ther Newton had started up amongst them, or Linnæus had risen from the dead, to explore fresh worlds and to explain away wonders; to open and make clear a path, entangled less by nature herself than by the complicated and conflicting systems introduced by her followers. We cannot say, however, that the admiration of the present, and the gratitude of future, ages will be excited by any recent accounts, that we have read, of the transactions and proceedings of these learned bodies. The only persons who can derive gratification from them, are those who delight to view human nature in its most interested and contemptible form. Looking at them, indeed, in this light, we shall have to record many useful and profitable discoveries. We may learn from the several statements, private and public, of the quarrels, dissentions, and cabals, that have latterly formed so material a portion of the business of these societies, in how very little estimation science is held, if it should be found to run counter to the preconceived and favourite opinions of an individual. We learn how truth may be disguised and made doubtful by the jealousy of men who have voluntarily devoted themselves to her cause; and how nature herself is accused of being involved and inexplicable, because every one of her self-elected explorers is determined to have his own original theory, and that that theory shall be made the universal medium of enquiry. Systems are compared, not with truth and reason, but with each other; the question to be considered is, not how far they may tend to expound the mysteries of natural philosophy, but how far they will interfere with the opinions of some learned director, who "Because he has done nothing, is held up Nature seems very rarely to be thought of, and useful knowledge appears the last thing to be elicited in the researches of scientific institutions. We admit that there are one or two exceptions to this rule; there are public bodies who are slowly and silently labouring for the advancement of intelligence and science, or who are, at all events, content to leave the cause where they found it. But it is no less certain that there are others, instituted for the noblest ends, and capable of producing the most important results in various branches of science, whose interests have been confided to men of indolent or inexperienced habits, and whose energies have, consequently, been wasted on subjects which, to say the best of them, are trivial and profitless. One society is rent in twain, and brought to the very verge of bankruptcy and ruin, because those entrusted with its management could not, for many years, decide whether crocuses or cucumbers were most worthy of especial cultivation. Another is tending fast to a similar state of degeneracy, because an honorary director is of opinion that a fowl deficient in its tail feathers, and a rabbit with ears an inch or two longer than the rest of its species, are the noblest productions of the animated world; because one professor proposes to class animals according to their teeth, and another is of opinion that the chain of being should be determined by the claws. These remarks have been principally provoked by one or two stormy meetings of the Horticultural and Zoological Societies; meetings at which the only papers that were read, were statements of unpaid accounts, and regulations that came too late to be of service. This particularly applies to the first of these societies; a society which has been most ingeniously mismanaged, and which has collected and wasted a sum of money sufficient to support the most extravagant speculations in horticulture for at least a century. How its funds have been consumed-how a debt of nearly £20,000 has been created, nobody appears to know; but it is admitted that the honour of the gentleman in whose hands the sole conduct of the society appears to have been vested, is not called in question by the mysterious character of the accounts. He is convicted of imprudence, of mismanagement, of incapacity-but he is an honorary officer, and his honour is untainted. The affairs of the Zoological Society are not so deplorably deranged, because they have been inspected in time; but similar sources of ignorant or wilful misgovernment may be traced in it; and while zoology continues to be placed, as it now is, under the identical control which has brought discredit and disgrace upon poor horticulture, we can entertain but little hope that it will become an instrument of public advantage, or that science will receive a single shilling of the enormous sum which has been collected for its maintenance in the Regent's Park. LITERATURE IN LONDON, WE forget who it was that proposed, some time ago, in a very ingenious paper, to change the names of our streets, or at least to distinguish the new ones by titles of a particular character. If we are not mistaken, it was suggested, that instead of Piccadilly and Soho, and similar euphonous and intelligible phrases, we should have Shakspeare-street, and Spenser-place; with Dryden and Pope-streets, conducting into Newton-square. Perhaps the projector of this scheme had as little notion as we had of the quarter in which it would be first taken up. His wildest hope of any improvement in this particular could not, we should imagine, have reached beyond Temple-bar; he could not have ventured to anticipate that Field-lane would be extended to Fielding-lane, that Cow-cross would grow into Cowley-cross, or that Hog-lane would be transformed into Bacon-street. Yet, from a circumstance that has recently occurred, this appears by no means improbable. It seems that tidings that Milton was born within the boundaries of the city of London, has by some unaccountable accident or other reached Guildhall—an evidence of the march of information that will not we hope escape notice. But besides being born in Bread-street, it was discovered that the great poet had actually resided in the city, within the very ward of Cripplegate itself; and accordingly the said ward immediately resolved itself into a committee, to consider of the best means of returning the compliment thus paid to them so long ago, and of rewarding the poet for his partiality and discernment. This has been done in the most delicate manner imaginable. The