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Leader (1850-1860), 13th February 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17, No. 412, February 13,1858.] T H E iL E A...

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      Teneriffe. Teneriffe: An Astronomer's Ex...

      locality walls lour feet thick were erected to form an observatory . Here the sky was always clear , and the radiation of the sun enormous The erection of the great telescope on this spot was a work of difficulty , but successfully accomplished , and many important experiments were satisfactorily completed : However , Mr . Smyth had resolved to scale the Peak itself , among its fountains of sulp hur-scented steam . A variation in the weather enabled him to test the effects of rains and storms upon this sublime elevation ; the mountain streamed with wet . We have not undertaken to enumerate even the most remarkable of the observations made upon the heig hts of Tenenffe by , this adventurous explorer . The narrative is so uniformly interesting , so original m substance , and pleasing in manner , that even the ordinary reader will find m it nothing monotonous or occult . At the same time it is a striking contribution to the historical literature of science . It should be added that the volume contains one of the best accounts of the dragon-tree we have seen . Altogether it is a rare and fascinating book , which places the learned and philosophical classes throughout the world under very great obligations to Mr . Piazzi Smyth .

      No. 412, February 13,1858.] T H E Il E A...

      No . 412 , February 13 , 1858 . ] T H E iL E A D E B . , 161

      Publications And Republications. We Have...

      PUBLICATIONS AND REPUBLICATIONS . We have to announce the publication of several important works , which we reserve for special treatment : — Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of the Duke of Wellington—India , 1797 1805 , edited by his son , the present Duke . The first volume is now issued by Mr . Murray . The History of the Constituent Assembl y , 1789 , by Alphonse de Lamartine , translated in four volumes , and published by Messrs . Piper , Stephenson , and Spence . Parliamentary Government , considered with Reference to a Reform of Parliament . An Essay , by Earl Grey , published by Mr . Bentley . The Descendants of the Stuarts , an . TJnchronicled Page in England's - History ) by William Townend , published by Messrs . Longman . James Montgomery : a Memoir , Political and Poetical , by J . W . King , published by Messrs . Partridge and Co ., and Impressions of Western Africa , by Mr . A . J . Hutchinson , Consul for the Big ht of Biafra and the Island of Fernando-Po , published by Messrs . jjongman .

      _ _ ,. . , „ . ¦» -. ihtm-i ? -d _ : i -kit t \ txtz + u « A Cyclopaedia of the Natural Sciences . By William Baird , M . D . With a Map and numerous Illustrations . Griffin and Co . ^ Suggestions Towards the Government of India . By Harriet Martmeau . Smith , Elder , and Co . . . The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira . By William Muir . 2 vols . Smith , Elder , and Co . „* •¦«• * The Shareholder ' s Legal Guide . By T . H . Markham , M . A ., Barnster-at-Law ( Robertson . )—The object of this free-and-easy little law-book is to let shareholders know the nature and extent of their liabilities in every kind of company . Nothing could be more useful and well-timed than such , a manual . When we say well-timed , however , we fear that many a victim will have reason

      to say , as he reads it , that it is locking the door after the steed has been stolen . Let us only hope that it may assist in preventing further mischief . The law , it is true , is not supposed to protect the infatuated or the unwary ; but it is not . the unwary seamen only that are subject to the perils of navigation ; and the rage for making money fast is continually hurrying people into all sorts of liabilities which they have never sounded or surveyed . Mr . Markham addresses his treatise to the general reader , and on this account ho indulges in a vein of familiarity which is occasionally perhaps a little in excess ; ° but we have no hesitation in recommending the motive and utility of the Guide to shareholding readers , who may be interested to hear that a shareholder in the British Bank hirving one share only was utterly ruined .

