Graphic Illustrations of Animals, showing their utility to Man, in their services during Life and uses after Death. Twentyone Coloured Plates; exhibiting fifty Animals, and upwards of two hundred Illustrations. London: Varty. 1843. WE have before had occasion to allude to the class of works produced by Messrs. Roake and Varty, for the instruction of youth, by means of graphic illustration, with satisfaction. We have now a work designed to show the utility of animals to man during life and after death, and to deduce results calculated to excite interest and to evince the goodness of the Creator. We cannot better show the plan than by letting the author speak for himself:

"Coloured prints of animals are always inviting to the eye of children; but to limit the uses of graphic illustrations to an exhibition of external form, or as a means of appreciating symmetry and beauty alone, would be to impart very imperfect lessons, and to leave the mind uneducated and unimproved.

"But very different is the result when there is unfolded to the view the wonderful connexion between animals living and after they are dead, and the interests of man, whose dependence upon them for food and clothing, as well as for innumerable other comforts and pleasures, is so entire, as to suggest lessons at once of humility and of devout gratitude. By tracing the various purposes they serve in exciting the healthful exercise and activity of the higher faculties-suggesting mechanical contrivances-furnishing profitable occupation-acting as the prime movers of many of our manufactures, and hence becoming the life of trade and commerce, and the source of national wealth, the young mind will be led to a just appreciation of the intrinsic value of each creature, independent of its external form-to observe that those most useful in life are frequently not so after death and that some of those which, while living, are regarded with aversion, contribute largely when dead to our comforts and enjoyments.

"There is in this collection of Graphic Illustrations' an almost inexhaustible source of instruction, in the hands of a judicious teacher. In directing attention to the Horse, for example, how interesting it is to trace it through its several stages of usefulness, whether contributing to pleasure or to the business of life-facilitating the rapidity of transit on the road or canal-assisting in the sad scenes of war-promoting the enduring blessings of peace-in agriculture and commerce-giving speed to the courier-or winding up its active existence in the unvarying round of duty at the mill; while still serviceable after death, in the application of its skin to various domestic purposes, and of its flesh sometimes as food for man and often for domestic animals. Then, to advert to the amount of human employment to which it gives occasion, and also in the occupations of ploughmen, carters, the post-boy, stablekeepers and grooms, coachmen, cavalry, the parade of state, tanners, shoemakers, millers-too many classes, in fact, to enumerate-all in connexion with this animal.

"If the Sheep is selected, what a fund of instruction may be extracted from it! The thousands to whom it gives occupation-the importance of its fleece to our country, as a staple commodity-the looms, mills, and steam-engines that it sets in motion-the inventions it occasionsthe covering for our bodies it provides; and then the wholesome food which its flesh affords, and the value of its skin as parchment, leather, &c. "But, to complete the circle of instruction, the relations of animals to man must be viewed under their most interesting aspects. Animals may justly be regarded as the cement of society. Man discovers that he cannot live independently; and such a discovery begets humility, encourages affability and kindness, and evinces how completely dependent each one is upon his neighbour for individual and general blessings -the rich equally with the poor; that there is not a grade in the scale of society which does not add stability and compactness to the entire structure; and shows that in the appointed duties of life, whether the station assigned is a lofty or a lowly one, there is a sphere of usefulness which cannot be dispensed with without deranging the general harmony."

The work is beautifully executed in lithography, and coloured. The parent will find it an invaluable aid in the instruction of his family. It ought to be in every school in the kingdom.

A Visit to the East. By the Rev. N. FORMBY, M.A. London: Burns. 1843.

THIS is a good-tempered, amusing sort of a journal of a traveller, by the very interesting route of the Danube, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Idumea, to Palestine; in which the incidents are fairly and faithfully set down: and the reader is further assisted by spirited, though small sketches, which represent the most striking of the scenes visited by the travellers. It appears that in a great part of the journey, and that through some of the most interesting countries, their progress was impeded, and their plans often frustrated, by indecision, arising from all feeling themselves on a footing of equality, each being entitled to exercise his judgment on the best course to be pursued, and having as much right to expect the others to give way to his opinion, as he to theirs. From this republican spirit every movement became a subject of debate, not only producing such loss of time as to frustrate the very object of their journey, by rendering it impossible to visit the places they had come so far in order to see; but opening them to the exactions of those who witnessed these dissensions, and were not slow in turning them to profit, and this not only to the inconvenience and loss of the whole party, but often to their great peril-one mode of exaction and plunder being the prelude to a worse. Mr.

Formby, therefore, recommends all persons who embark on such expeditions, or who are thrown together on any such common object of interest, to appoint some one of the party absolute dictator, who should be entrusted with plenipotentiary authority to negotiate, and from whose commands or decisions there should be no appeal. Notwithstanding these little drawbacks, Mr. Formby does not represent their difficulties as very great; and he rather leaves us to infer that Mr. Stevens, and some of the other travellers in the East, have made the most of their privations and sufferings, if they have not even exaggerated them, and raised a difficulty to have the credit of overcoming it. There are no pretensions to science in this little volume, and rather an ostentatious disclaimer of it, as if there were higher and better objects to occupy the attention of a traveller. But we do not see why the two things should be incompatible-why scientific as well as moral observations may not be made; and we think that this volume would have been all the better for being scientific. But as it is, we are very well pleased with it, and think it creditable to the author.

