which it names. It contains upwards of 2000 octavo and closely printed pages, the actual outlay, towards the compilation of it, Mr. Bohn tells us, having been upwards of 2000 pounds, besides his own trouble, which must have been prolonged for years, and laborious.

The catalogue is intended to represent Mr. Bohn's celebrated and select stock, either in actual possession or accessible. The prices are mentioned, the best editions are chosen, and various particulars are generally stated, so as to inform and satisfy the collectors of splendid or rare books. We should say that the portly volume must be eagerly sought after and perused by every one smitten with Biblio-mania, and also that it will bring a remunerating list of purchasers to Mr. Bohn s magnificent stocked shelves.

ART. XXXIV.-Jest and Earnest: a Series of Essays. Cunningham. THESE Essays are evidently by a juvenile writer: and will, we are convinced, meet such a reception as must encournge him in the walks of literary composition. There is matter in the pieces, point and terseness in his diction, and considerable humour in his fancy, although of a serious rather than a broad or bitter character. We could, however, point out deficiencies, and perhaps affectations in the course of the pieces. For instance there is not merely a sameness and a sketchy slightness in the snatches of character and circumstances which he gives, but we fancied that we discovered a self-satisfying idea of his expertness in that way. There is however good promise in him.

ART. XXXV.-The Seer; or, Commonplaces Refreshed. By LEIGH HUNT. In two Parts. Part I. and II. London: Moxon. ESSAYS reprinted from different periodicals, and therefore, new to many of our readers. They are in the author's best peculiar style, full of sympathy with everything in nature and simple character around him, however plain, ordinary, or unobtrusive; working from, or bestowing upon them floods of sentiment, or of playful grace, both of fancy and expression, to the astonishment and delight of the reader. Just go forth with him on a "Dusty Day," or if you prefer moisture, on a "Rainy ;" pluck up or lend a few moments, thought with him upon a "pebble;" or if you have a relish for character, take him for a limner of yonder "Butcher;" and then say if there is anything so common that you may not deck it with a rich garniture of thought, so homely as not to appeal to a heart-moving speculation. But originality and subtle refinement are required for these things, which Leigh Hunt possesses and luxuriates in, with unsurpassed tenderness and suggestive glee. In the second part "The Pianoforte" appears, and a more beautiful or pleasing paper was never written even by Hunt himself; one richer in thought, sound sense, and poetry.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

MARCH, 1841.

ART. I.

1. Notes of an Overland Journey through France and Egypt to Bombay. By the late MISS EMMA ROBERTS. With a Memoir. London: Allen and Co.

2. Memoir on the Countries about the Caspian and Aral Seas. London: Madden and Co.

3. The East India Year-Book for 1841. London: Allen and Co.

THE greater part of Miss Roberts's volume relates to the Overland Journey, for she did not live to complete her design. In fact the work is posthumous, the authoress having died at Poona, near Bombay, to which she had gone for the purpose of comparing that Presidency and the condition of Western India, with Calcutta and Bengal, which have been so vividly and ably described in her "Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan," a work which excited an unusual degree of interest in this country, and which indeed made its readers more fully acquainted with the every-day sights and life of India and its inhabitants, native and European, than any preceding publication had done. It has also dispelled a great deal of delusion which prevailed amongst us concerning the luxuries of the East, the fortunes which are now to be made, even in the "city of palaces;" and especially were the temptations shorn of their splendour which had been wont to atract the fair who resorted to India with marriage speculations in their heads. The work therefore has been of practical value, while its sketches had all the attractions which an observant and accomplished female could be expected to convey, in a field so wide and susceptible of distinct delineation. We remember still the picture she gave of AngloIndian life, and as vividly as if it had been perused yesterday; and such were its merits and truth-speaking views that it quite turned the fashion of the stories told of the golden and gorgeous East.

Owing to the writer's lamented death, the volume before us does not enable the reader to perceive very precisely the differences between Bombay and Calcutta; and perhaps had she even lived to complete her design, the work might have been inferior to the VOL. I. (1841.) No. III.

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former, owing to the considerable degree of sameness of the scenes and the characteristics to be described; but still more from the inherent and actual defects and inferioritios of the West, for we learn from the few papers devoted to the subject of comparison to which we refer, that Bombay presents the appearance of provincialism as contrasted with metropolitan activity and refinement of the other quarter. This volume, however, is far from being either useless or uninteresting. In fact it has attractions and a value which are not anywhere else to be met with; for with the writer's peculiar grace and spirit, and with her quickness of apprehension as well as skill as an author,-which qualities in her were rather remarkable, while her views were more than ordinarily enlarged even as compared with travellers in general, she describes a journey from England to India, completely and continuously, and as performed by steam, almost without a break by means of the intervention of land; or when such an intervention occurs, it is made the theme of lively, engaging and informing matter. Accordingly France, Malta, Alexandria, and the desert of Suez, are with an artist's power brought before us; for even when the writer was proceeding with steam rapidly, she had the ability and the taste to seize characteristic points, and of course more leisure was proportionally well employed. But independent of a capacity and of habits which look like natural qualities, and not merely as the result of a design to make a book, Miss Roberts was superior to most travellers, because she had the eye of a cosmopolite, and was a liberal as well as penetrating interpreter of forms and people, although much removed from English standards. Indeed she makes one very clearly to perceive the prejudices and faults which characterize the majority of our people whenever they leave home. Then, as to the sort of accommodation afforded by the steamers, which ply along the comparatively short route between Egypt and India, if her account does not produce an alteration, it is likely to diminish the popularity of the line, at least for passengers to whom speed is not of extreme importance; for according to that account it is probable, had it been left to the choice of the writer, that she would have returned by the Cape, rather than to have been subjected again to the inconvenience and the neglect, if not the rudeness, which she experienced in the course of the outward passage. At least such was the uncomfortable state of matters, owing to bad or inadequate arrangements a twelvemonth ago. It appears, besides, that while the steam voyage from Egypt to Bombay is far from being tempting, that from the latter place to Calcutta is almost as formidable as the whole line by the Cape. In the Government steamers the officers are either haughty to the passengers; or, if otherwise, their control over the motley crew of servants is defective, in regard to their attendance upon passengers; while the Company seem to

