year by year become rarer and more rare all Europe over, Around, upon bench or stool, or squatting upon the ground, as chance or a softer power led, was every denizen of the establishment, from the high padrona in her festal cap, down to the very facchina of the kitchen, dog and cat, and all. Among them, too, we observed, and no insensible partakers in the fun either, the lady, a visitor here, of a grandee of Spain,-such conjunctions do happen, and who's the worse?-accompanied by a very sweet faced girl, her daughter, whose only regret seemed to be that she was not more prominent still among the performers. Red caps and brown faces were poked through the curtains, from time to time, belonging to people who had flocked, like bees to a bell, to the music of this bucolic congress, while sundry Indian-looking figures (the dress of the Ischian muleteer, with his red Phrygian cap and naked limbs, gives this appearance,) stood with their mules and asses, in the dusk, at the further part of the hall. At one end of the open space, in the centre of the groups, sat a hero who had changed our platters at dinner, and with whom we had had some confabulation,-not much to be sure, but, upon the strength of the conference, such as it was, I would venture to predicate of him, that not a mortal man in all Christendom, Naples included, could match him at an extemporaneous lie."

One evil is this, that a writer whose cleverness is made to be so apparent as in the present instance, is apt constantly to put his readers on their guard about the genuineness of his sketches. There is a suspicion that he who can paint with such dexterity, will never allow himself to be at a loss for subjects to delineate; the powers of fancy and the images of a fertile and accomplished mind being as much a reality in his experience, as the character of the landscapes and of the sights which he passes in his rapid journey and hasty visitings. Where there is more of nature and less of art this result does not affect us.

Our last extract from this animated volume shall be anecdotical; at the same time it is descriptive of the king of whom it is related :

"Nevertheless I must inflict the tediousness upon you of Lord S's story about old Ferdinando of Naples. This old king was addicted, with a royal addiction, to the chasse aux oiseaux; so royally indeed, that he would not be prevailed upon to balk his diversion, even on the death of his queen. He continued to potter about, therefore, his gun on his shoulder, though he ought to have been mourning; but as a compromise with his conscience between love of his amusement and grief for his bereavement, he told his courtiers he should shoot nothing but very little birds."

We should like to know whether the author of these "Notes" is. as agreeable in the capacity of a companion in the course of his travels as he is in that of a writer. Probably not; and for the reasons just hinted at, relative to his artistic skill. Be this as it may, it would be long, we are sure, ere we became tired of his " Pencillings by the way.'

583

ART. XI.

1.-The Vicar of Wakefield. London: Smith. 1838.

2.-The Arabian Nights' Entertainments: With Copious Notes by E. W. LANE. Knight. London: 1838.

3.-Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With Notes by H. H. MILMAN. London: Murray. 1838.

It is obvious that reprints or new editions must be intended either to create or to satisfy a demand for the works so treated. The methods taken to recommend such productions are not less natural. Cheapness, superior accuracy, beauty and embellishment, and in many cases, learning and diligence displayed in collecting illustrative notes, or judgment exhibited in the way of comment, are circumstances, each or all of which may be the means of rendering a book popular or more desirable on the part of those persons for whom it is adapted.

Of late years there has been an extraordinary, an unprecedented number of readers, and a much more comprehensive system or range of reading followed by all classes than ever was known before. Cheap publications, in the form of periodical productions, reprints of popular or standard works, abridgments and compendiums, have at the same time awakened and gratified a general thirst. Among the industrial classes, where the means to gratify a taste for literary or scientific knowledge are limited, cheapness must be an indispensable consideration. Numerous have been the efforts and varying the parties that have stirred persons to meet the circumstances last referred to; and were it necessary we might detail a few of them, and the names of several publishers whose reprints of the kind are generally known and designated by their own names. Instead, however, of putting our memory to any stretch by any enumeration of former or present publishers and editors who may have signalized themselves in the manner mentioned, it is sufficient to instance the enterprizing party who has lately brought out "The Lady of the Lake," ""The The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "The Vicar of Wakefield," &c. &c. in a handsome and remarkably cheap octavo shape, a number of the separate pieces being each complete for one shilling, while Crabbe's "Borough," Bligh's "Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty," &c. are to be got for two-pence more. Now, while the facts now mentioned afford some important intimations in reference to the copyright question, they also present evidences, which, to us, possess a deeper interest and a more encouraging theme of contemplation. While Mr. Smith is proceeding rapidly and spiritedly with his Standard Library, specimens of which have just been named, and other publishers are giving to the world reprints with rival pretensions, this conclusion must be drawn, viz. that such an extensive popular demand exists on the part of persons to whom

cheapness is a pressing consideration for works of lasting value and prime excellence, literary and moral, as to remunerate the adventuring party in this publishing speculation; a speculation which finds its account in a vast multitude of very small profits, that is to say, in a vast multitude of sales. It must be extremely gratifying to all the friends of true refinement and knowledge to perceive that the popular feeling when once set in according to the channel indicated, it must become a generating principle; so that we anticipate, before many years elapse, that many beautiful reprints of excellent books will crowd into the market, and at a price for which the same number of pence will only be asked as hitherto of shillings.

In that class of new editions of which the distinguishing features are pictorial as well as literary illustrations, Mr. Knight is a principal speculator. For example, he is issuing in successive parts or numbers a Pictorial History of England, a Pictorial Shakspeare, &c. ; besides the work mentioned at the head of this paper. One of the most observable points in these editions is the number and beauty of the wood engravings which illustrate and adorn them, sometimes with a profession that invites the eye with too great force from the original and really standard portion of the work. Wood engraving, however, has become a species of art and a style of embellishment too valuable and accessible to be hereafter slightly or meagrely employed; for it possesses various advantages over engravings on copper or steel, which must ever be appreciated. Some of these advantages and some of the differences we shall glance at.