reader has, of course, heard of Grub-street, that temple of other times, that fountain of literature, that " pure well of English undefiled." It was the native home, indeed the cradle of unclothed, uneducated talent. There patriotism plied for pence, and genius sold its crown for two-and-six-pence. This scene, so long sacred to the muses a spot which Pope and many other writers have celebrated in immortal song-this scene, then, was most appropriately and delicately fixed upon by the ward of Cripplegate, as the medium by which their admiration of Milton-their illustrious fellow-citizen-was to be conveyed to posterity. Their ideas of poetry once excited, they naturally found a channel through Grub-street. It was not, however, by placing a statue, or erecting a temple there that they proposed to honour his memory; they did not even give a dinner in testimony of their enthusiasm. No: they resolved simply to change the name of the street. They accordingly removed the classic notice that had long graced the end of it-erased from the board the dignified monosyllable "Grub," and painted in its stead the hallowed name of " Milton." For "Grub" read "Milton." The board was in due season replaced, and there it stands, with "Milton-street" inscribed upon it in conspicuous letters-the most original compliment, we will venture to say, that has ever yet been paid to the memory of the prince of poets. We hope, however, that the spirit of literary appreciation which has thus begun in the city will not stop here, but that some acceptable honours, of a similar kind, will be provided for living authors. Surely Wordsworth-street would be as good a name as Watling-street; and Scottfield would, after a very little practice, sound as musical as Smithfield, REVIEWS. THE DOOM OF DEVORGOIL, a Melodrama; AUCHINDRANE, or the Ayrshire Tragedy. By Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh. Cadell and Co. THIS volume introduces Sir Walter Scott to the world in a new character. We had imagined that the day of surprises had passed, and that, in defiance of the proverb, wonders had positively ceased. But here is a melodrama that convinces us of our mistake. The author of " Marmion" and " Waverley”—the enchanter whose wand we have obeyed, whose spells have changed the world, who " put a girdle round about the earth" in less than forty minutesin short, Sir Walter Scott, the hic et ubique of literature, comes before the public as the writer of three-act-dramas for one of the minor theatres. But this is far from being the worst; his pieces have been rejected-rejected, we repeat it, even at a minor theatre. They were written for representation; they were composed (at least one of them was) expressly, as the play-bill would have said, for the Adelphi theatre; the usual melo-dramatic accompaniments have been introduced-the decorations of the scene have been studied—but all to no purpose. There is a decayed baron, with a castle to match—a suit of black armour struck down by lightning-a mysterious chamber containing more treasure than Mr. Rothschild ever conceived, with a substantial key dropped by an unsubstantial spectre for the very purpose of unlocking it; and yet with all these advantages, natural and unnatural, the manuscript is returned, as unfit for representation. We must not forget, however, that "Waverley" itself was rejected in the first instance; and perhaps Sir Walter, like Mrs. Malaprop, finds it better" to begin with a little aversion." Keeping this point in view, therefore, we will not yet despair of seeing a tragedy from the same pen. But let us do justice to the motives that influenced Sir Walter in writing for the theatre. The first of these dramas, he informs us, was written long since," for the purpose of obliging the late Mr. Terry, for whom the author had a particular regard." The intention was a kind and generous one, and evinces a feeling of disinterestedness highly honourable to Sir Walter, who could expect, of course, but little advancement either in fame or fortune from his condescension. It was also noble in Mr. Terry to decline the advantage offered him, for he certainly might have filled his treasury by the curiosity, if not by the admiration of the public-though he would have done so, in a great measure, at the expense of his friend's reputation. But the circumstance that principally excites our surprise is this: that Sir Walter Scott, in a spirit of real kindness towards the manager, should have deliberately sat down to construct a drama for the stage, and that he should have produced a piece so little adapted for the purposes of representation as the "Doom of Devorgoil." Had he proposed to write a tragedy with a view to its being acted, his failure would have created but little astonishment; had he attempted a comedy, nay, an interlude in one act, upon manners as they are, the result would have been but the marvel of a moment. But to have selected the easiest and the humblest path-to have composed a melodrama for the avowed purpose of serving his friend by its representation, and to have suffered Mr. Planché to surpass him-all this does appear to us to require an especial note of admiration. The story of the Doom of Devorgoil," is founded upon an old Scottish tradition. The house of Devorgoil has fallen into decay from the crimes of one of its lords, whose phantom appears at a very critical period, and presents the key of a concealed chamber that contains a store of wealth sufficient to reinstate the fortunes of the house. This is not done in the spirit of atonement, but merely to induce Oswald, the present inheritor, to cast off his wife, who being of humble birth, is regarded by the aristocratic phantom as a spot upon the sun of Devorgoil. Oswald rejects the offer with disdain, and "the the mysterious treasure-chamber is again closed. Luckily, however, heir of plundered Aglionby," to whom the treasure of right belongs, and by whose hand alone the door can be opened, appears in the person of a young ranger who is in love with the daughter of Oswald; and the spectre having obligingly, though rather inconsistently, dropped the key in a dark passage, the treasure is obtained, and a scroll which is found in the apartment is read, proclaiming that dishonour shall never more soil "The