An Outline of Bishop's College, and of its Missions in the Neighbourhood of Calcutta. By the Rev. S. C. MALAN, M.A., Curate of Ålverstoke, Hants. London: Burns.

THE object of this little manual is to give a sketch of the institution of Bishop's College, and to make known the present urgent wants of the principal missions connected with it. As our readers are aware, this college was projected by Bishop Middleton, and built by the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, for the purpose of educating and instructing the native and other youth in the principles and discipline of the Church of England. Its object is a good one, and ought fully to be carried out. The little work before us gives full particulars respecting it, and concludes with an earnest appeal, to induce all Christians to come forward to its support. A very beautiful engraving, from the sketch taken by the author, accompanies the manual.

A Memoir of Hilmar Ernst Ranschenbusch. By the late W. LEIPOLDT, M.A. Translated from the German, by R. F. WALKER, M.A., Curate of Furleigh, Essex. London: Seeley and Burnside. 1843.

THIS work is full of interest, but it neither requires, nor can it demand, a lengthened critique from our hands. The memoir has been preserved chiefly as a family record.

An Original History of Ancient America; founded upon the Ruins of Antiquity; the Identity of the Aborigines with the People of Tyrus and Israel; and the Introduction of Christianity by the Apostle St. Thomas. By G. JONES, R.S.T., M.F.S.V., &c. London: Longman. 1843.

THIS is a book of imposing exterior, finely got up-a medallion of the author for frontispiece; two title-pages, the one engraved, the other with a vignette after Smirke. And the title is attractive: Aborigines-Tyrus and Israel-and the Apostle St. Thomas. Added to which it is dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, by the recommendation of an illustrious Prince; his Royal Highness having thought it a work which should thus be ushered into the world. The author has endeavoured also to lift the style and language of his work into keeping with these lofty pretensions, and by all these means has raised expectations which it will be difficult to satisfy. And he may rest assured, that by these circumstances a spirit of criticism will be provoked, by which his work will be severely tested; and we apprehend it will not pass wholly unscathed through such an ordeal.

This is only the first volume of the intended history, and as there certainly is great originality in the idea, we would rather encourage than damp the ardour of the author, and reserve the expression of any positive opinion on his whole system until we see the remaining volume. But it may even now be allowable to point out desiderata which have been suggested by the perusal of this volume, which may tend to the improvement of that which is not yet published. And first with respect to the style: it strikes us as being too ambitious of fine writing, and wanting in simplicity. We should call it even stilted, and an affectation of Lamartine, and that class of writers; which, however it may pass in France, will not, we trust, for many a day, pass current in England. Yet there are passages of great power and beauty in this volume, which the reader will scarcely perceive or enjoy, for want of quiet simplicity in the narrative which precedes and follows them.

Then, concerning the matter of this history, we desiderate many things, both in the way of proof and in the way of explanation. It cannot, we think, be questioned that Mr. Jones's fundamental position is correct; that the North Americans and the Mexicans are two distinct races-distinct in person, languages, and habits, so entirely, that we cannot conceive any circumstances which could so modify the character of either as to make them amalgamate, or enable us to refer them to the same family of the known races of mankind. But this distinction between the two does not help us a single step forward in referring

the one to the Hebrew and the other to the Tyrian stock for their origin. We require stronger proofs of such descent than those which are commonly adduced, and proofs in man himself, not in supposed similarity of customs or superstitions. We want proofs that the Jews and North Americans have some resemblance as men; for they appear to us diametrically opposed. The Jews are a small race, short-limbed, with coarse, curly, wiry hair, the ears set high, and a peculiar curl in the nostril and upper lip. The North Americans are tall, longlimbed, with straight pendent hair, and the general form of feature much more Egyptian than Hebrew. The very thought of comparing the Apollo Belvidere to a young Jew provokes ridicule by its utter absurdity; but West did compare that model of graceful symmetry to a young American, and Mr. Jones, and every one else, feels the truth of the comparison, Perhaps the bow in the hand of Apollo heightens the absurdity of the comparison; for though Ishmael was a wild man of the desert, he was contrasted in this with the descendants of Isaac and Jacob; they living by flocks and herds, and latterly by commerce and traffic, and never having, as far as we know, shown the least propensity to the hunter life, to which the North Americans are entirely and irreclaimably addicted.

Then of the other, or Mexican race, whose entire character is so different that they may be called civilized, or men of the city, in contradistinction to the men of the forest; yet, with the abundant records which they have left of an advanced state of civilization, they have left no trace whatever of letters, or of the least conception of, or approximation to, that most wonderful of all arts-the art of writing. If the aboriginal race of Mexicans came over as barbarians, and the arts of civilization grew up among them by degrees, and during many ages of undisturbed prosperity, it is not extraordinary that writing should not be amongst their inventions, since there is no instance of any people having invented this art; but all nations who have an alphabet, notoriously and confessedly derived it from intercourse with another people who were acquainted with the art of writing. But if the Mexican race were already civilized, already acquainted with the art of writing, as is supposed by those who derive them from the Tyrians, or any other people of the time of Alexander, then it is to us inconceivable that writing should ever disappear from among them, while any trace of civilization remained. Men would not lose it if they could; men could not obliterate its traces if they would. With these few suggestions we take leave of Mr. Jones for the present, hoping to meet him in his second volume shortly, and to take up the enquiry as a whole, which alone can do it justice.