prefixed to this edition of the Utopia, some account of the life of sir Thomas More; but recollecting how frequently (and indeed recently) the subject had been before the public, it appeared to be a more eligible plan to reserve for the notes, subjoined to the text of the Utopia, such anecdotes of our author's life as might enliven, while they illustrated the work. I shall therefore beg the reader's attention to the following arrangement of my introductory materials: - I. The family of sir T. More. II. The Biography of sir T. More. III. Account of his works; with specimens of the same. IV. Editions of the Utopia." The bibliographical anecdotes which accompany the second, third, and fourth of these divisions, are among the most interesting of the kind we have ever read. In the account of the English editions, we have as close an imitation as could be given with the types of the present day, of one page of Raphie Robinson's. On the text of the Utopia itself, Mr. Dibdin's notes are as copious and as pertinent as could be desired. Being neither so numerous as to fatigue the reader, nor so few as to withold from him necessary information. In many instances where it seems requisite, Robinson's translation is compared with the origi. nal; and in others, both are conferred with select specimens from the French and Italian versions. At the end are some supplement. al notes which add greatly to the interest of the whole. Beside a good portrait of sir Thomas More at the opening of the first volume, the work is occasionally adorned with wood cuts: one of the most beautiful of which is the birds-eye view of Utopia, reduced from the Basil edition of 1563. Another of peculiar interest will be found in "The Host or Laudlord of an Ale House," from Caxton's second edition of his book of chess. A small impression, we understand, has been worked off in quar to: differing from the smaller edition only in an ornamented title, and in the introduction of a print in outline of sir Thomas More's family. ART. IX. Libel. Sir John Carr against Hood and Sharpe. Report of the above Case, tried at the Sitting after Trinity Term, before Lord Ellenborough and a Special Jury, On Monday the 25th of July 1808. Taken in Short hand, by Thomas Jenkins. To which are added several Letters on the Subject, written by the Earl of Mountnorris, Sir Richard Phillips, and the Author of "My Pocket Book." THE freedom of the press established by the verdict given on this trial, makes every thing relating to it worthy of record. So says the publisher of this report, who was the victim intended for immolation, and so say we, who might in all probability have followed him to the sacrifice had the issue of it been different. In truth, had sir John Carr succeeded in establishing the odious principle on which his appeal to a jury was grounded, there would have been an immediate stop to all honest and free criticism. Authors, indeed, might still have been bepraised and be daubed with flattery for real or imaginary excellencies, but the rod of correction correction must never again have been applied to the fool's back; every blockhead would have palmed upon us the rankest absurdities and sillyisms of his addled brain without fear of exposure, and would have triumphed in his security to the great prejudice of peo ple's purses, time and understanding. As in human life there are many persons whose oddities of manner and eccentricities of conduct are not to be corrected by grave and serious remonstrance, but who may nevertheless be successfully laugh many ed out of countenance; so with res. Respecting ourselves, we have perhaps felt a more than ordinary interest in the event of this trial: as friends to the freedom of the press which, but for the manly and patriotic defence of this palladium by Lord Ellenborough, and sir Vicary Gibbs, would have been violated by the present unnatural and; even parricidal attack, we only participated in that common interest for its protection which we trust will never for one moment languish in the breast of any man who wears the name of Britou ; but as reviewers, as reviewers too of sir John Carr's own work, and even of that very work round which the law was implored to throw a panoply impervious to criticism. Standing in this capacity, as we did undoubtedly feel a more than ordinary apprehension during the progress of this trial, so do we now experience a more than ordinary gratification in its issue. Had it terminated differently, had Messrs. Hood and Sharpe been cast in damages, the next action might have been brought against the editor and publishers of the Annual Review for certainly the fooleries so plentifully interspersed through out sir John Carr's works; his jokes, and puns, and grandam tales; his Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles," have frequently been exhibited in these ponderous volumes," to use the epithet of a brother knight, without much reserve and without any timidity. The As to the folly of making an appeal to a court of justice in revenge for ridicule, sir John must by this time be so fully convinced of it that we shall not say one word more to aggravate his humiliation; nor shall we make any remarks on the singular testimony of sir Richard Phillips, for the same reason. report of a trial, indeed, comes scarcely within the ken even of our comprehensive vision as to publi cations; nor should we have noticed the present, but for the sake of contributing in some degree to the permanent publicity of the im portant principle laid down and established by the Court of King's Bench on the doctrine of libels, so