NEW EDITIONS.
If the length of a review depended solely on the merit of a book, the publications under this head might cf themselves have sufficed for one " Spectator's Library ;" but it is the duty of the weekly chronicler often to prefer novelty to goodness—to tell of the unknown rather than the known. Even the 'Wowing stan- dards can only claim the brief notice they receive for sumo cir- cumstance cf cheapness in price, or novelty in form or illustration.
Among the list of cheap and condensed reprints of standard works, we are glad to number that model of historical biography, Roseoi:'s
Lifr of Lorenzo de.' Medici. It is superfluous at this time to eulogize the order and clearness of the matter and the chaste elegance of the style ; but we have been struck anew with the felicitous way in which the concise and comprehensive view of the state of Italy towards the end of the Florentine Republic unites, like a scenic background, with the portrait of LORENZO that forms the chief subject ; giving to it tin historic greatness commensurate with the powerful influence which his character exercised upon the condition of the country. This edition, in one full-paged duodecimo, contains the entire text and a few of the notes ; and is edited by the author's son, Mr. THOMAS ROSCOE ; W110 has prefixed to it a memoir of his father, giving a brief outline of his literary career, and so much of his private history as bears upon the character of his mind and studies. It is written with good taste and feeling; and presents a delightful picture of the union of learning and philanthropy, intellect and amiability, as well as another remarkable instance of a self-educated Man rising from a humble sta- tion to high literary distinction by unobtrusive merit.
The Edinburgh press yet teems with fresh issues of the Works of Scow. Edition after edition is swallowed up by the voracious appe- tite of the reading public—" another and another still succeeds." here is now a miniature edition of the Poetry, in six volumes. Marmion, Rokeby, and the rest, have successively appeared in all the varieties of price and size from the two-guinea quarto to the present three-shilling ostodeeitno. The very moment of the expiration of the copyright of the first published poem, The Lay if the Last Minstrel, having wit- nessed a spurious reprint in a cheap form, Mr. Csoni., the possessor of the copyright of' the rest, took the hint, and has anticipated his rivals with the others, by bringing out an edition of the Poetry of Scores at once correct, elegant, and cheap. The minor poems, ballads, and occasional pieces, are printed at the end of the shorter of the principal ones, so as to include all the popular poems, with the notes of the complete edition, in six volumes. Seorr's popularity as a poet, whiell was for a while eclipsed by his greater hone as a novelist, seems leek-log; or rather, his posthumous fame has commenced, and he is now beginning to run his career as a classic.
The publication of a fourth edition of Dr. ANDREw CoMmiu's Prin- ciples of Physiology applied to the Preservation if Health and to the Im- provement of Physical and Mental Education, within about two years after the first, coupled with the facts of its having been stereotyped in A met ica, and of its having procured for its author an invitation to Brussels as physician to the King of the Belgians, is a gratifying testimony, not only to the merits of the work, but to the spread of the preventive system of medicine, by which not only is the numerous tribe of functional diseases arrester!, but the foundation laid for an improved development of mind and body in succetoling generations. Besides the addition of several pages of new matter, this new edition is bene- fited by a comprehensive index.
Almost simultaneously with the appearance of Dr. eomites book, CALI•wi:Li.'s Thoughts an Physical Education was published at Boston in the 1-aired States. This work, whose object and scope are similes to that of Dr. Comfit:, has been rept hoed at Edinburgh, with so:es by Mr. flotimer Cox, and a recommendatory preface by Mr. Geotzer Comets Pr. C Ai.otw.t's view of Physical Education is limitrd in this vobrre to the process of mental training by invigo- rating the corporeal organization, so as to produce the ,nuns sane in r/o sr.an. It is not sil minutely deetonstrative as Dr. Coon's; being an exhortatory address to a body of teachers in Kentucky; but it is composed of striking facts and forcible reasoning, and has a prac- tical bearing on the habits and customs pernicious to health. Though it is addressed more particularly to the Yankees, the observations apply but too closely to Englishmen.
SOLTTIIET's Cowper, with lisnves's rich and homefelt pictures of the rural spots the poet loved, has reached the Fifth Volume, and is now in the midst of the delightful Letters.
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