rescued house of Devorgoil." The under-plot is composed of a scheme to frighten a conceited student, named Gullcrammer; and for this purpose one Lance Blackthorn and Katleen, the baron's neice, array themselves as goblins that are said to haunt the castle. This part of the piece is ludicrous enough; though the mixture of the mimic and the real goblin would puzzle an audience extremely, and is one reason why the drama was found unfit for the stage. Blackthorn is a fine free sketch, and Katleen is as merry and mischievous as we could wish. But the humour of the coxcomb Gullcrammer is, we should imagine, too strained to produce a smile anywhere. It is too much in the vein of Ben Jonson, and too little in that of Shakspeare. The dialogue, in some parts, is very quaint and happy, and reminds us of the elder dramatists as much as it does, in certain other parts, of the modern ones. But the stage-directions please us best; they are singularly exact. After an elaborate description of the costume of Oswald, we are told that "his countenance and manner should express the moody and irritable haughtiness of a proud man involved in calamity, and who has been exposed to recent insult." In another part, the following hint to Mr. Stanfield for the production of a flash of lightning, is given in the form of a footnote: "I should think this may be contrived by having a transparent zig-zag in the flat scene, immediately above the armour, suddenly and very strongly illuminated." When a supernatural visitor is gradually approaching "successive screens of crape" are prescribed; and when in the last scene news is brought that the waters of the moat are rising, and threaten to whelm the castle beneath the waves, Sir Walter says, precisely what Captain Shandy would have said under similar circumstances: "If it could be managed to make the rising of the lake visible, it would answer well for a coup-de-theatre." As this rising of the waters is supposed to take place outside the castle, we do not well see how this effect could be produced; but perhaps they manage these things better in Edinburgh. Let us not be misunderstood. We have not touched upon these little points in a spirit of ridicule; but as evidences, however slight, of extreme simplicity of character, in a writer who has taught us to find an interest even in his most trivial expressions. The other drama, called “ Auchindrane,” though composed of better dramatic materials, is by no means more adapted for stage representation. It has but one incident; the attempt of Auchindrane, an Ayrshire baron, to conceal a previous murder by the destruction of a youth who was witness to it-Quentin Blane, whom the author designates as "an amiable hypochondriac." The whole arrangement of the plot is hurried and ineffective; and the catastrophe is ingeniously disappointing. The dialogue, as in the former case, is frequently excellent; varying, as occasion requires, from pathos to pleasantry. If it is not quite equal to the author's prose, it can boast, at least the same fault-the constant recurrence of the same phrase and metaphor. For example; the following occurs at page 227— "Thy friend, thine officer, Whom yon ungrateful slaves have pitched ashore, At page 238 "Yonder mutineers that left their officer, As reckless of his quarters as these billows, At page 273 "My merry crew of vagabonds for ever! Scum of the Netherlands, and washed ashore There are several songs scattered through these dramas, but none of them display any particular powers of fancy, or grace of versification. AN ESSAY ON ANCIENT COINS, MEDALS, AND GEMs, as Illustrating the Progress of Christianity in the Early Ages. By the Rev. R. Walsh, LL.D., &c. Third Edition. Westley and Davis. WE have already presented to our readers a notice of a portion of this curious and valuable little volume. Since the publication of the number of our review that contained it, the work has reached a third edition; and we sit down to resume our unfinished task with a feeling of unmixed satisfaction at the success of a production which tends to shed so much light on the early progress of Christianity, and to strengthen and confirm evidences that were before vague and doubtful. The portion of the essay to which we have now to call the attention of our readers, is that which Dr. Walsh has devoted to a review of ancient coins connected with the advances of Christianity. In entering upon this part of his subject, the doctor takes a review of the persecutions which the professors of the gospel experienced, and the measures adopted for its total extirpation, during the reign of Diocletian and his atrocious colleague Maximian. These horrible persecutions extended even to remote provinces, wheresoever, indeed, the light of the true religion had penetrated; and the doctor tells us that he has himself visited, in the gulf of Nicodemia, and other remoter places in the east, "caverns in the sides of nearly inaccessible mountains," where those who were suffering for their faith endeavoured to find concealment and refuge during this dismal period. He observes "The Christian writers do not fail to record many marks of divine anger displayed on this occasion. The palace of the emperor was struck with lightning and immediately consumed, which so affected him, that he continually saw flashes of fire before his eyes, and he was seized with a dangerous fever, from which he with difficulty recovered. He soon after abandoned the empire to his colleague, and retired to a private station, in which he died of grief and abstinence, having obstinately refused all aliment; while his more atrocious colleague, Galerius, having exercised against all his subjects, that avarice and cruelty which he began by practising on the Christians, was wasted away with a consuming and loathsome disease, and died with great horror. Without having recourse to supernatural interposition, we may easily suppose that such would be the natural effects of reflection and remorse on men whose conscience was burthened with the cruelties they had perpetrated. "In the annexed coin, the obverse represents the head of the Emperor Diocletian, crowned with laurel, and his shoulders covered with a robe, with the legend DIOCLETIANVS PERPETVVS FELIX AVGVSTVS:- Diocletian, perpetual, happy, |