listen to the mysterious legends of Servia, now first presented in an English garb, and welcome the tender songs of the Kozàcs—a race hitherto suspected of no such peaceful accomplishment as the cultivation of poetry; with her, also, we traverse the Alps and descend to the beautiful plains of Lombardy, seeking repose and luxury in the marble villas of the Lake of Como, whose enchanting shores are now, and we fear, are long destined to be deformed by slaughter! The descriptions of scenery and the snatches of song scattered through these volumes show the imaginative taste and brilliant fancy, for which the author has long been distinguished. It would be better for the manners of the day if more writers followed such a track, and chose the better part of nature as the most proper for record, instead of descending to find excitement in the worst.

"Clara Fane" is a work such as a refined mind alone could have conceived, and such as refined minds will hail with welcome. It has a novelty and philosophic beauty about it, which at once surprise and attract; for easy and simple as the style appears, there are depth of feeling and powerful thought in every page.

LEIGH HUNT'S "TOWN."*

HERE is a library book, a pocket companion, a work to devour, an admirable and seasonable present. Who more at home with chatty anecdotes and literary illustrations of the great metropolis than the ever delightful Leigh Hunt? We shall return to this charming book hereafter.

BELGIUM, THE RHINE, ITALY, GREECE, AND THE MEDITERRANEAN.†

If

CONTINENTAL illustrations, at a moment when continental travel is almost out of the question, must acquire quite a new interest. a solace remains under such a bereavement, it is to take up a book like this, by the side of what the good people on the continent call, curiously enough, a "sea-coal" fire. Imagine seventy and upwards of beautiful engravings, for a little more than a guinea! Truly art effects a purely English object, when it thus imparts to those less favoured by fortune a share in the pleasures hitherto attainable only by the rich. Italy and Greece, the homes of ancient art, still lovely in their decaythe Rhine, consecrated by a thousand legends-Belgium, every edifice of which recalls associations of sturdy energy and commercial activitythe Mediterranean, whose shores are endeared by historic fame, and charm us by their surpassing loveliness, summon up visions of romantic beauty, which will not meet with disappointment in those who refer for gratification to this splendid tome.

*The Town; its Memorable Characters and Events. By Leigh Hunt. 2 vols., with forty-five illustrations. Smith, Elder, & Co.

+ Belgium, the Rhine, Italy, Greece, and the Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean, Illustrated in a Series of beautifully-executed Engravings, with Historical, Classical, and Picturesque Descriptions, by the Rev. G. N. Wright and L. F. A. Buckingham, Esq. Peter Jackson.

FISHER'S DRAWING-ROOM SCRAP BOOK.*

CHRISTMAS is the season when me meet old friends. It is with no small curiosity that we open the pages of each successive" Drawing-Room Scrap Book," and turn from one beautiful object to another. How pleasant to gaze at that miscalled Place de la Concorde as pencilled by Allom without fear of tumult or riot; to visit Luz, Cauterets, the valley of the Aosta, Pompeii and Adrianople, without moving from one's chair; to rouse feelings long dormant by the contemplation of beauty in its fairest form; to become sentimental with pen and pencil sketches of "enamoured days" and parting vows," and to leave off in the happiest of all frames of mind, by a last look at those interiors so full of pleasant and holy associations, St. Gatien at Tours, the chapel of Dreux, or the cathedral of Lyons! Meetly, too, have Mrs. Norton, Lady Dufferin, and their colleagues, Colonel Phipps, Monckton Milnes, Lord Viscount Melbourne (now gone to the home of his ancestors), A. Hayward, Cecilia Gore, Baillie Cochrane, and others, done their spiriting. Mrs. Norton is as sweetly sentimental as ever, and Lady Dufferin charming in the light humorous vein in which she at present without a rival.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES.

THE Juvenile Scrap Book for 1849, edited by Miss Jane Strickland, and published by Mr. Peter Jackson, presents the usual variety of amusing and instructive letter-press and pleasing illustrations. It is, as it always has been, an admirable present book for the young. We observe, in connexion with this excellent little publication, that a collection of the best articles contributed by Mrs. Ellis to the juvenile scrap-books of past years have been collected, with their illustrative engravings, into one volume, under the title of Fireside Tales for the Young, by Mrs. Ellis, and issued by the same publisher.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that there exists at present no history of Ireland of a character to be placed in the hands of the general reader. Works of this kind hitherto published, are all more or less disfigured, or rendered totally useless by the political or religious prejudices of the writers. Mr. Wright has undertaken the laborious task of giving to the world a true and compendious picture of Irish history, and from the success and popularity of his previous historical writings, and the learning and industry which he brings to bear upon the undertaking, we have no doubt that we shall have a standard and a classical work. It is to be published so as to be available to all classes, in numbers, by Messrs. J. and F. Tallis.

Mr. Colburn has, we are happy to see, commenced the publication of a translation of the Memoirs of Chateaubriand in half-crown parts. Whatever may be the peculiarities of that illustrious personage-his immeasurable vanity and egotism-still there is no doubt that he was a man of mark and genius, and his whole life was replete with romantic incidents and heroic devotion to the cause of loyalty. It will be a labour of love to turn at some period to this remarkable autobiography.

We have received two important letters from Dr. Granville; one on the formation and constitution of a Kingdom of Upper Italy,-and a second, a continuation of the same subject,-and both addressed to the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, which it is impossible to notice at length without entering upon subjects that require considerable space for discussion, and which, in the meantime, the progress of events is settling in a totally opposite way to what was anticipated by many. The same observation applies itself to Mr. Hawkins's letter to the Marquess of Lansdowne on the late Revolution in France. Mr. Hawkins has certainly an eccentricity of style, which always rescues what he has to say from every-day common-places.

Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap Book. 1849. By the Honourable Mrs. Norton. Peter Jackson.