useful information, and well digested remark. CHARLES S. STEWART, who was for a time engaged as a missionary in the Sandwich Islands, but afterwards became a Chaplain in the United States Navy, published in 1831 a work entitled A Visit to the South Seas, &c. in two volumes, duodecimo. It is a fair and interesting account of the regions which he visited, and has been extensively read." He had previously published his Residence in the Sandwich Islands in 1823 and 1825. The benefit of Christian Missions is abundantly established, by his narratives. RUFUS ANDERSON, one of the Secretaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has published a volume entitled Observations upon the Peloponessus and the Greek Islands, made in 1829. It is filled with authentic information, and both the subjectmatter and the style render it an attractive work. Other interesting books of travels have proceeded from the American press, especially within three or four years past. But we should go far beyond the plan of this work to mention them all. The prominent works that have already been brought into notice, may give the reader some idea of the history of this portion of American literature.*

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

Under this head may be ranged a great variety of literary men, whose principal writings are not such as to give them a title to rank in any of the preceding sections. One of the most eminent is MR. ISAAC D'ISRAELI, who, from the year 1791, when he published the first series of his Curiosities of Literature, has employed a mind of great activity, acuteness, and no small share

*AM. ED.

of wit, in a series of compositions chiefly referring to authors and their works. His Curiosities of Literature, which finally extended to eight volumes, is one of the most pleasant miscellanies in the language. His chief other works are his Essay on the Literary Character (1795), Quarrels of Authors, Calamities of Authors, and Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I. JOHN MILLAR (1735-1801), professor of civil law in the University of Glasgow, was one of the earliest writers on general politics, and gained considerable distinction by his essay on the Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771), and his Historical View of the English Government (1787); works composed in a clear and forcible, though not very attractive manner, and conveying much sound and useful information. In 1798, appeared the first edition of the celebrated Essay on Population, by the REV. THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS, afterwards professor of political economy at the East India Company's College in Hertfordshire; a book which naturally attracted much notice, as it attempted to show, for the first time, that the numbers of the human race are apt to increase more rapidly than the means for maintaining them.

The close of the last century, and the early years of the present, were remarkable for a multitude of antiquarian writers, some of whom attained great eminence. JOSEPH STRUTT (1749–1802) was the author of two works of vast research and highly curious contents, -A Complete View of the Dresses of the People of England, and The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, both illustrated by plates. JOSEPH RITSON, a man of very eccentric character, is remarkable for his many publications concerning English literary antiquities; and George Chalmers, who has already been mentioned in the class of historical writers, rendered himself highly serviceable in the same department. The Illustrations of Shakspeare, published in 1807 by MR. FRANCIS DOUCE, is a work of singular research and curiosity, reviving numberless traits of ancient manners, of which it might have been expected that all memory would have long since been lost. A still more useful labourer in the same field is the REV. MR.T. D. FOSBROOKE, author of British Monachism, an account of the pri

BRITTON.-BRAYLEY.-BRYDGES.—DIBDIN. 297

vate lives of the monks and nuns of England previously to the Reformation (1802), and of an Encyclopedia of Antiquities (1824), both of them works of the highest value. During the same period, Messrs. BRITTON and BRAYLEY published many works respecting British topography and antiquities, illustrated by splendid engrav

ings.

SIR SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES is an author who, to tasks chiefly of an antiquarian kind, has brought a mind more poetical and aspiring than those which are usually found engaged in such pursuits. His principal works are Censura Literaria (1805-9), in ten volumes; the British Bibliographer, in three volumes; and an enlarged edition of Collins's English Peerage (1812), in nine volumes. In these and a few other publications, where he lends his highly respectable powers of mind to the adornment and elevation of subjects not in themselves attractive, few writers have been more successful. In a walk somewhat similar, the REV. THOMAS FROGNALL DIRDIN has attained a high reputation. He is the author of an Introduction to the rare and valuable edition of the Greek and Roman Classics (1802), a work descriptive of the books in the library of Earl Spencer (1814), a Bibliographical Tour, in which he describes the principal libraries of the Continent, and the Library Companion, which is designed as a guide in the selection and purchase of books. The most of Mr. Dibdin's publications are splendid in typography and embellishment, and therefore very expensive. They are enlivened with numberless whimsical remarks and anecdotes.

The rise of periodical literature and criticism in Great Britain has been noticed in the preceding section. During the present era, the Gentleman's and the Scots Magazines, with some others, and the Monthly and Critical Reviews, continued to exist, but without experiencing an improvement at all proportionate to that which was taking place in almost all other departments of literature. The critical periodicals had sunk into a peculiarly feeble condition, when, in October, 1802, a few young men, just emancipated from the Edinburgh University, commenced the publication of a journal entitled

the Edinburgh Review, which was to be published quarterly, and to notice only the more important class of books. The masterly and original character of the essays which appeared in this work, and the pitiless severity exercised towards writers of questionable ability, instantaneously attracted and fixed the public attention, and threw into shade all other existing works of the same kind. The gentlemen chiefly engaged in conducting it, were, MR. FRANCIS JEFFREY, afterwards a Scottish judge under the designation of Lord Jeffrey, DR. THOMAS BROWN, whose metaphysical works have already been mentioned, and MR. SYDNEY SMITH, a native of England, and subsequently dean of St. Paul's. The strength of the work, in the earlier part of its course, lay in the brilliant and epigrammatic style of Mr. Jeffrey; and it was afterwards sustained by the contributions of MR. HENRY BROUGHAM, SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, and other writers. From the first, the Edinburgh Review advocated the principles of the Whig party; though it was not for some years that the fashion arose of admitting directly political dissertations.

This celebrated publication had obtained an extensive circulation and a high place in public esteem, when, in 1809, a similar work advocating Tory principles, was commenced in London, under the title of the Quarterly Review, the editor being MR. WILLIAM GIFFORD, who has already been adverted to as a poet. The prominent qualifications of this gentleman were strong common sense and perception of the ridiculous, ready command of language, great and varied stores of information, and irresistible powers of sarcasm. His talents and principles gave the work such weight and respectability, as soon brought to its support men of the highest eminence, not only in the universities and the retirement of rustic clerical charges, but in the most conspicuous scenes of public life. Southey, Heber, Milman, Canning, Croker, and Barrow, were among those who contributed to the earlier numbers. After the death of Gifford, the editorship was committed, in 1825, to MR. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, under whom the work has advanced to a higher reputation than it ever before possessed, both as a political and literary journal.