VII.-1. Monumens des Arts du Dessin chez les Peuples tant Anciens que Modernes. Recueillis par Vivant Denon, pour servir à l'histoire des Arts; décrits et expliqués 2. Illuminated Ornaments, drawn from Ancient Manu- scripts. By Henry Shaw; with Descriptions by Sir 3. Catalogue of the Arundel Manuscripts in the British Museum (with plates engraved and coloured by Henry 6. Paléographie Universelle: Collection de fac-similes d'Ecritures de tous les peuples et de tous les temps, tirés des plus authentiques documents de l'art gra- phique, chartes, et manuscrits. . . . publiée d'après les modèles écrits, dessinés et peints sur les lieux mêmes, par M. Silvestre, et accompagnés d'explica- tions historiques et descriptives par MM. Champollion- Figeac et Aimé Champollion fils. 7. The Abbotsford Edition of the Waverley Novels. VIII.-Maria Schweidler die Bernstein-hexe, der interessanteste aller bisher bekannten Hexenprocesse, herausgegeben von W. Meinhold, Doctor der Theologie, und Pfarrer. (Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch: the most inte- resting Trial for Witchcraft yet known. Edited by W. Meinhold, Doctor of Divinity and Parish Priest) - 199 IX.-1. Railway Reform; its expedience and practicability considered, with a copious appendix, &c. 2. Railways, their Uses and Managements. 3. A Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., President of the Board of Trade, on Railway Legisla- 4. Report to the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council 1.-1. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; comprising Laws enacted under the Anglo-Saxon Kings from Ethel- bert to Canut, the Laws called Edward the Confessor's, &c., with an English Translation of the same. Edited and translated by Benjamin Thorpe, Esq., F.S.A., &c. 2. Patres Ecclesiæ Anglicana-Aldhelmus, Beda, Boni- facius, Alcuinus, et reliqui.-Venerabilis Bedæ Opera quæ supersunt omnia nunc primùm in Anglia, ope Codi- cum Manuscriptorum Editionumque optimarum, Edidit. J. A. Giles, LL.D., Ecclesiæ Anglicana Presbyter, &c. Tom. V. Homiliæ. The Complete Works of Venera- ble Bede in the original Latin, collated with the Manu- scripts and various printed Editions; accompanied with a new English Translation. By the Rev. J. A. Giles, 3. The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church-The Homi- 4. Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ sub Regibus Angliæ. II.-The Historical Geography of Arabia; or, the Patriarchal Evidences of Revealed Religion: a Memoir, with illus- trative Maps. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B.D. 325 III.-Passages in the Life of a Radical. By Samuel Bamford IV.-Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann, His Britannic Majesty's Resident at the Court of Florence, from 1760 to 1785. Now first published V.-Report of the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy to VI.-Fresco Decorations and Stuccoes of Churches and Palaces in Italy, during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, taken from the principal Works of the greatest Painters; Drawn and Engraved by Thurmer, Gutensohn, Pis- trucci, Gruner, and others; with English Descriptions. By Lewis Gruner. And an Essay on the Ancient Ara- besques, as compared with those of Raphael and his THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Early Lessons. By Miss Edgeworth. 5. Juvenile Kaleidescope. 6. Sowing and Reaping. By Mary Howitt. 7. Who shall be greatest? By Mary Howitt. 8. Children's Friend. 9. Shanty the Blacksmith. By Mrs. Sherwood. 10. Juvenile Manual. 11. Aids to Development. 12. Dr. Mayo's Lessons on Objects. 13. A Series of Lessons in Prose and Verse. By J. McCulloch. THE attention of our readers has already been called to a subject, to which, the more it is considered the more importance must be attached-w -we mean that of children's books, which, no less in quality than in quantity, constitute one of the most peculiar literary features of the present day. The first obvious rule in writing for the amusement or instruction of childhood, is to bear in mind that it is not the extremes either of genius or dullness which we are to address-that it is of no use writing up to some minds or down to others-that we have only to do with that large class of average ability, to be found in children of healthy mental and physical formation, among whom in after life the distinction consists not so much in a difference of gifts as in the mode in which they have been led to use them. In a recent article our remarks were chiefly confined to a set of books in which not only this but every other sense and humanity of juvenile writing had been so utterly defied, that the only consolation for all the misery they had inflicted, consisted in the reflection that however silly the infatuation which had given them vogue here-they were not of English origin. We now propose casting a sort of survey over that legion for which we are more responsible-taking first into consideration the general characteristics of those which we believe to be mistaken both as VOL. LXXIV. NO. CXLVII. B to to means and end-from which many who are concerned in the education of children are vainly expecting good results, and to which many who know nothing about the matter are falsely attributing them. In this department the present times profess to have done more than any other; and it has become a habit, more perhaps of conventional phraseology than of actual conviction, to congratulate the rising generation on the devotion of so many writers to their service. Nevertheless there are some circumstances contingently connected with this very service, which may warrant us in expressing doubts as to the unqualified philanthropy of those who enter it. Considering the sure sale which modern habits of universal education provide for children's books-the immense outfit required by schools and masters, and the incalculable number annually purchased as presents, it would be, upon the whole, matter of far more legitimate surprise if either the supplies were less abundant, or the suppliers, some of them, more conscientious. Ever since the days of Goldsmith the writing and editing of children's works has been a source of ready emolument-in no class of literature does the risk bear so small a proportion to the reward,—and consequently in no class has the system of mere manufacture been carried to such an extent. After the bewilderment of ideas has somewhat subsided which inevitably attends the first entrance into a department of reading so overstocked and where the minds of the writers are so differently actuated, and those of the readers so variously estimated, the one broad and general impression left with us is that of the excessive ardour for teaching which prevails throughout. No matter how these authors may differ as to the mode, they all agree as to the necessity of presenting knowledge to the mind under what they conceive to be the most intelligible form, and in getting down as much as can be swallowed. With due judgment and moderation, this, generally speaking, is the course which all instructors would pursue; nevertheless it is to the extreme to which it has been carried that parents and teachers have to attribute the stunted mental state of their little scholars, who either have been plied with a greater quantity of nourishment than the mind had strength or time to digest, or under the interdict laid on the imagination, in this mania for explanation, have been compelled to drag up the hill of knowledge with a wrong set of muscles. Doubtless the storing up of knowledge at an age when the powers of acquisition are most ductile and most tenacious, is of the utmost moment; but a child's head is a measure, holding only a given quantity at a time, and, if overfilled, liable not to be carried steadily. Also, it is one |