PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

BOOKS.

ALTHOUGH the close of the week witnessed the arrival of several books with mote kind of promise in them for their subjects or their author, it is pro- bable that Dr. Liddell's Roman History, noticed at length in preceding pages, is the most valuable work that the week has brought forth. Mr. Woods's "Campaign in the Crimea" has the attraction of a subject. "Arabia" also, to a real "Wanderer" through its various regions, is a theme of interest and novelty; but one half of Mr. Lowth's journey relates to Egypt. "Digestion and its Derangements," by Dr. Chambers, is a matter of universal interest, save to those happy individuals who do not know they have a stomach. There is, too, a second Journey round the World by the well-known Madame Pfeiffer,—as if one circumnavigation were not enough for a lady : but per- haps she is emulous of Cook.

The Past Campaign : a Sketch of the War in the East, from the De- parture of Lord Raglan to the Capture of Sevaritopol. By N. A. Woods, late Special Correspondent of the Morning Herald at the Seat of War. Iii two volumes.

The Wanderer in Arabia ; or Western Footsteps in Eastern Tracks. By George T. Lowth, Esq. With Illustrations. In two volumes.

.Digestion and its Derangements : the Principles of Rational Medicine applied to Disorders of the Alimentary Canal. By Thomas K. Cham- bers, M.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians, Physician to St. Mary's Hospital, and Lecturer on the Practice of Medicine at St. Mary's Medical School, London ; Author of "Decennium Pathologi- cum."

Lady's Second Journey Round the World. By Ida Pfeiffer, Au- thoress of "The Lady a Journey Round the World," &o. In two volumes.

The White Chief: a Legend of Northern Mexico. By Captain Mayne Reid, Author of "Rifle Rangers." In three volumes.

A History of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire. By Henry G. Liddell, D.D., Dean of Christchurch, Ox- ford, late Head Master of Westminster School. In two volumes.

Mexico and its Religion ; with Incidents of Travel in that Country during parts of the Years 1861-'62-'63-'64 ; and Historical Notices of Events connected with places visited. By Robert A. Wilson. With Illustrations.

The reprints, however, are of a kind to make up for any deficiency in the character of the new works. First, from Messrs. Griffin of Glasgow, comes Lord Brougham's select "Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, the ap- proaching publication of which we mentioned last week. The contributions appear in the form of a handsome octavo to range with the reprints of his collaborateurs, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh, rather than with his own Historical Sketches. We call them select, because "almost all the pa- pers on the Slave-trade, Slavery, Charitable Trusts, and Education," are in- tentionally omitted ; the views having "long since been adopted by the Legislature." But however time iuid change may have operated upon choice, no operation could get rid of their " infinite variety." There are articles on rhetoric and law, on physical and economical science, on foreign policy general and particular, on history and constitutional questions, and finally a " miscellaneous " batch.

Mr. Murray's contributions from his copyright store are also of value. The third volume of his British Classics edition of Byron with notes is per- haps as readable a book of poetry as can be found for the present age. It contains the whole of the tales, from "The Giaour " and '• The Bride of Abydos " to " Mazeppa " and "The Island." Of equal though contrasted value is the first volume, from the same publisher, of the filth edition of Hallam's "Literature of Europe," in the cheap uniform edition of his works.

Perhaps nearly as popular, though valuable in a much leas degree, is Messrs. Routledge's reprint, at a cheaper price, of the dramas of Sheridan Knowles; the first collected edition by Mr. Mozon (if we remember rightly) being out of print, and still in demand.

Quite opposite to all these books is Mr. Wright's edition of "Piers Ploughman,' With a learned and judicious inUoduction and notes, calcu-

lated to facilitate the perusal of that singular picture of ancient manners and valuable record of old English. The publisher is Mr. Russell Smith. Lastly, we have the fifth edition, enlarged in size and reduced in price, of Mr. Mitchell's "Newspaper Press Directory and Advertisers' Guide' ; where journalists may read their own character, and such part of the public as de- sires publicity may learn the most judicious way of setting about obtaining it. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. By Henry Lord Brougham, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of France, and of the Royal Academy of Naples. In three volumes.

The Poetical Works of Lord Byron : a 'new:edition. In six volumes. Volume III. (Murray's British Classics.) Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. By Henry Hallam, LL.D., F.R.A.S., Foreign Associate of the Institute of France. Fifth edition. In four volumes. Volume I.

The Dramatic Works of James Sheridan Knowles. In two volumes. The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman. Edited front a contem- porary Manuscript; with an Historical Introduction, Note., and a Glossary, by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., &o. &c. In two volumes. Second and revised edition.

The Newspaper Press Directory, and Advertisers' Guide. By Charles Mitchell. Fifth edition, thoroughly revised for the year 1806. The Duke : a Novel. By Mrs. Grey, Author of "The Little Wife." (The Railway Library.) Of a character that widely separates them from the run of common or "trade" publications, are three books of a highly scientific or classical cha- racter: an attempt to popularize (for mathematicians) Newton's Principle, and two editions of Aristotle's Polities, an Oxford one from Messrs. Parker and Son, a Cambridge from Messrs. Longman.

