ABRIDGED LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS,

From June 9 to September 9, 1836.

Aristotle's Rhetoric, with Notes by the Rev. F. J. Parsons, 8vo., 14s. Barlow on the Manufactures and Machinery of Great Britain, 4to., 31. 6s. Barlow's (Thos.) Trip to Rome, 18mo., 5s.

Bateman's (W.) Maguacopia, or Library for the Chemist, &c., 18mo., 6s. Beattie's Switzerland, 2 vols. 4to., 31.

Berkeley Castle, a Romance; by the Hon. G. Berkeley. 3 vol. post 8vo., 31s. 6d.

Bickmore's Course of Historical Instruction, 12mo., 10s. 6d.

British Association, Fifth Report (Dublin), 8vo., 13s. 6d.

British Cyclopædia: Geography and History, 3 vol. royal 8vo., 21. 5s.

Botanist's (The) Manual, fcap., 2s.

Caldwell's (Dr.) Thoughts on Physical Education, 12mo., 3s. 6d.

Cooper's (J. F.) Excursions in Switzerland, vol. post 8vo., 21s.

Coulson on Deformities of the Chest, post 8vo., 3s. 6d.

Chateaubriand's Sketches of English Literature, 2 vols. 8vo., 24s.

Chorley's Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, 2 vols. post 8vo., 21s.

Clark's Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System, post 8vo., 9s.

Empson's Narratives of South America, 8vo., 10s.

Gallery of Modern British Artists, vol. 2, 4to., 11. 10s., hlf.-bd.

Goethe's Faust, in German, with English Notes, 18mo., 5s.

Hagemeister's Report on the Commerce of the Black Sea, post 8vo., 10s. 6d. Harris's Mammon; or Covetousness the Sin of the Church, post 8vo., 6s. 6d. Hazlitt's (the late W.) Literary Remains, 2 vol. 8vo., 28s.

Higgins's Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, &c., 2 vols. 4to., 51. History of Van Dieman's Land from 1824 to 1835, 12mo., 5s.

Hoding's Land Log-Book (United States), 12mo., 5s.

Jardine's Naturalist's Library, vol. 13 (Elephants, &c.), 12mo., 6s.

Jesse's Angler's Rambles, sm. 8vo., 10s. 6d.

Knox's Anatomist's Instructor, 12mo., 4s. 6d.

Lardner's Cyclopædia, vol. 80 (Greece, vol. 3), 12mo., 6s.

Lardner's Cyclopædia, vol. 81 (England, vol. 6), 12mo., 6s.

Lardner's Cyclopædia, vol. 82 (Foreign Statesmen, vol. 3), 12mo., 6s,
Lewis's Spanish Sketches, imp. fol., 41. 4s., bound

Library of Useful Knowledge:

History of France, pt. 1, 8vo., 9s.

Mathematics, vol. 1, 8vo., 6s.; vol. 2, 11s. 6d.

Large Maps of the Stars, imp. 4to., 11. 10s. plain, 21. 2s. coloured.
Companion to ditto, by A. De Morgan, 8vo., 3s. 6d., roy. 8vo. 5s.

Magazine of Popular Science, vol. 1, 8vo., 10s.

M'Kay's Flora Hibernica, 8vo., 16s.

Mudie's Popular Mathematics, 12mo., 7s.

Philosophical Transactions, 1836, part 1, 4to., 30s.

Proceedings of the Zoological Society, pt. 3, 1835, 8vo., 6s.

Rhind on the Geology, &c. of Edinburgh and its Environs, 18mo., 2s. 6d.

Ronalds' Fly Fishing Entomology, 8vo., 14s.

Selections from the Phrenological Journal, edited by R. Cox, 12mo., 5s. 6d. Transactions of the Linnean Society, vol. 17, pt. 3, 4to., 11. Ís.

Turton's Angler's Manual, fcap, 3s. 6d.

Twamley's Romance of Nature, 8vo.,31s. 6d.

Von Tietz's St. Petersburgh, Constantinople, &c. in 1833-34, 2 vol. p. 8vo. 21s. Walker's Beauty in Women, illustrated by Howard, roy. 8vo., 31s. 6d. Watson's Statistics of Phrenology, 12mo., 5s.

Yarrell's (Wm.) British Fishes, 2 vol. 8vo., 21. 8s.; roy. 8vo. 41. 16s.; imp. 8vo. 71. 4s.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

THE Report of Sir David Barry and Dr. Corrie on the Medical Charities of Ireland will shortly be published. These gentlemen were appointed, by Government, Commissioners for investigating the Management of Hospitals and Asylums.

