Travels in New Zealand, by ERNEST DIEFTENBACH, M.D. late naturalist to the New Zealand Company (1843), is a valuable history of an interesting country, destined apparently to transmit the English language, arts, and civilisation. Mr Dieffenbach gives a minute account of the language of New Zealand, of which he compiled a grammar and dictionary. He conceives the native population of New Zealand to be fit to receive the benefits of civilisation, and to amalgamate with the British colonists. At the same time he believes in the practice of cannibalism often imputed to the New Zealanders.

Suddenly we came upon merry groups of men and boys, all busily engaged in packing oranges, in a square and open plot of ground. They were gathered round a goodly pile of the fresh fruit, sitting on heaps of the dry calyx-leaves of the Indian corn, in which each orange is wrapped before it is placed in the boxes. Near these circles of laughing Azoreans, who Life in Mexico, during a Residence of Two Years sat at their work and kept up a continual cross-fire of in that Country, by MADAME CALDERON DE LA rapid repartee as they quickly filled the orange-cases, BARCA, an English lady, is full of sketches of dowere a party of children, whose business it was to pre-mestic life, related with spirit and acuteness. In pare the husks for the men, who used them in pack- no other work are we presented with such agreeable ing. These youngsters, who were playing at their glimpses of Mexican life and manners. work like the children of a larger growth that sat by Paraguay, and Letters on South America, by J. P. and their side, were with much difficulty kept in order by W. P. ROBERTSON, are the works of two brothers an elderly man, who shook his head and a long stick who resided twenty-five years in South America. whenever they flagged or idled.

A quantity of the leaves being heaped together near the packers, the operation began. A child handed to a workman who squatted by the heap of fruit a prepared husk; this was rapidly snatched from the child, wrapped round the orange by an intermediate workman, passed by the feeder to the next, who (sitting with the chest between his legs) placed it in the orange-box with amazing rapidity, took a second, and a third, and a fourth as fast as his hands could move and the feeders could supply him, until at length the chest was filled to overflowing, and was ready to be nailed up. Two men then handed it to the carpenter, who bent over the orange-chest several thin boards, secured them with the willow band, pressed it with his naked foot as he sawed off the ragged ends of the boards, and finally despatched it to the ass which stood ready for lading. Two chests were slung across his back by means of cords crossed in a figure of eight; both were well secured by straps under his belly, the driver took his goad, pricked his beast, and uttering the never-ending cry Sackaaio,' trudged off

to the town.

Groves whose rich fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, and of delicious taste.

In one part scores of children were scattered among
the branches, gathering fruit into small baskets,
hallooing, laughing, practically joking, and finally
emptying their gatherings into the larger baskets
underneath the trees, which, when filled, were slowly
borne away to the packing-place, and bowled out upon
the great heap. Many large orange-trees on the steep
sides of the glen lay on the ground uprooted, either
from their load of fruit, the high winds, or the weight
of the boys, four, five, and even six of whom will
climb the branches at the same time; and as the soil
is very light, and the roots are superficial (and the
fall of a tree perhaps not unamusing), down the trees
come. They are allowed to lie where they fall; and
those which had evidently fallen many years ago were
still alive, and bearing good crops. The oranges are
not ripe until March or April, nor are they eaten ge-
nerally by the people here until that time-the boys,
however, that pick them are marked exceptions. The
young children of Villa Franca are now almost uni-
versally of a yellow tint, as if saturated with orange
juice.

Letters on

The Narrative of the Voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle (1839), by CAPTAINS KING and FITZROY, and C. DARWIN, Esq. naturalist of the Beagle, detail the various incidents which occurred during their examination of the southern shores of South America, and during the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. The account of the Patagonians in this work, and that of the natives of Tierra del Fuego, are both novel and interesting, while the geological details supplied by Mr Darwin possess a permanent value.

Notes on the United States during a Phrenological Visit in 1839-40 have been published by MR GEORGE COMBE, in three volumes. Though attaching what is apt to appear an undue importance to his views of phrenology, Mr Combe was a sensible traveller. He paid particular attention to schools and all benevolent institutions, which he has described with care and minuteness. Among the matter-of-fact details and sober disquisitions in this work, we meet with the following romantic story. The author had visited the lunatic asylum at Bloomingdale, where he learned this realisation of Cymon and Iphigenia-finer even than the version of Dry

den!

