we gladly call attention to a work of a most important and decidedly national character. We know not, nor do we wish to know, whether it were the collector, Mr. Shoberl, or the editor, Mr. Halliwell, who consulted the originals. Both are able men, and both fully competent to the task. We believe the letters to be genuine, and feel grateful, that instead of having to travel to the Advocates' Library in North Britain, or to rummage the Tower Records, we can sit in our own arm-chair, and peruse some of the most amusing correspondence of British monarchs, and concerning whose real characters, pages of history could not convey half as much information as one line of these letters affords. We do not feel the slightest doubt, but that in a question like this, the public will side with us, and look to deeds and not to names, to acts and not to reputations. Nor will they be disappointed. Notwithstanding an error of commission in attributing a letter of Henry II. to Richard the Lionhearted, or one of omission in not correcting the Cottonian Catalogue, in reference to a letter of Henry's which, it is said, ought to be Edward I., and other minor deficiencies; the reader will find that he is now first presented with the most curious, the most suggestive, and the most interesting selection of royal letters that has ever issued from the press.

MISS JEWRY'S RANSOM.*

No genuine novel reader can derive otherwise than amusement from a tale so full of interest, and so rife with incident as Miss Laura Jewry's "Ransom." The plot from which the story derives its name is founded on a tradition, backed by a monument still existing in one of the midland counties, of a young lady sending her "small snoww-white hand -the hand of a young and delicate woman," as a ransom for her crusading lover. All interest is, however, by no means bound up in this event alone. There is a first knight, Sir Edward Fitzeustace, who is betrothed to the heroine, the Lady Constance, and who has a brother Gerald, a destined Templar. There is a second knight, Sir Edmund Fitzwalter, with a haughty, but beautiful, sister, the Lady Cicely. Sir Edmund murders Sir Edward to win the fair and loving Constance, but her heart is given to Gerald, and the rejected knight solaces himself by carrying off Alinor, a yeoman's daughter, "the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the greensward." Then we have a bye-play of a weird woman, an inspired idiot, and the young science of Roger Bacon. The templar, in the mean time Sir Gerald, beloved by Constance, himself loves the Lady Cicely.

Then there is the march of the crusaders, with blood-red crosses, pennons, and oriflammes. A rustic lover follows Sir Edmund to avenge the abduction of his Alinor, but he is slain by the knight, who is also engaged in mortal combat with Robert of Artois. The halt at Cyprus is relieved by a romantic story of a Greek maiden's love for an English squire—a maiden, too, of no less degree than the daughter of the Comneni. Poor Alinor has perished in the snow, and Eudocia Comnena dies at sea, but not before a Venetian rival has fallen in combat. Landed in Egypt, the fatal battle of Massoura carries off the flower of Louis's army. Salisbury and Count Robert perish side by side, while Sir Edmund and Sir Gerald are taken prisoners, and hence the history of the ransom. The circumstances atten

The Ransom. A Tale of the Thirteenth Century: founded on a Family Tradition. By Miss Laura Jewry. 3 vols. T. C. Newby.

dant upon so strange and striking a tribute of affection, and the mysteries of a poisonous unguent connected therewith, are so vividly told by the author, that it would be unfair to anticipate them. We have said enough to satisfy the reader that the "Ransom" is a tale of very considerable interest.

THE OCEAN AND THE DESERT.*

TALK of couleur de rose, we have here couleur de grenadier. Imagine a young, spirited, manly, joyous-hearted soldier, after a long exile in dusky Ind, on his way to his fatherland for the first time, and that by the overland route! How fresh every thing appears, how delightful each new scene, how full of happiness every human being! Nor does the gallant-hearted author fail to contribute his part towards making others happy as well as himself. Ex. gra., when he gives two francs to a French veteran, who returns the compliment with Les Anglais sont toujours braves et toujours genereux. We wish Le Siecle could be taught to think so too. Apart, however, from the spirit of the thing, the book gives the best idea yet published of the overland route, we do not mean as a guide-book, but as indicative of its comforts and discomforts,-from the admirable fare on board the "Hindustan" to the French count and his companions, who intrude themselves into the ladies'-room, in the "Little Nile"'—we wish it had been into an Osmanlis or Egyptian harem. Our Madras Officer avers that the sepoys would beat the Neapolitan soldiers as Ibrahim Pasha always believed that his Syrians would cope with the Russians. There is, indeed, much entertaining and instructive matter in these two volumes.

THE BOOK OF COSTUME.+

HERE is a work that will be far more acceptable to ladies than many an annual. Costume is a subject of primary and paramount importance, The sway of mind has never, notwithstanding a prolonged struggle from the days of our common mother, been able to carry it over the empire of beauty and dress. "Costume," says the author, "furnishes a standard of civilisation, involving the interests of the arts and commerce, is, in fact, an important element in the prosperity of states." The "United States," we suppose is meant.