The object of the Analytical View of Sir Isaac Newton's Prineipia, is to facilitate its study, by exhibiting analytically the results of that famous work. Newton's own discoveries were made by analysis ; but because the ancients had written synthetically, and the habit of New- ton's age was to follow the old fashion, he inverted the process of dis- covery, and exhibited his results in a gigantic geometry. Now geometry, applied as Newton applies it, becomes exceedingly compli- cated and difficult to follow ; and many persons are deterred from making themselves acquainted with the greatest work of the English mathematical school by this difficulty. It is to meet this case that Lord Brougham and Mr. Routh (recently Senior Wrangler of his year at Cam- bridge) have composed the book we are called upon to notice. Only part, however, of the Principle, though the larger part, is exhibited analytically. For instance, we find no treatment of the great propositions on the Lunar Theory in the third book. The attempt is one likely to be useful, and is adequately executed. Their respective parts are not assigned to the two authors whose names appear conjointly- on the titlepage ; but one is inclined to credit Lord Brougham with the historical and explanatory disquisitions—vigorously written, and abounding in inform- ation, but which is not always accurate. Thus, the writer mistakes the comet of 1680 for Halley's comet, which really came in 1682, and which re- appeared in 1835. There is also a want of clearness in the statement of what Newton did in respect to the motion of the moon's apse. The writer of the mathematical portion of the work appears to labour under the mis- take of supposing that high analysis was unknown in England till the pre- sent Cambridge books came into use ; a misconception natural enough to Senior Wrangler fresh from College, and from a University where the his- tory of science is stupidly ignored, but which a competent acquaintance with that history would dispel. " Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona "—Newton could probably have solved any problem in his Principia in any way that Mr. Routh himself could solve it. But we intend no dispraise : these are slight blots upon a praiseworthy performance.

It is somewhat singular that there should have been no good English edi- tion of Aristotle's Polities up to this time, and a curious coincidence that two editions should be published in the same week by two Oxford Tutors of Colleges. In both Mr. Congreve's and Mr. Eaton's work, Bekker's text is reprinted, with emendations, not professing to rest upon manuscript author- ity, but on the editor's sense of their necessity. Both works are supplied with general introductions, copious indices, and summaries of the several books into which the treatise is divided. Mr. Eaton adheres to the usual order of the books ; Mr. Congreve adopts the order used by M. St. Hilaire in his edition and translation, with references, however, to the old order. Both editors give marginal references to the subject argued in the text. Mr. Eaton's marginal references are the more full, but Mr. Congreve's ge- neral summaries fetch up this advantage. Both volumes are equally handsome in form and clear in type. Mr. Congreve adds some essays that are widely removed from ordinary English ways of thinking,— as might be atticipated by readers of his Lectures on the Roman Empire. Altogether, the only noticeable difference in the two editions which is likely to make students prefer one to the other is in the character of the notes. Mr. Congreve appears to confine himself strictly to the interpretation of his author ; Mr. Eaten runs more into illustration and comment. Either edition would have been a boon to English students of the original work,—a work which is interesting as the first systematic embodiment of political experi- ence, and as the production of the most logical intellect of ancient Greece acting upon the largest store of facts. It is a pity that two such editions should come into the market at once, interfering with each other's sale; but perhaps the very fact of this competition may stimulate purchasers, by draw- ing unusual attention to the work, and affording a degree of assistance to students which they have hitherto been compelled to seek from editions in foreign languages, and certainly presenting far fewer attractions of type and form.

Analytical View of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia. By Lord Brougham, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of France, and of the Royal Academy of Naples ; and E. J. Routh, B.A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge.

The Politics of Aristotle, with English Notes, by Richard Congreve, late Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College, Oxford.

The Polities of Aristotle, with English Notes, by J. R. T. Eaton, Fellow and Senior Tutor of Merton College, Oxford.

Of the less important publications before us, there are two in which the laws and facts of science appear in a form designed to attract the reader upon the principle that "children cutting teeth receive a coral." "Stray Leaves" aims at achieving its end by rhetoric. "The Wonders of Science by a sort of "art novel"—" truth exact in fairy fiction drat." "Stray Leaves from the Book of Nature" is an American book from Mr. Putnam of New York ; and is perhaps better adapted to America than Great Britain. The plan of surveying science in some of its branches, picking out its most striking facts, and expounding its most telling and apprehensible laws in a rapid, popular, half-poetical manner, has been pretty well worked in this country. Then, M. Schele De Vera, be his ancestry what it may, pushes he liveliness of a Frenchman and the grandiloquence of an American not :only

