GOLDSMITH ILLUSTRATED *.

LITTLE did Goldsmith, wandering

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow—-
Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wand'ring Po,"

earning an occasional welcome by playing on the flute, anticipate the time when the art of England would be engaged in illustrating his simply sweet and affecting poetry. Yet that art cannot be more creditably employed than in contributing embellishments, the artistic pretensions of which may, in some degree, compete with the subject, to writings which will last as long, probably, as the English language itself. Such a combination renders the illustrated Goldsmith the most valuable of annuals, and a present best calculated to survive when charms of a more ephemeral character shall have passed away. Here, the eye may rejoice over Mrs. Blaise, or the mirthful maze; contemplation may be awakened by sweet Auburn, or Creation's mildest charms; the spirit roused by a Swiss tumult, or a struggling savage; or soothed to melancholy by the bed of parting life, or the still more affecting houseless and imploring poor. Beauty in design and refinement of the art of engraving conjoin in these long-familiar and ever-welcome pages, to render them, in so charming a garb, the present we would choose first, of all competitors, for the one we most respected and loved.

THE ROSE GARDEN OF PERSIA †.

"Nature made me love the Rose."
'Umar Khiyan.

TRULY the Rose is the emblem of Persian poetry. Full of beauty and sweetness, it embodies the Persian's idea of his art. It is also his most favourite hyperbole. Its lustre gladdens every bower, and

"If no rose bloom for me,

Thorns my only flowers must be."

The colours of the rose are pale compared to the loved one's cheeks; and the same cheeks shame the rose in Muasi, Khakani, and Hafiz. The roses give their essence to the waters that flow through the gardens of Afrasiyab; and in Kashmir the poet sings that the nightingale pours its melody from its branches, and builds its bark-like nest amidst its leaves. Hafiz wrote the "Season of the Rose;" and Sadi called his chef-d'œuvre, Gulistan, or the "Land of Roses." We have now the "Rose Garden." A lustrous one it is, too, containing the choicest specimens, incomplete as they are, of the art of setting jewels as practised by the orientals. The above being in that country a familiar expression for poetic composition.

"Atkinson, Chézè, and Von Hammer have, in England, France, and Germany," says Miss Costello, "done much towards rendering the greatest Persian poets known; but a less learned hand may, perhaps,

* The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M. B., and Professor of Ancient History in the Royal Academy of Arts. Illustrated by Wood Engravings, from the Designs of C. W. Cope, A. R. A., Thomas Creswick, A. R.A., J. C. Horsley, R. Redgrave, A. R. A., and Frederick Tayler, Members of the Etching Club. With a Biographical Memoir, and Notes on the Poems. Edited by Bolton Corney, Esq. Longman and Co., London.

†The Rose Garden of Persia. By Louisa Stuart Costello. One Vol. Longman and Co.

succeed in making them familiar, and by collecting a great number of poets together, enable the reader to judge and compare at leisure." This is truly opening a new and beautiful source at which to drink of that draught of poetic life which belongs to all nations, and to humanity in every situation. That England should have nothing to learn from the land of the sun, and the home of the fire-worshippersthe rival of Rome in its palmiest days-would be absurd to suppose. The principles of Suffiism, or the mystic relation of intellect and feeling with the Divine Essence, is one of the most beautiful philosophies ever embodied; from its extreme simplicity it is at once easy of acceptance to untutored minds, and admirably adapted to the yearnings of the poetic temperament. Miss Costello may truly congratulate herself at having placed a new mine of intellectual wealth within the reach of every educated person. And that the graceful in form and appearance might not be wanting where the beautiful in intellect is so redolent, the "Rose Garden of Persia" comes to us in a noble type, on fine paper, and with marginal ornaments, exquisite arabesque illuminations, and every roseate luxury of binding that is calculated to delight a sultana, or woo an English maiden from her habitual fastidiousness and insouciance, to the charms of Persian poetry and romance.

THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN INSTITUTE *.

THIS superb volume certainly indicates both taste, industry, and liberality on the part of the management of the British and Foreign Institute. Professedly a popular institution, this record of its transactions is not composed of elaborate and recondite essays, or of contributions to science and philosophy; but it contains papers of a more general and literary character, accounts of the evening meetings and conversations, reports of lectures, and sketches of travel and reviews of books, in both which latter departments the resident director, Mr. Buckingham, is the master-spirit Dr. Grant has delivered lectures of Zoology; Dr. Camps, some admirable lectures on Physiology; Mr. Brayley, on the Progress of Physical Science; Dr. Lancaster, an excellent lecture on the Relations between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms; and we were also much pleased with a learned essay on the Character of Cromwell, by Mr. Leicester Buckingham, in sequence to an essay of opposite tendency, by Mr. W. H. Leatham. It is altogether a very complete and interesting volume. It gives an ample narrative of the foundation and progress of a society which now numbers more than a thousand members, and promises to flourish in proportion as its objects are praiseworthy and admirable; and what purposes can be more so, than the diffusion of knowledge among the higher classes, the foundation of intercourse between the noble and the intellectual of the land, and the establishment of international friendship? It is just such an institution as the metropolis of Great Britain was in want of; and it is to be anxiously hoped that it may continue to thrive and prosper as it has begun.

* Transactions of the British and Foreign Institute. 4to. Fisher and Son.

G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London.