The aberrations of costume as presented to us in the history of the same nation, are really quite as great as are the contrasts presented by different countries, from the coiffure of a Norman peasant to that of a Druse shepherdess. (By-the-bye, how is it that the brazen helmet of a Bavarese maiden is omitted?) The "Book of Costume," has taken up the subject under both aspects; and as the engravings are numerous and beautiful, and no good taste in matters of costume can be formed from a mere familiarity with the fashions of the day, we think that a more acceptable book for the boudoir could scarcely have been imagined.

* The Ocean and the Desert. By a Madras Officer. 2 vols. T. C. New by. †The Book of Costume; or, Annals of Fashion, from the earliest perid to the present time. By a Lady of Rank. Illustrated with numerous Engravings on Wood, by the most eminent Artists. Henry Colburn.

HISTORY OF THE PUNJAB.*

THIS is an extremely well-timed work. Nor is it a superficial book got up for the nonce. On the contrary, it is in part a reprint of the well-known work by Mr. H. T. Prinsep, originally published in Calcutta, but long since out of print, and which was itself founded upon the official reports of Captain Murray, fifteen years political agent at Umbala, and of Captain Wade, the distinguished assistant at Lodiana. To this excellent original work there have been added five introductory chapters, and nine concluding ones, which latter contain the history of recent events. We have perused the introductory chapters, especially those which refer to the campaigns of Alexander, and his successors, with much interest, and we were pleased to find that they were up to the mark of recent discovery. The narrative of the late disturbed condition of the country, and of the glorious achievements of our army, will find readers of all classes, and now that Sir Henry Hardinge's consummate policy has divided the whole territory into a mountain and lowland monarchy, it forms the actual complement to the history of the Punjab as a distinct country.

MRS. MABERLEY'S “LEONTINE."+

LEONTINE opens pleasingly. The orphan schoolboy disappointed of his holidays, the early indications of the wayward, stubborn nature of the young Guesclin de Fontenelle, come out in bold relief. Equally amusing and most pleasantly conceived are the scenes that pave the way to future days in the little town of La Ferté sous Jouarre. The old Jew banker, Anselm Guinot, and his dungeon-home tally well together, far more so than the plain and unostentatious usurer does with the extravagant, dressy, vain, and domineering wife of his bosom. There is already one fair protegée, Leontine, with whose history Madame Guinot has never been made acquainted, when to the infinite horror of the irascible lady another is announced under circumstances of similar mystery too well calculated to awaken the ill-natured surmises of the scandal-mongers of a small country-town. This is no less than the young Breton Guesclin, the last of the Beaumanoirs, sent thither by his uncle. To such an extent does the injured wife carry her indignation, as actually to quit the house and to seek refuge in a hotel, where dwelt, for the time being, the Duke of Richelieu, whom she had met at a ball the night before, but the lesson she gets while secreted in a closet of the heartlessness and profligacy of the young courtier and of the contempt he bore the banker's wife, makes her but too glad to regain her home without any evil coming from the escapade. But this is not all. The little party is soon increased by the society of a third beautiful young person, Antoinette, daughter of the fermiére generale. The childish group grew up together, the Duchess of Modena joins the circle and betrays feelings of unmistakeable maternal tenderness towards Leontine, who herself has given her innocent young heart to the wayward Guesclin.

Mademoiselle de Valois, the favourite daughter of the regent, had in early life contracted a secret marriage with Richelieu, and Leontine was

History of the Punjab, and of the Rise, Progress, and Present Condition of the Sect and Nation of the Sikhs. 2 vols. Wm. H. Allen and Co.

† Leontine; or, the Court of Louis the Fifteenth. By Mrs. Maberly, Author of "Melantha," &c., &c. 3 vols. Henry Colburn.

the offspring of the ill-assorted alliance, but the connexion having been discovered, she was taken from her husband, scarcely against his will, to be forced into an unnatural marriage with the Duke of Modena.

Events progress rapidly with the young people. Guesclin has entered the service of the state under the auspices of the Duke of Richelieu, and acts as his aide-de-camp in that celebrated engagement of Fontenoy, which was announced by a pretty French actress from the boards of a theatre that stood in the midst of the camp. "Messieurs, demain relache à cause de la bataille. Après demain on donnera l'Amour Voltigeur."

The young warrior was also entangled in the any thing but silken chains woven for him by the Countess Hortense de Chateauneuf. Antoinette has become Madame d'Etioles, but Leontine has remained faithful to an attachment consecrated by Count Robert, the uncle, on his deathbed. She has also attached to her service François Damiens, whose attempted crime is made to spring from wounded pride and jealousy.