have studiously contrived some of the inconveniences of their vessels. The plain-speaking Miss Roberts says that the more she had seen of the Government-ships, the more she was convinced that they were not adapted to carry passengers. The authorities have acted as if they thought "that people ought to be too thankful to pay an enormous price for the worst species of accommodation." Hear also what sort of comforts were prepared for Miss Roberts and her companion's voyage:-

"Upon repairing to our cabin, Miss E. and myself were surprised and disappointed at the miserable accommodation it afforded. The three cabins allotted to the use of the ladies had been appropriated, in two instances, to married couples; and we were obliged to put up with one of smaller size, which had the additional inconvenience of opening into the public saloon. There were no Venetian blinds to the door; consequently, the only means of obtaining a free circulation of air was to have it open. A locker with a hinged shelf, which opened like a shutter, and thus afforded space for one mattress to be placed upon it, ran along one side of the cabin, under the port-hole; but the floor was the only visible means of accommodation for the second person crammed by Government-regulation into this den. There was not a place in which a wash-hand-basin could be put, so awkwardly were the doors arranged; to one of which there was no fastening whatsoever. Altogether, the case seemed hopeless; and as cock-roaches were walking about the vessel by dozens, the prospect of sleeping on the ground was anything but agreeable, especially with the feeling that we were paying at the rate of four pounds a day for our accommodation."

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Really, according to the account before us, and that of Mrs. Ashmore's of the "Outward-bound and Homeward-bound Ships," appended to her "Three Months' March in India," there is no agreeable way of proceeding to, or returning from, India; so that with the glut or the poverty of the Indian marriage-market, the griffs" had better think twice, or their mammas for them, ere they decide on speculating in that field. We believe we neglected to name in our recent review of the latter lady's work that a good deal of her sensible and practical remarks upon life in India, native and Anglo-Indian, had been given in effect in the volumes of the former, and that therefore the information which she communicated was neither so new to the English reader as she fancied, nor gathered from extensive and minute observation. Still the corroboration was worthy of welcome, and ought to be borne in mind as confirming useful lessons.

Miss Roberts having been prematurely prevented, speaking after the manner of men, from pursuing her observations in Western India, we shall not further draw from the pages devoted by her to that sphere than to say, that she represents the state of native education there, and indeed throughout British India, to be as yet not

merely exceedingly defective, but that the march of improvement has almost entirely to be set about; attributing, at the same time, the impediment chiefly to woman. A few of her sentences on this point will not merely serve to exhibit her opinion and doctrine, but to afford a test by which to judge of her penetration and philosophic sagacity. She says,

"It is the women of India who are at this moment impeding the advance of improvement: they have hitherto been so ill-educated, their minds left so entirely uncultivated, that they have had nothing to amuse or interest them excepting the ceremonies of their religion, and the customs with which it is encumbered. These, notwithstanding that many are inconvenient and others entail much suffering, they are unwilling to relinquish. Every departure from established rule which their male relatives deem expedient they resolutely oppose; employing the influence which women, however contemned as the weaker vessel, always do possess, and always will exert, in perpetrating all the evils resulting from ignorance. The sex will ever be found active either in advancing or retarding great changes; and whether this activity be employed for good or for evil, depends upon the manner in which their intellectual faculties have been trained and cultivated."

Sir Robert Peel, who has lately taken not only to public lecturing, but to the propagation of liberal doctrines relative to education, has in his "Addresses on the Opening of the Tamworth Library and Reading-Room," now revised, corrected, and published, so well-expressed a kindred sentiment to that contained in the latter part of the above extract, that we shall be excused if we insert his words in this place. He thus expressed himself in one passage:

"We propose that the institution shall be open to the female as well as the male portion of the population of this town and neighbourhood; because we consider that we should have done great injustice to the welleducated and virtuous women of this town and neighbourhood, if we had supposed that they were less capable than their husbands or their brothers of benefiting by the instruction which we hope to give, or if we had supposed that they were less interested in the cause of rational recreation and intellectual improvement. We propose, also, that they shall have equal power and equal influence in the management of this institution with others; being well assured that the influence which a virtuous woman can hold (if it be necessary to call it into action) will always be exercised in favour of whatever is sound and profitable in respect to knowledge, and whatever is decorous and exemplary in respect to conduct."

Having said that the Right Honourable Baronet thus expressed himself, we may also state that we hail with no inconsiderable degree of hope for the cause of general education,-although we presume that his Addresses must contain damping matter to the