to the verge of but right into the melodramatic. This combination of quali- ties is also apt to induce what looks like inductive exaggeration or pure in- vention. In the Ocean and its Life, he describes things at the very bottom of the sea, where he certainly never could have been, and paints fights i among the fishes, somewhat n the style of "our own correspondent." There is, however, a good deal of knowledge animated by a florid eloquence in his expositions from botany and geology, with animantia introduced. Under the form of the youthful biography of Davy, Mr. Henry Mayhew has exhibited the laws of heat and the refraction of light in considerable fulness; some other chemical subjects in a briefer way. His object is, by representing Davy as teaching himself, to induce other boys to go and do likewise. What he says is true enough, that the tendency of the age is to ascribe too much to books and teaching; to make boys—he might have said all of us—rely too much upon somebody else. In science, however, we sus- pect that the future discoverer needs no teaching; the " innatus amor " within will drive him onward. We have little faith, moreover, in the proper teaching of any science or liberal art by fictitious frameworks. The dramatic biography of "Young Humphrey Davy," however, is very well done.

Stray leaves from the Book of Nature. By Schele de Vera, of the Uni- versity of Virginia.

The Wonders of Science, or Young Humphrey Davy, (the Cornish Apothssery's Boy, who taught himself Natural Philosopliy, and eventually became President of the Royal Society.) The life of a Wonderful Boy written for Boys. By Henry Mayhew, Author of "The Story of the Peasant-Boy Philosopher," tto.

A Manual of the Domestic Practice of Medicine. By W. B. Kesteven, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, &a. &a. &c. [The object of this book is to enable colonists, persons in the country, and others similarly situated, to treat diseases in the absence of a medical man, or to prevent mischief till his arrival. It is the best book of the kind we have met with, because it is at once safe and sensible. Most of the "Do- mestic Medicine" publications aim at too much, or at least expound too much, as if they were striving to form a practitioner, instead of asserting his substi- tute, and direct a good deal more than a layman can perform. In addition to a brief account of the symptoms of diseases, and the mode of treating them safely, the book contains a list of medicines and a collection of pre- scriptions.] Flowers and Flower-Gardens. By David Lester Richardson, Principal of the Hindu Metropolitan College, and Author of "Literary Leaves," &c. With an Appendix of Practical Instructions and Useful Inform- ation respecting the Anglo-Indian Flower-Garden.

[From the author's position, as "Principal of the Hindu Metropolitan Col- lege.," and his place of residence, Calcutta, some account of Indian gardens, native and exotic, might have been looked for, as well as an account of their cultivation, with suggestions for their extension. Instead of this we have for the most part a talk about gardens, in the manner of Leigh Hunt; how au di and such great men delighted in gardens or gardening, with anecdotes and poetry, some of the verse quoted, some of it the author's own. It is not badly done, but there is a great deal too much of it—an essay or article run to seed in a book. The author is conscious of this, but excuses it on the plea of inculcating a taste for gardening in India. We suspect this end would have been better achieved by more matter and fewer words.]

Du Style et de la Composition Litterairs. Par M. Antonin Roche.

[A treatise on French style, designed to initiate "lea jeunes files dans rart d'ecrire, et dens in composition litteraire." The clearness and liveliness of M. Roche's style, though not devoid of a little laboured force, prove him qualified to guide others, so far as directions can manage it.]

The Limited Liability Act, 1855, (18 and 19 Victoria, cap. 133) ; with Notes on the application of the Act, and on the Law relating to Re- gistered and other Joint-Stock Companies. By Thomas Henry Had- dam M.A., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law, Vinerian Law Fel- low, and late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. [Of the various editions of the Limited Liability Act which we have seen, this strikes us as the most elaborate and professional. It contains a deed of settlement for companies, "with variations" ; and the notes appear of a re- condite cast.] Handbook of Natural Philosophy. By Dionysius Lardner, D.C.L., &c. Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, and Heat. With two hundred and ninety- two Illustrations.

The Museum of Science and Art. Edited by Dionysimi Lardner, D.C.L., &c. Illustrated by Engravings on Wood. Volume VIII. [Both these books may be recommended. The Handbook is the second vo- lume of a sort of cyclopaxlia of natural philosophy, intended for those who desire to attain a knowledge of physical science "without the profound me- thods of mathematical investigation." The Museum is a more popular kind of work, embracing subjects with a touch of metaphysics—as "instinct and intelligence," and man himself, in the present part. We think "The Mu- seum" the best and cheapest book of the kind extant.] The White Star Journal. A Record of Events which occurred on the Voyage of the White Star, Captain R. I. Brown, which sailed from Liverpool on the 20th April and anchored in Hobson's Bay on the 17th July 1855. Published and circulated on board, every Saturday of the Voyage. Dedicated to their Fellow Passengers, as a Souvenir of the pleasant Menthe of the Voyage, by the Editor and Publisher. [The title pretty well explains the nature of this Melbourne publication. By dint of well-written leaders, "letters to the editor," occurrences, notices, and advertisements, a good enough idea of life on shipboard during a voyage to Victoria is conveyed; perhaps a more real idea than by formal de- scriptions.]