Then there is a third epoch. The beautiful Antoinette has succeeded to the Maillys, Vintimelles, and Chateaurous, as favourite of the king, and has assumed an historical name-that of Marquise de Pompadour, while the profligacy of Hortense has hurried Guesclin into a duel and the Bastile, whence he ultimately emerges at the fall of Richelieu to do justice to the faithful Leontine. The story is altogether a very animated and singularly truthful picture of France and its court during a very striking epoch in history.

THE BLACKGOWN PAPERS.*

A GLIMPSE of the western world introduces us to a mushroom city with a log church, where Eli Blackgown, doctor of divinity and farmer, ministers to the faithful in single-blessedness, but solaced by a fair niece, Emily. A young and mysterious stranger, of a very dark, sunny complexion, arrives, no one knows how or whence, at this remote settlement in the woods. Accomplished in literature and the arts, wise with travel, and experienced in the languages and knowledge of foreign countries, he wooes and wins the fair niece, when he turns out, to the horror of all concerned, to be the son of mulatto of a wealthy Tennessee, and the grandson of a slave! Nothing remains then, but to start for some country where the admixture of dark with white blood is not more disgraceful than crime itself, and, in return for his Emily, Walter, the half-caste, leaves the learned doctor these papers, which now hand down his name to posterity as associated with strange and eventful scenes of foreign-chiefly Italian-life. From gay to serious, from the humorous to the sentimental, these tales and sketches evidence a mastery over our language, combined with a variety of purpose and skilful portraiture, which have always characterised Signor Mariotti's literary efforts. Who will not be amused with the tricks played upon Milord Runebif, in the lively account of Carnival, or not sympathise with the progress of the little organ boy, Morello. Then there is Amelia, a strange story of an Austrian colonel, killed by a student of Pavia, who is sought out and wedded by his rival's love. And a legend of San Nicolo de Bari, a very successful imitation of Ingoldsby, and Maria Stella, a bandit story, told as one familiar with persons and localities alone could tell it. The Blackgown Papers deserve success.

The Blackgown Papers. By L. Mariotti. 2 vols. Wiley and Putnam.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES.*

THIS is a strange book, the object of which is simple and meritorious -to trace some of the silent influences exercised over thought and action by the system of society as at present constituted—but the execution of which is wayward and more than usually embarrassed and obscured by the peculiarities or idiosyncracies of style.

PENINSULAR SCENES AND SKETCHES.†

FULL well will this little work repay the reader. Any thing more various, or more entertaining, has not appeared in so homely a shape for a long time. The author apologetically says, "So many writers, both soldiers and civilians, have found materials for their pens in the Spanish wars of the last fifty years, that it may be thought the subject is waxing threadbare; and, with any other country, the supposition would, perhaps, not be far from the truth. Not so, however, with Spain, where the strange mixture of barbarism and civilisation, the wild and romantic character of the people, and their clinging adherence to ancient habits and customs give to every-day life all the charm of fiction." Never was apology less needed than in the present instance.

The feats and adventures of the Empeciada, and the passages, as the author terms it in his career, are far more romantic than aught fiction ever conceived, and at times almost partake of the marvellous. The sketches of the priest-soldier Merino and of Martin Zurbano, are equally graphic and characteristic. Indeed rambles, sketches, and tales, alike rival with one another in singularity and interest.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

66

UPON our library table are several new works, notices of which are unavoidably deferred. Among these are an admirable novel illustrative of the manners, customs, and superstitions of North Wales during the last century, published under the title of "Llewelyn's Heir;" a work of peculiar and most varied interest, entitled "Historical Pictures of the Middle Ages; a laborious and serious production, called “ America and its Realities;" a domestic novel, yclept "Sybil Lennard;" a very curious trip in Western India, of which the title, "A Year and a Day in the East," gives no adequate idea; a Trans-Atlantic notion of Views and Reviews;" a tale concerning church principles attractively disguised as "Glendearg Cottage;" a second volume of an author who has earned distinction on the subject of "Modern Painting;" a second volume of Wilson's classic work on British India, and a new number of Bohn's Standard Library, being Roscoe's great work, "The Life of Lorenzo de Medici." To these we must add several poetical works, among which are Mrs. D. Ogilvy's "Highland Minstrelsy," "The Pleasures of Home," Sir Coutts Lindsay's "Black Prince," and other poems of distinguished merit.

Social Influences; or, Villiers. 3 vols. T. C. Newby.

† Peninsular Scenes and Sketches. By the Author of the Student of Salamanca. 1 vol. Blackwood and Sons.