In the course of conversation, a case was mentioned to me as having occurred in the experience of a highly respectable physician, and which was so fully authenticated, that I entertain no doubt of its truth. The physician alluded to had a patient, a young man, who was almost idiotic from the suppression of all his faculties. He never spoke, and never moved voluntarily, but sat habitually with his hand shading his eyes. The physician sent him to walk as a remedial measure. In the neighbourhood, a beautiful young girl of sixteen lived with her parents, and used to see the young man in his walks, and speak kindly to him. For some time he took no notice of her; but after meeting her for several months, he began to look for her, and to feel disappointed if she did not appear. He became so much interested, that he directed his steps voluntarily to her father's cottage, and gave her bouquets of flowers. By degrees he conversed with her through the window. His mental faculties were roused; the dawn of convalescence appeared. The girl was virtuous, intelligent, and lovely, and encouraged his visits when she was told that she was benefiting his mental health. She asked him if he could read and write? He answered, No. She wrote some lines to him to induce him to learn. This had the desired effect. He applied himself to study, and soon wrote good and sensible letters to her. He recovered his reason. She was married to a young man from the neighbouring city. Great fears were entertained that

this event would undo the good which she had accomplished. The young patient sustained a severe shock, but his mind did not sink under it. He acquiesced in the propriety of her choice, continued to improve, and at last was restored to his family cured. She had a child, and was soon after brought to the same hospital perfectly insane. The young man heard of this event, and was exceedingly anxious to see her; but an interview was denied to him, both on her account and his own. She died. He continued well, and became an active member of society. What a beautiful romance might be founded on this narrative!

The Literary Character. The whole of these are now printed in one large volume. In 1841 this author, though labouring under partial blindness, followed up the favourite studies of his youth by another work in three volumes, entitled The Amenities of Literature, consisting, like the Curiosities and Miscellanies, of detached papers and dissertations on literary and historical subjects, written in a plessant philosophical style, which presents the fruits of antiquarian research and careful study, without their dryness and general want of connexion.

In the same style of literary illustration, with more imagination and poetical susceptibility, may be mentioned SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, who published the Censura Literaria, 1805-9, in ten volumes; the edition of Collins's British Peerage; Letters on the British Bibliographer, in three volumes; an enlarged Genius of Lord Byron, &c. As principal editor of the Retrospective Review, Sir Egerton Brydges | drew public attention to the beauties of many old writers, and extended the feeling of admiration which Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and others, had awakened

for the early masters of the English lyre. In 1835

this veteran author edited an edition of Milton's

JOSEPH RITSON (1752-1803), another zealous lite

America, Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive, by J. S. BUCKINGHAM, is a vast collection of facts and details, few of them novel or striking, but apparently written with truth and candour. The work fatigues from the multiplicity of its small statements, and the want of general views or animated description. In 1842 the author published two additional volumes, describing his tour in the slave states. These are more interesting, because the ground is less hackneyed, and Mr Buckingham feels strongly, as a benevolent and humane man, on the subject of poetical works in six volumes. A tone of querulous slavery, that curse of the American soil. Two remarkable works on Spain have been pub-works of this author, but his taste and exertions egotism and complaint pervades most of the original lished by GEORGE BORROW, late agent of the British in English literature entitle him to high respect. and Foreign Bible Society in Spain. The first of these, in two volumes 12mo. 1841, is entitled The Zincali, or an Account of the Gipsies of Spain. Mrrary antiquary and critic, was indefatigable in his Borrow calculates that there are about forty thousand gipsies in Spain, of which about one-third are to be found in Andalusia. The caste, he says, has diminished of late years. The author's adventures with this singular people are curiously compounded of the ludicrous and romantic, and are presented in the most vivid and dramatic form. Mr Borrow's second work is termed The Bible in Spain, or the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an attempt to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula. There are many things in the book which, as the author acknowledges, have little connexion with religion or religious enterprise. It is, indeed, a series of personal adventures, varied and interesting, with sketches of character and romantic incidents drawn with more power and vivacity than those of most professed novelists.