far as criticism is concerned. "Whoever sends into the world a book," says the attorney general, gives to the public a right of dealing with the contents of that book as the contents deserve. If the book be a work of genuine merit, no attack upon it, however vio lent or however ingenious, will do it any permanent injury. If, on the other hand, it be a work which has for its support nothing but knighthood, a large margin, hot-press, gilt leaves, and a Morocco binding, it really never can stand the test of criticism, and the sooner it is sent into the shades the batter." The best Review of the proceedings on this trial we conceive to be the charge delivered to the jury by Lord Ellenborough; and nothing but the want of room prevents us from giving it here at full length. After this admirable address, the jury, without a minute's consultation, returned a VERDICT FOR THE DSFENDANTS. ART. X. Old Nick's Pocket Book; or, Hints for "a ryghte pedantique ande mangleinge” Publication, to be called " My Pocket Book." By Himself. HAD Sir John Carr contented it to ridicule. Lord Mountnorris, himself in the first instance with who states himself to have appeared this, the proper and the only pro- at the late trial solely on behalf per mode of revenge against Mr. of Sir John Carr"-a very rash conD— B―'s formidable and success- fession-swore that he had comful ridicule, he would have been pared the works, chapter by chapspared the poignant humiliation ter. His eye must have lost its which his late appeal to the Court speculation' not to have perceived of King's Bench brought down upon these misquotations and garbled exhim. We do not profess to have tracts. Had he discovered them, compared "My Pocket Book," or even if they had not escaped the chapter by chapter, with the work keen research of Sir John himself, it derided; but if this quiz upon Mr. Garrow would have been furthe former is a fair one, that was nished with a better weapon to in itself unjust to the Stranger in have opposed the attorney general Ireland, which is here said to have with, than the pointless spear which been repeatedly mangled and mis- was put into his hands on the ocquoted for the purpose of exposing casion. ART. XI. Anniversary Oration, delivered March 8th, 1808, before the Medical Society of London, by JoHN MASON GOOD. 8vo. pp. 56. THE author begins by stating the circumstances in which he undertook to deliver the anniversary oration before the medical society; and it appears from this statement, that he was not apprized of the event until within a very short time of the day of exhibition. The want of preparation might justly be urged in palliation of any deficiencies that occurred at the time of the delivery; but when he permits himself to be prevailed upon to publish his oration, he comes voluntarily before the public, and must consider himself as amenable to the tribunal of criticism. The subject which has been chosen is an interesting one; one which affords an opportunity of bringing into view many of the recent discoveries in natural history and chemistry, and which still leaves an ample field for the ingenious conjectures of the theorist. In the first part of his oration, where the author gives an account of the structure of plants, he is necessarily obliged to go through a course of descriptions, which can only be rendered valuable by their correctness, and by the strictest care in avoiding any mixture of what is doubtful or hypothetical. In this respect, however, Mr. Good has not been for tunate; for, after describing the seeds, bark, wood, and other more obvious parts of plants, he proceeds to give an account of their vessels, under the title of arteries, veins, air vessels, and lymphatics. All these he describes with as much confidence, as if he were speaking of the same parts in the animal body; he even gives an account of the valves of the lymphatics, supposes that what he calis the arteries and veins of plants are valvular, and imagines that the sap, or vegetable blood as he styles it, is propelled through plants, "by the progressive force of a regular and alternate contraction and dilatation of the vegetable vessels." He admits indeed that it is "difficult to obtain any thing like absolute certainty" upon this point, but he insists that nearly the same degree of doubt prevails in the functions of the animal system. "Even in the most perfectly established circulatory system of animals, in man himself, it is not once in five hundred instances, that we are able to acquire any palpable proof of such a fact: we are positive of the existence of an alternating systole and diastole in the larger arteries, because their pulsation gives proof of it to the finger; but throughout all the minuter arteries, which are infinitely more numerous, we reason rather than perceive, we infer a similarity of action, because, from mere analogy, we ascribe a similarity of power." But the author seems strangely to have overlooked one consideration, that if the motion of the blood be only clearly seen in any one in stance, it is a sufficient proof of the general fact, although in the other 499 cases we may be prevented from perceiving it. He indeed reasons on this subject with a degree of laxity which we should not have expected from a man of Mr. Good's acquirements. Among the points of resemblance which he enumerates as subsisting between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, are their sexual production, the compounded nature of cretions that are produced from this their blood or sap, the different sefluid, the diseases to which they are subject, and their power of resisting great degrees of heat and cold. These different topics, and some others of a less important kind, are briefly illustrated, in such a manner as to shew, that the author possesses a respectable share of information on these subjects, but without any thing that can entitle the work to a higher character than that of a common-place performance. ART. XII. Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London, during the Eighteenth Century; including the Charities, Depravities, Dresses, aad Amusements, of the Citizens of London, during that Period; with a Review of the State of Society in 1807. To which is added, a Sketch of the Domestic and Ecclesiastical Architecture, und of the various Improvements in the Metropolis. Illustrated by Fifty Engravings. By JAMES PELLER MALCOLM, F. S. A. 4to. A MORE intricate work for a Reviewer to sit down to than this of Mr. Malcolm's can hardly be conceived; since almost all the historical anecdotes which it contains, through 490 pages, are totally unconnected with each other. Notwithstanding the quaintness of arrangement, however, and some occasional eccentricities of style, Mr. Malcolm's anecdotes will be found highly curious and entertaining. The ephemeral and other transient publications of a former day, appear to have been the most copious sources of his information. ART. XIII. A Letter to the Governors, Legislatures, and Proprietors of Plantations in the British West-India Islands. By the Right Rev. BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D. Bishop of London. 8vo. pp. 48. THE object of this Letter is to induce the West India Planters to pay a strict attention to the instruction of their slaves, both children and adults, in the principles of the Christian religion, and also to the regulation of their moral conduct. For this purpose, the writer proposes to their consideration a plan "which, though gradual in its operation, will," we conceive," if carried effectually into execution, he infallible in its result: that is, The Establishment of parochial schools, upon Dr. Bell's principles, in every parish of the West India Islands."-Knowing, probably, the character of the men to whom this advice is of 1 fered, the bishop has urged it upon the sordid principles of slave dealthe ground of interest chiefly; ers, but in a tone more suited to he has endeavoured to prove that the Episcopal character charged the planters in doing their duty it upon them as a duty which at will be acting agreeably to policy; their peril they would refuse to and by improving the mind and the perform. At all events, it was conduct of their slaves will increase neither necessary nor Christian to their population, and render them hold out the possibility of retaining more contented with their servitude. the progeny of their present neUpon such minds, it may be, no groes in perpetual servitude.-The other consideration would operate; Legislature of this country has acyet we should have been better quired immortal honour by abolishpleased with this pamphlet-writing the slave trade; and we hope the ten, unquestionably, with the most time is not far distant when the benevolent intentions-had it con- abolition of slavery itself will take tained no such accommodation to place. ART. XIV. Poggii Bracciolini Florentini Dialogus, &c. Edente GULIELMO SHEPHERD. MR. Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici has excited in this country a spirit of enquiry respecting the earlier Italian scholars, which seems at present to languish even in Italy itself; and it may perhaps be numbered, not improperly, among the remarkable events of literature, that the production of a celebrated ItaJian scholar, after the neglect of nearly four centuries, should receive the honour of its first edition in a splendid form, from a provincial British press. Mr. Shepherd is well known as the author of the Life of Poggio, a work which has received the sanction of public approbation. This undertaking necessarily introduced him to a familiar acquaintance with the writings of that scholar, and inspired a natural interest respecting such relics of his composition as might possibly remain unexplored in the neglected recesses of public libraries. During the short interval of peace which Europe, a few years since, was permitted to enjoy, Mr. S. visited Paris, and in that noble repository of learning, the royal, national, or imperial library, whichever of these titles it may be destined finally to bear, he met with a manuscript of the present dialogue of Poggio, on the question, "An seni sit uxor ducenda," which he carefully transcribed, and printed a few copies intended for private circulation. among his friends. One of these was presented to Dr. Parr, who deemed the dialogue not unworthy of the genius and learning of Poggio, and by whose recommendation the editor was induced to publish it. Some errors, which were with certainty to be ascribed to the neghgence of transcribers, Mr. S. has silently corrected, and one passage of negligent and obscure construction, he states himself to have reduced to the rules of Latin composition. The short preface and the dedication to Mr. Roscoe, are written in a perspicuous and elegant Latin style. The Dramatis Persona are Poggio himself (who at the age of fifty-five had married a young wife) and Nicolaus and Carolus Aretinus his friends, by the former of whom the prudence of Poggio's conduct is impeached, and by the latter defended, with arguments which on both sides are sufficiently obvious. The following passage might have been of use to the author of Her |