      Mr . William Cotton has compiled from autograph memorandum-books and from printed catalogues A Catalogue of the Portraits Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds . The catalogue , of great interest , to artists , is published by Messrs . Longman , and has an interesting preface . , Mr O'Byrne has commenced the publication of a new and enlarged edition of his Naeah Biography in monthly parts . His original work was restricted to the higher grades of the service ; in the present enlarged editiou he comprises all ranks , and places easily within the reach of every one interested in our Navy ( and who is not ?) a faithful record of the services rendered by oilicers to their country . We think him fairly and honou / ably conscientious and devoted endeavour to for

      entitled to support in this bring - ward the claims of officers , whose interest at the Admiralty is not always com mensurute with their good services into the light of public appreciation , and he has a right to consider his labours , in value and importance , national , 1 he principal republioation of the week is a third edition of The Principles and Practical Operations of Sir Robert Peel ' s Act of 1844 Explained and Defended , by R . Torrens , F . li . S ., published by Messrs . Longman . Ihe work has been revised and enlarged , and includes critical examinations Ql tlio lteport of the Lords' Cominittco of 1848 , upon National Distress , and of tho chapter on the Regulations of Currency in Mill ' s Principles of Political Economy . ' . . _ .

      Mr . Bonn's ropublications arc : —the first volume of a new edition , revised , with numerous wood engravings , of The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope , edited by Robert Qarruthers , in tho Illustrated Library , and in tho s « me collection u third edition , with additions , of The Antiquities of Athens and other Monuments of Greece , as measured und delineated by James Stuart and Nicholas Rovett , with seventy-one platee , a work which every student of avt ^ lu 3 ul < l " pl 5 BB 0 S 3 rt 1 " — —*• ' ——¦¦ ¦ ¦ „ " ; — " -- ; --- ¦;¦;—y sr ~ -. —y =- ~ - Mr John Timbs has issued his most useful annual Tho Year Book of Jfacts in Science and Art , published by Messrs . Kent and Co . The contents of this volume are peculiarly rich and interesting , for 1857 was u . year which will be marked in tho hiatory of science . A third nnd revised edition of Aytoun ' s Bqthtoell ; a Poem in Six Parts , has been published by Messrs . Blackwood . and Sons . Tho author , in a pleasant preface , dealt ) frankly but not arrogantly with his critics .

      In the Parlour Library , published by Mr . Hodgson , we have a reprint of Mr . S . R . Gleig ' s well-known and entertaining story Katherine . Randolph ; or , Self-Devotion . Messrs . Ward and Lock send us Night and Day , or Better Late than Never , a volume of telling every-day romance , by Mr . John Bennett , who has a faculty for writing fictions of this particular class . Messrs . Anelay and Watts Phillips have illustrated the volume . Mr . George Francis Train , who wrote the strange book , ' Young America Abroad , ' now presents himself with Young America in Wall-street , a volume published by Messrs . Sampson Low and Son . It contains a series of letters from Europe and elsewhere , a propos of the crisis . He is a rapid , dashing , eccentric , strongly-Bostonian writer , with a good deal of intelligence and large stores of information , and a bad habit of prophesying . He talks about everything—Louis Napoleon , the Leviathan , Lord Palmerston , the Mormons , the Bourse , the Stock Exchange , the Rothschilds , secret treaties , Cawnpore , the Queen , the public journals , and all else of whieh he knows , or assumes himself to know , anything . Mr . Train is a most amusing gossip , and is occasionally informing and suggestive .

      Another singular work from an American pen , published by Messrs . Sampson Low and Son , is The Hasheesh Eater , being Passages in the Life of a Pythagorean . It is wildly and imaginatively written , after the manner of De Quincey , but it is doubtful whether a De Quincey school can be successfully established . The relation of a dream is at all times liable to exaggeration and monotony . Mesmerism in Connexion with Popular Superstitions , by J . W . Jackson , is a little volume , published by M . Bailliere , in which the writer supposes himself to have formed a connexion between mesmerism and the old beliefs in magic , sorcery , second-sight , death omens , apparitions , and other popular superstitions . His treatment of the subject is at least bold and enter-Messrs . Blackwood , of Edinburgh , have published the eleventh volume of 77 k ? Works of Professor Wilson , containing the tales , rich in pictures of manners and in creations of character . The twelfth volume will contain Professor Wilson's poems . '