An account of The Highlands of Ethiopia, by MAJOR W. CORNWALLIS HARRIS, H. E. I. C. Engineers, three volumes, 1844, also abounds with novel and interesting information. The author was employed to conduct a mission which the British government sent to Sahela Selasse, the king of Shoa, in southern Abyssinia, whose capital, Ankober, was supposed to be about four hundred miles inland from the port of Tajura, on the African coast. The king consented to form a commercial treaty, and Major Harris conceives that a profitable intercourse might be maintained by Great Britain with this productive part of the world.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

One of the most laborious and successful of modern miscellaneous writers, and who has tended in a material degree to spread a taste for literary history and anecdote, is ISAAC D'ISRAELI, author of the Curiosities of Literature, and other works. The first volume of the Curiosities was published in 1791; a second appeared a few years afterwards, and a third in 1817. A second series has since been published in three volumes. The other works of Mr D'Israeli are entitled Literary Miscellanies; Quarrels of Authors; Calamities of Authors; Character of James I.; and

the neglected ballad strains of the nation. He publabours to illustrate English literature, particularly lished in 1783 a valuable collection of English songs; in 1790, Ancient Songs, from the Time of Henry III. to the Revolution; in 1792, Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry; in 1794, A Collection of Scottish Songs; in 1795, A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, &c. Reand acute editor, profoundly versed in literary antilating to Robin Hood, &c. Ritson was a faithful quities, but of a jealous irritable temper, which kept him in a state of constant warfare with his brother collectors. He was in diet a strict Pythagorean, and wrote a treatise against the use of aniMr Ellis in 1803, remarks- Poor Ritson is no mal food. Sir Walter Scott, writing to his friend more. All his vegetable soups and puddings have not been able to avert the evil day, which, I understand, was preceded by madness.' Scott has borne ample testimony to the merits of this unhappy gleaner in the by-paths of literature.

The Illustrations of Shakspeare, published in 1807 by MR FRANCIS DOUCE, and the British Monachism, the REV. T. D. FOSBROOKE, are works of great re1802, and Encyclopædia of Antiquities, 1824, by search and value as repositories of curious information. Works of this kind illustrate the pages of our poets and historians, besides conveying pictures of national manners now faded into oblivion. the same time with this study of antiquities. THOMAS A taste for natural history gained ground about PENNANT (1726-1798), by the publication of his works on zoology, and his Tours in Scotland, excited public curiosity; and in 1789 the Rev. GILBERT WHITE (1720-1793) published a series of letters addressed by him to Pennant and Daines Barrington, descriptive of the natural objects and appearances of the parish of Selborne in Hampshire. White was rector of this parish, and had spent in it the greater part of his life, engaged in literary occupations and the study of nature. His minute and interesting facts, the entire devotion of the amiable author to his subject, and the easy elegance and simplicity of his style, render White's history a universal favourite something like Izaak Walton's book on angling, which all admire, and hundreds

WILLIAM COBBETT (1762-1835), by his Rural The internal parts of the forest are not so happily Rides, his Cottage Economy, his works on America, disposed to catch the effects of a setting sun. The and various parts of his Political Register, is justly. meridian ray, we have seen, may dart through the entitled to be remembered among the miscellaneous openings at the top, and produce a picture, but the writers of England. He was a native of Farnham flanks of the forest are generally too well guarded in Surrey, and brought up as an agricultural la against its horizontal beams. Sometimes a recess bourer. He afterwards served as a soldier in brifronting the west may receive a beautiful light, tish America, and rose to be sergeant-major. He spreading in a lengthened gleam amidst the gloom of first attracted notice as a political writer by publishthe woods which surround it; but this can only being a series of pamphlets under the name of Peter had in the outskirts of the forest. Sometimes also we find in its internal parts, though hardly in its deep recesses, splendid lights here and there catching the foliage, which though in nature generally too scattered to produce an effect, yet, if judiciously collected, may be beautiful on canvass.

