The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-03 00:00:00

Ll'

SHIPWIECIS4c.,AT SEA. 2 Vols.
• Whine:her. London.. 1835.
. We need. scarcely recommend these little volumes
to the favourable notice of the public, for the title
alone will'be quite sufficient letter of recommendation.
To all readers, exciting narratives of shipwrecks, and
other
.maritime disasters, teem with nearly.equal inte-
rest ; hence no works, from the sixpenny pamphlet to
the five shilling volume, have been sought after with
greater avidity. Mr. Cyrus Redding, to whom we
we are indebted for the work before us, has executed
his task with much skill ; his style is plain and for-
cible, and many of his descriptions show considerable
feeling and eloquence. The volumes are a second
series, and form a portion of Constable's Miscellany.

TEGG'S DICTIONARY OF CHRONOLOGY

7'. Tegg.

London.

1835.

There is more research, and useful practical know-
ledge shown in this unassuming volume, which rejects
all further praise than that of utility, than in many an
imposing octavo which is ushered into the world as a
production manifesting prodigious pains-taking and
scholarship. As a book of reference it is invaluable
to readers of history, and, indeed, is so generally ser.
viceable, that we wonder the idea of an undertaking o:
the sort has never been projected before.

,ARDNEW S CABINET CYCLORZEDIA,
No. LX VIII.
Longman, London, 1838.

Mr. Thirlwall's History of Greece, the first volume
of which is now lying before us, fully sustains the
charactir which Lardner's Cyclopedia has acquired,
for the accuracy and research displayed in its histo-
rical epitomes. We fear, however, the author is ex-
patiating at too much length on his theme, and per-
mitting his knowledge to run away with him, for at
the close of his volume, which contains an unusual
mass of reading, we find that he has scarcely arrived
at the point from which must of our historians set out.
Grecian history is not much worth till we arrive at the
times of Tyrtmus ; all, or nearly all, before then is
vague and misty, and so mixed up with fable, that it
is next to impossible to render it available for any
useful purposes. However, all that is to be said'on
the subject, Mr. Thirlwall has said, and said well,
but we shall be able to give a more decided opinion of
his merits as an historian, when he comes down to
those periods of Greek history which Mitford has
treated with such triumphant success.

ROGERS'S POETICAL WORKS, P.m. V.

Moxon, London, 1838.
The present part (which is the fifth) of this splendid
work, contains the last four or five cantos of the poem
of Columbus—one of the author's best, though least
known—illustrated by a profusion of graceful mina-
ture embellishments, from designs furnished by
Stothart and Turner. Of the exquisite beauty of the
majority of these gems of art, we need not here en-
large, as we noticed them at length, some time since,
in The Sun.

AN ENCYCLOPIEDIA OP GARDENING.
PART XX. Br .I. C. LOUDON.
Longman and Co.
This is the concluding Number of one of the most
useful and valuable works on the science of Garden-
ing in the language. It will form two thick octavo
volumes, beautifully printed, and embellished with
upwards of one thousand two hundred handsome
wood engravings. Mr. Loudon has given in this
Number a list of the books referred to in the course of
the work, which occupies no less than sixteen closely
printed pages alphabetically arranged—thus shewing
the immense labour as well as sacrifice of time which
the production of this excellent work must have cost
him. At present we shall content ourselves with ob-
serving that the Monthly issue of this edition is now
concluded ; hereafter we may be called upon to enter
into a detail of its various and peculiar excellencies.

HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON.
ar THE lurzrox OP " SWALLOW BARN."
3 Vols. post Bvo. Richard Bentley.
This is an historical novel of the school of Scott
and Cooper, but it is written by one who has a right
to emulate those authors in their particular class,
though he is far above a slavish imitation. The scene
is laid in the Southern provinces of America during
the memorable war of Independence, when the reci-
procal animosities of the contending parties were fierce
and deadly. " The incidents of the war," says the
author in his preface, " were frequently of the most
picturesque and romantic character. The historian
has been too much occupied with the higher and more
important relations of that great contest, to bestow
much of his notice upon the stirring scenes of personal
adventure, of which so many traditions exist in the
United States. These may be said to have become
the lawful property of our story-telling craft--
and we have accordingly set ourselves, of late years,
to take hold of them in good earnest." The subject
of the tale is chiefly connected with the fortunes of a
young officer in the Republican army, and his trusty
companion Galbraith Robinson, better known under
his soubriquet of Horse-shoe. This latter personage
is the very life of the story ; he is a thorough soldier--
a humourist—a capital trencherman--a resolute fel-
low, ready to act with decision in the most perilous
emergencies, and faithful, at all hazards, to his cause
and his friend. As may be expected in a narrative
connected with the stirring events of the American
War, the pages of the present work are every where
alive with exciting incidents—ambuscades, skirmishes,
desperate undertakings, disguises, captures, and escapes.
Families were divided, friends distrusted each other,
the son was not unfrequently arrayed in arms against
the father, and spies were distributed throughout the
land. Such a state of things, however calamitous to
society at the time, is manifestly favourable to the pur-
poses of a writer of fiction, and the present writer has
availed himself to the full of its capabilities. Though
the principal scenes are strictly historical, the novelist
has interweaved with them a love-story, of which the
hero and heroine are Major Butler, of the Whig, or
insurgent party, and a young lady (Mildred Lindsay),
daughter of a recluse loyalist, who is stimulated against
his will to act a more important part in the strife, by the
inachinations of an officer in the British army, who, in
a feigned name, introduces himself into the peaceful
dwelling of Mr. Lindsay. The schemes of this
man derive an additional impulse from the attachment
he conceives for the person and property of the heroine,
and hence his persecution of Butler, the favoured
lover, becomes more malignant and unceasing. If
Butler possesses a staunch adherent in the doughty
Sergeant Robinson, so Tyrrel, his private and political
foe, is backed by a trooper called James Curry,
a plausible scoundrel with a black and cruel heart. This
fellow and Horse-shoe are brought into frequent collision,
though never more effectively than in their first encoun-
ter, when;the former is caught eaves-dropping, at the win-
dow of the little inn, where the Major and his companion
had secreted themselves for the night. Nothing can be
more characteristic, spirited, and original, than this in-
cident. The subsequent night-adventure, at the lonely
house of Wat Adair, in which the girl, Mary Mus-
grave, acts so important a part, will not easily be for-
gotten ; neither will the scene at Grindall's Ford,
where Butler and Horse-shoe are captured by the
brutal Habershaw and his gang. The work, indeed,
abounds with passages of this stirring nature, which
our limited space will not permit us even to enume-