      __ __ . ., , The Narrative of the Indian Mutiny , published by Mr . Routledge , has reached a second issue , after ' circulating' into extensive popularity . Uncle Jack the Fault Killer , published by Messrs . Smith , Elder , and Co ., is a little book for children , simple , moral , arid amusing . The Handbook of the Court , the Peerage , and the House of Commons , published by Messrs . King , and Simpkin and Marshall , which has reached its eighth year of issue , is a neat and useful manual , and reappears for 1858 , corrected from information supplied by the members of both Houses . We must draw attention to a most valuable little book published by D'Sousa , at Bombay , and entitled A Dictionary of Commercial Terms , with their Synonyms in Various Languages , compiled by Air . Alexander Faulkner . It is full of practical information excellently arranged .

      Messrs . Hamilton , Adams , and Co . have published a seventeenth edition of Mr " . William Arthur ' s very popular tale The Successful Merchant ; Sketches of the Life of Mr . Samuel Budgett , late of Ki ? igsu > ood Hill . A new English Grammar has been published by Mr . Routledge . It is constructed by Mr . W . D . Kenny , L . C . P ., and appears to have been designed to meet the requirements caused by the latest developments of our private and public educational system . ¦ - We only announce , at present , The Letters of a Betrothed , a curious collection of authentic love letters , published by Messrs . Longman and Co .

      Parliamentary Government In France. Tiis...

      PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN FRANCE . tiistoire du Gouvernement ParUmentaire en France , 1814-1848 . Prectfdee d ' une Introduction . Par M . Duvergier de Hauranne . Paris , 1857 . Michel Levy . The pleading for liberty , driven from journals and pamphlets , takes refuge in France in ponderous volumes , which both by law and custom are removed to a certain extent from the influence of the police . M . Duvergier de Hauranne , under the form of an elaborate history , has undertaken the defence of Parliamentary government , in which , centre his political affections and , we are glad to add , his hopes . The idea seems to have suggested itself to him immediately after the Coup d' & a ^ vrhen shoals of ranting Bonapartists , in a jargon which made the gorge of honest men rise , went about proclaiming the downfal of Parliamentarianism , and the definitive substitution for it of a new sort of representation , wliieh , excluding lawyers , bankers , artiste , men of lettersand the enlightened middle classes generally , who had

      , hitherto by their activity and genius too much influenced the course of affairs , should express the will of the rabble by the Empire . M . Duvergier do Hauranne saw that for the time this new and peculiar theory , the hobbyhorse of a man who had five hundred thousand soldiers , hoping to have twp sous a day to spentj , instead of one sou , behind him , must prevail . There is no disputing against such hobby- horses . But neither the ex-Minister nor his friends acquiesced ; and in the commencement of this elaborate work we are pleased to discover the presence of a sturdy conviction that sooner or later France , a country in which , aa M . ivlignet says , " everything comes , but everything passes , which wearies of everything , but returns to everything , " will resume the experiment of a free government , and try once more whether it is not capable of taking care of its own affairs . The ' Introduction' which occupies the whole of tho first volume of M . do

      , Hauranne ' a work , is a history of the endeavours made in Ffance to found or apply eome system of Parliamentary government , from 1789 to 1814 . Between these two periods there was a time of repose of ten years , represented by tho Empire , tho study of which is not , however , without its instruction . Indeed , from tho historian's point of view , tho description of She nSHOTcir ^^ for it contains implicitly the criticism of tho present regime . Wo refer our readers who wish to read a sober account of the attempts made , at tho onu of the last century , to organize liberty in Franco , to tlua introduction , which reads like an eloquent blue-book , with passages that remind 0110 of tho minister and the orator . All the melodramatic incidents of tho Revolution are suppressed ; and , with the exception of some rather weak , and we must

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 13, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13021858/page/17/