We sometimes also see in a woody scene coruscations like a bright star, occasioned by a sunbeam darting through an eyelet hole among the leaves.

a lucid whole. His unfixedness of principle also operated strongly against him; for no man who is not considered honest and sincere, or can be relied upon, will ever make a lasting impression on a popular assembly. Cobbett's inconsistency as a political writer was so broad and undisguised, as to have become proverbial. He had made the whole round of politics, from ultra-toryism to ultra-radicalism, and had praised and abused nearly every public man and measure for thirty years. Jeremy Bentham said of him, 'He is a man filled with odium humani generis. His malevolence and lying are beyond anything.' The retired philosopher did not make sufficient allowance for Cobbett: the latter acted on the momentary feeling or impulse, and never calculated the consequence to himself or others. We admit he was eager to escape when a difficulty arose, and did not scruple as to the means; but we are considering him only as a public writer. No individual in Britain was better known than Cobbett, down to the minutest circumstance in his character, habits, and opinions. He wrote freely of himself, as he did of other men; and in all his writings there was much natural freshness, liveliness, and vigour. He had the power of making every one who read him feel and understand completely what he himself felt and described. The idiomatic strength, copiousness, and purity of his style have been universally acknowledged; and when engaged in describing rural subjects, or depicting local manners, he is very happy. On questions of politics or criticism he fails, because he seems resolved to attack all great names and established opinions. He remarks on one occasion that anybody could, at the time he wrote, be made a baronet, since Walter Scott and Dudley Coutts Trotter (what a classification!) had been so elevated. It has become,' he says, 'of late years the fashion to extol the virtues of potatoes, as it has been to admire the writings of Milton and Shakspeare;' and he concludes a ludicrous criticism on Paradise Lost by wondering how it could have been tolerated by a people amongst whom astronomy, navigation, and chemistry are understood! Yet Cobbett had a taste for what may be termed the poetry of nature. He is loud in his praises of the singing-birds of England (which he missed so much in America), and he loved to write on green lanes and meadows. The following description of his boyish scenes and recollections is like the simple and touching passages in Richardson's Pamela :

to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learned before the death of my father and mother. There is a hill not far from the town called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. As high as Crooksbury Hill,' meant, with us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore the first object that my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes! Literally speaking, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed, and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen in New Brunswick a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as big, and four or five times as high! The post-boy, going down hill, and not a bad road, whisked me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden of which I could see the prodigious sand-hill where I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing! But now came rushing into my mind all at once my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle and tender-hearted and affectionate mother! I hastened back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer I should have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a change! I looked down at my dress. What a change! What scenes I had gone through! How altered my state! I had dined the day before at a secretary of state's in company with Mr Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy liveries! I had had nobody to assist me in the world. No teachers of any sort. Nobody to shelter me from the consequence of bad, and no one to counsel me to good behaviour. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth, all became nothing in my eyes; and from that moment (less than a month after my arrival in England) I resolved never to bend before

them.

There is good sense and right feeling in the following paragraph on field sports:

Taking it for granted, then, that sportsmen are as good as other folks on the score of humanity, the sports of the field, like everything else done in the fields, tend to produce or preserve health. I prefer them to all other pastime, because they produce early rising; because they have no tendency to lead young men into vicious habits. It is where men congregate that the vices haunt. A hunter or a he is less likely to be fond of the two latter if he be shooter may also be a gambler and a drinker; but fond of the former. Boys will take to something in the way of pastime; and it is better that they take that which is vicious, unhealthy, and effeminate. to that which is innocent, healthy, and manly, than Besides, the scenes of rural sport are necessarily at

are very rarely acquired in these hives; the surrounding objects are too numerous, too near the eye, too frequently under it, and too artificial.

After living within a few hundreds of yards of Westminster Hall, and the Abbey Church, and the Bridge, and looking from my own windows into St James's Park, all other buildings and spots appear mean and insignificant. I went to-day to see the house I formerly occupied. How small! It is always thus: the words large and small are carried about with us a distance from cities and towns. This is another in our minds, and we forget real dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, remains during our great consideration; for though great talents are absence from the object. When I returned to Eng-wanted to be employed in the hives of men, they land in 1800, after an absence from the country parts of it of sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump over, called rivers! The Thames was but a creek!" But when, in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross, in my postchaise, the long and dreary heath of Bagshot. Then, at the end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear,

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

The miscellaneous writings of MR SOUTHEY are numerous, and all are marked by an easy flowing style, by extensive reading, a strain of thought and reflection simple and antiquated, occasional dialogues full of quaint speculation and curious erudition, and a vein of poetical feeling that runs through the whole, whether critical, historical, or political. In 1807 Mr Southey published a series of observations on our national manners and prospects, en