COPYRIGHT.-Amongst the Parliamentary Notices which stand for next session, is the following from Mr. Serjeant Talfourd-" To call the attention of the house to the law of copyright, with a view to the extension of the time during which the interest of authors in their works shall continue."

METEOROLOGICAL REPORT.

During the first week in June, after the dry winds in May, some genial showers fell. Towards the middle of the month the temperature rose to 76°; the latter end of the month again brought some welcome showers and a mild summer heat. Once during the first week in July, the thermometer rose to 84°; at the middle and latter end of the month showers fell, and the temperature was variable.-August was chiefly fine and seasonable: on the 23rd rain fell abundantly, and the weather for the rest of the month was tempe rate and pleasant.

SOME REMARKS ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE. MONASTERIES.

BISHOP BURNETT in his phillipic against the Monasteries, as the nestling places of indolence, sensuality and irreligion,*-in short, as stained with every vice,―has rather overshot the mark. His sweeping accusations in this respect must be taken with certain limitations. In the first place he forgets the well authenticated fact, how, by their sudden abolition, towns and provinces were converted into nurseries of ignorance. If our historian had been less exempt upon this subject from prejudices-we might write passions—he would have acknowledged that another evil consequence of the monastic revolution was the check given to the intellectual progress of the country by the destruction of many a valuable library. Had not, indeed, these old catholic establishments been as odious to him as the leprosy, he would have been constrained by the mastery of truth and candour to admit that even the rarities of intellect were consigned to the flames, solely because they were found in popish repositories. It was enough that they should be brought out to the market place and there burnt, "if guilty of no other superstition but red letters in their fronts or titles." We may judge of the extent to which this vandalic war was waged against literature, from this single statement of Collier. "Another misfortune," says he, "consequent upon the suppression of the abbeys was an ignorant destruction of a great many valuable books. The books instead of being removed to royal libraries, to those of cathedrals, or the universities, were frequently thrown to the grantees as things of slender consideration. Their avarice was sometimes so mean, and their ignorance so undistinguishing, that when the covers were somewhat rich and would yield a little, they pulled them off, threw away the books, or turned them to waste paper."

Leland, it is true, succeeded in some measure in stopping this literary devastation by receiving a commission from Henry which fully impowered him to preserve a vast number of records and manuscripts. But how inefficient after all was the protection by the king of these learned treasures, notwithstanding "his solely sovereign sway," may be collected from the following indignant evidence of Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory. "I know," proceeds

he,

a merchant which shall at this time be nameless, that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings price, a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff he hath occupied instead of grey paper by the space of more than these ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. Our posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities."

In descanting upon this momentous change in the frame of our ecclesiastical polity, Burnett does, however, allow that " some of the abbots understood affairs well." From this vague and obscure expression, I suppose we are to infer that, at home, these mitred chiefs, as legislative counsellors of the realm, played a prominent part in the civil transactions of the state; and that abroad, from their being frequently employed in embassies throughout the continent of Europe, they had acquired a knowledge of the world, and of various improvements in social life. A less sworn enemy to the monastic foundations would not have failed to notice that, while skilfulness in "the noble art of the chace" constituted the sole pride and glory of the ruling caste, many of the abbots became, to their real credit and honour, the encouragers of "book learning," and their abbatial houses the seminaries of learning and piety.

Under the roof of Thomas Bromele, abbot of the mitred monastery of Hyde, near Winchester, eight youths of gentle birth and blood, received literary instruction and religious education, and were constantly admitted to his table.† The Abbot of Glastonbury adopted a similar practice. "His apartment," says the learned historian of that monastery, was a kind of well-disciplined court where the sons of noblemen and young gentlemen were wont to be sent for virtuous education, who returned thence home excellently accomplished." Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, whose execution appears to have been an act of flagrant injustice,§

Eccles. Hist., vol. ii., p. 166.

66

+ See Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii., p. 269.

Hist. and Antiq. of Glastonbury, Oxon, 1722, p. 98.

§ According to the notorious Sanders, he was hung up near his abbey, and quartered on the same day, without even the form of a trial.—De Schism. Angliæ. Lond., 1634, p. 138. But, from the most authentic evidence, it is clear that the commissioners appointed to examine into the state of this mo mastery did not, through a consciousness of their monstrous illegality, venture upon such extreme proceedings. "My Lorde, thies shal be to asserteyne that, on Thursdaye, the xiiijth daye of this present moneth, the Abbott of Glastonburye was arrayned, and the next daye putt to execucyon with ij. other of his monkes."-See John Lord Russell's letter to Lord Cromwell,