CONTENTS OF No. CXLVIII. ART. 1.-1. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; comprising 4. Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ sub Regibus Angliæ. Mann, His Britannic Majesty's Resident at the Court V.-Report of the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy to Page 281 325 358 - 395 416 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- THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. Art. I.-1. Early Lessons. By Miss Edgeworth. 2. Conversations with Mamma. By Mrs. Marshall. 3. The Fourth Book for Children. By J. White. 4. The Stanley Family. 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. M Culloch. THE IE attention of our readers has already been called to a subject, to which, the more it is considered the more importance must be attached—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. to B 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- THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Early Lessons. By Miss Edgeworth. 11. Aids to Development. By Mary Howitt. By Mrs. Sherwood. 12. Dr. Mayo's Lessons on Objects. 13. A Series of Lessons in Prose and Verse. By J. M'Culloch. THE HE attention of our readers has already been called to a subject, to which, the more it is considered the more importance must be attached-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 |