The processes of engraving on copper and wood are in some respects quite opposite in their nature and in their effects. Thus, he who works on a block of wood, leaves standing all those parts of the surface which are to make impressions on the paper; whereas, he who works on copper, cuts, hollows, or scratches out all those parts which are to leave lines. The ink which is to mark the paper in the case of wood is put upon the uncut, the prominent parts, the grooves escaping the smearing, so as to leave white spaces on the sheet of paper in the process of printing; whereas on copper, the ink fills up all the hollow parts, be they deep or never so shallow, be they wide or never so narrow,-the untouched parts of the surface being wiped perfectly clean to leave the corresponding surface of the paper uncoloured.

Now wood engraving possesses certain important advantages in regard to shadings and otherwise which we shall not dwell upon; but when it is added that its advantages are to be obtained at much less cost than such as appertain to copper-plates, it will be at once seen how successfully it has been employed to carry beautiful pictures as well as beautiful and valuable editions of books to the poor man's fireside.

When we mention that fewer hands and fewer intermediate pro

cesses are employed to complete and carry through wood engraving, than when an analogous attempt is made on copper, comparative cheapness must be the result. Now in regard to the former, instead of a painter having designed and worked upon a separate substance, and instead of a reversed copy having often to be drawn, for the engraver again to work from on the metal, the original design may at once be drawn by a pencil on the face of the wood, all that is then required of the engraver being to leave these lines untouched. Wood, besides, will throw off a far greater number of impressions on paper without being worn out than copper; and thus has the process been used of late years with wonderful and constantly increasing success both in this country and in France, as well as other parts of the continent.

Among our wood engravers deceased and living some have attained to a very high celebrity, several of the latter being employed by the publisher of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," and the other elegant works already alluded to. We must be allowed, however, to make one observation, and to refer to one practice in England which militates against the reputation of the country, its engravers, and the interests of art; and this is, that the most eminent of these artists are in the habit of allowing their names to be affixed to works which their pupils alone or chiefly have executed--a practice which must necessarily give circulation to inferior productions. Nor is the morality of the thing altogether of the nicest order. Mr. Knight's publications, judging merely from our own not very critical skill or taste, appear to be by no means unmarred and unobjectionable in the respect mentioned.

Passing from the circumstances of cheapness and pictorial illustration and embellishment, to the intrinsic literary merits of particular editions, as the main feature, it is obvious that research, erudition, and accurate refined judgment, must chiefly distinguish editorial efforts. The classic whose work is republished was not immaculate; his style, his facts, and his opinions may be frequently bad and dangerous; while unquestionable or prevailing excellences may render the correction of such errors the more necessary, just in proportion to the popularity or general acceptableness of the work as a whole. Much may be abstruse, arising from the remoteness of the period, the mutations of language, or the obscurity of an individual's manner and thoughts and much may have been spoiled by incompetent editors and prejudiced commentators. Nay, as in the case of Shakspeare's Plays, the toil of selection and condensation of what has been wisely and justly written by editors from what is worthless, unnecessary, conjectural, and bad, has long been felt as a desideratum in literature and the philosophy of mind. In regard to such a work as the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments," the same editorial, confused, and bewildering mass, sometimes of perfect rubbish, has not to be encountered, although,

independent of the difficulties that surround the original language in which these Tales were written or repeated, and the number of allusions to manners and institutions which are strange to Europeans, no ordinary degree of literary skill and oriental acquirement is necessary on the part of him who attempts to acquit himself satisfactorily as editor.

That Mr. Lane is eminently fitted for the office he has here undertaken, cannot for a moment be doubted by any one who is acquainted with his former works, with the fact of his long residence in the East, and with his extraordinary acquaintanceship in regard to the Arabic language and Arabic customs. There have, however, been not a little controversy about the original of these remarkable Tales, some maintaining that they were first composed in Persian, others, and, at least in this country, the prevailing opinion being that they are Arabic, and not translated from the Persian into this latter language. Mr. Lane's reasoning supports the Arabic origin. We quote his note upon this subject:

"I have now given several data upon which to found a reasonable opinion as to the age when these tales were composed. First, in note 55, to chap. ii., I have shown that a fiction in one of the tales is framed in accordance with the distinction of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, by the colours of their turbans, which mode of distinction originated in the beginning of the eight century of the Flight. Secondly, in the present note, I have given a strong reason for concluding that there must have been a long series of Sultáns in Egypt before the age of the author. In the third place, I must remark, that all the events described in this work are said to have hap pened in ages, which, with respect to that of the author, were ancient, being related to an ancient king; from which I think we may infer the author's age to have been at least two centuries posterior to the period mentioned in the first of these data. Fourthly, in note 22, chap. iii., I have shown that the state of manners and morals described in many of these tales agrees, in a most important point of view, with the manners and morals of the Arabs at the commencement of the tenth century of the Flight. This I regard as an argument of great weight, and especially satisfactory, as agreeing with the inference just before drawn. Fifthly, from what I have stated in the note immediately preceding, I incline to the opinion that few copies of this work, if any, were written until after the conquest of Egypt by the Turks: in other words, that the work was per haps composed shortly before the year 1517 of our era; but more probably within ten or twenty years after. This opinion, it should be remarked, respects especially the early portion of the work, which is the least likely to have been interpolated, as latter parts evidently have been. At the last mentioned period, a native of Cairo (and such I believe to have been the author of the principal portion of the work, if not of the whole,) might, if about forty years of age, retain a sufficient recollection of the later Memlook Sultáns and of their ministers to describe his kings and courts without the necessity of consulting the writings of historians, which probably he was unable to do; for, from his ignorance of chronology, it appears that