The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-31 00:00:00

Falkland Islands, on the contrary, seem to
possess every requisite for a penal settlement ;
convicts might there be set at liberty ith the
certainty that they would be able to gain an
honest subsistence by their labour. The
islands are well adapted for classification of
prisoners ; they are far remote from any civi-
lised territory ; they are of very considerable
extent ; they are healthy, but without affording
great inducements to free settlers ; and the
labour of convicts might be most profitably
employed to form docks, so as to render these
islands suitable as a station on the voyage to
the Pacific. Between Bet muda and convicts
restored to England, and the Falkland Islands
and convicts liberated to gain a living there,
the choice should not be doubtful.

The volume has a good map and some
excellent plates. lt is full of information, and
agreeably written.

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-1590.
Edited by Robert Lemon, Esq , F.S.A.

London : Longmans.
THE elder Disraeli, in his " Curiosities of
Literature,' graphically and truthfully ob-
served that " unsuniaed treasures lie in the
" State Paper-office." We are Wad to perceive
that the light of day has at last begun to dawn
upon them. Mr. Lemon's " Calendar" is the
first instalme►►t of a series which is to be con-
tinued, and the object of which is to give an
abstract or precis of the several papers of dis-
tinct periods, in order to afford to the literary
or historical inquirer some clue by which
be may pursue his object of research with
more certainty and with less trouble and
loss of time than has been the case of
those who have had occasion to wade through
that hithe►to rudis et indigesta moles of docu-
ments deposited in the State Paper-office.
We have looked with no little curiosity
through Mr. Lemon's volume ; but we are
compelled to add that the result is not so
satisfactory as could be wished. Indeed, it
appears to us that but very little discrimina•
tion has been used in the selection of docu-
ments of• 1% hich a " Calendar" has been
prepared. The title of the present volume
pretends to be a " Calendar of State Papers " ;
but certainly a great number of the documents
comprised in the book before us can hardly
come within the purview of " State Papers'
properly so called. What is the definition of
a" State Paper "? We take a " State Paper "
to mean a document which has some bearing
upon the policy of a State, whether foreign,
colonial, domestic, or financial. It is not
enough for a paper merely because it emanates
frou► a department of a Secretary of State to
lay claim to the dignity of a " State " paper
unless it fulfil one of these conditions.

We may refer, for example, to the abstract
of the several letters a Idressed by Sir William
Cecil, then Secretary of State, and who became
afterwards the celebrated Lord Burleigh, to
Thomas Windehank. who was tutor to his
son, Mr. Thomas Cecil—who, by the way,
seems to have been a sad dog, and to have
caused his father much worry and uneasiness—
and ask whether letters addressed by a Secre-
tary of State to his son's tutor merely dis-
cussing or determining his son's education
and prospects, &' , ought to be registered as
" State " papers ? No doubt such letters
possess a peculiar, and, in some way, an
historical itrerest front the fact of their being
the production of so eminent a statesman ;
but they can never be considered as " State "
papers. Such documents should find a resting-
place in the family muniment chest, rather
than amongst the national archives.
Mr. Lemon's volume embraces the period
between 151? and I)sn, and absorbs the
entire reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, up to
the 23rd of Elizabeth, a period not the least
important in the annals of English history.
Th.! dawn and prog”ess of the Reformation ;
the vigorous but unscrupulous rule of the
Protector Somerset, and his ignominious end;
the intrigues of his brother, Lord Seymour,
against him, which recoiled so fatally upon
himself; the fatal ambition of Northumber-
land in obtaining the succession to the Crown
far Lady Jane Grey, espoused to his son, Lord
Gnilt'oid ilndley, with all its lamentable
results; the malignant persecution of the