Hellen, is a large mound of earth or barrow. Under this mound is concealed "King Cæsar's treasure ;" many a mouth has watered after the gold and jewels that are buried there, but no one has yet ventured to dig them up, for they are not only placed at a great depth under the surface of the ground, but they are guarded by a devil who never quits his station.

Such is the legend of Carnac, as related by the peasantry of the neighborhood. Similar stories may be found in other countries connected with these remarkable monuments of the fabulous ages of the history of nations. The Rollright Stones, in Oxfordshire, are believed by the peasantry to be an army of petrified soldiers. W.

ARTICLE XII.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

By the Junior Editor.

GREAT BRITAIN.

1.-Chronicon Mirabile; or, Extracts from Parish Registers, principally in the North of England. London, 1841.

WE can scarcely imagine a more useful work to the biographer, or a more amusing one to the lover of quaintness, than a collection like the present. We are indebted for it to Sir Cuthbert Sharp, one of our most eminent Northern antiquaries; and the selection has been made with great ability. We give a few extracts.

"HART. Thomas Wilkinson de Elwick.-bur. 26 Jan., 1630.

"Wind and snow,

The sorest day that ever did blow.

"William, son to Thomas Spaine, who had been but three or four days at Thorp Bolmer, and suffered his child to wander, being but two years old, he was sought four days by the parishioners, and found the sixth day dead in the cow-close.-bur. 2 March, 1631.

"WHITBURN. 1662, 17 Aug. The abjuration of the solemn league and covenant was publicly read in the parish church of Whickham, in time of divine service.

"DURHAM. 1568. Mem. that a certain Italian brought into the city of Durham, the 11th day of June in the year above said, a very strange and monstrous serpent, in length sixteen feet, in quantity and dimensions greater than a great horse, which was killed and taken by special policy in Ethiopia, within the Turk's dominions. But before it was killed, it had devoured, as it is credibly thought, more than a thousand persons and destroyed a whole country!

VOL. III.-No. II.

17

"BELFORD. 28 July, 1792. Hailstones, or rather pieces of ice, some of them weighing ten ounces and filling a beer-glass when dissolved, were said to have fallen this day at Newcastle.

"4 Aug., 1792. Riots at Berwick for some days past, on account of several surgeons and others stealing several dead bodies out of the churchyard."-Archæologist.

2.-Elements of Electro-Metallurgy; or the Art of working in Metals by the Galvanic Fluid, with minute descriptions of the processes for Electro-Gilding, Plating, etc.; the method of Etching by Galvanism, etc. etc. (Illustrated with wood cuts.) By Alfred Smee, Surgeon to the Bank of England, etc. London, 1841.

Varied as the subjects of this little volume are, they are treated both fully and clearly. We need not say they are full of importance and interest; the recent discoveries in electro-metallurgy, and the promise of still more striking and beautiful applications of the art, which these discoveries hold out, have excited the liveliest attention in the public mind. -Eclectic Review.

3.-Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. By Charles Mackay. London, 1841.

This is a work which, although not aspiring to the rank of a profound philosophical treatise, is yet one from which much practical philosophy may be gained. History, it is said, is philosophy teaching by example; and in the examples here given, we have some of the most remarkable instances of the eccentricities and follies of mankind which the pen of history has recorded. In a country in which the spirit of enterprise is too apt to run into a wild spirit of speculation, few papers have ever been written better worth the attention of the mercantile and monied classes than the narratives in these volumes of Law's famous Mississippi scheme, and of the celebrated South Sea bubble. Mr. Mackay's account of this period, when France and England emulated each other in madness carried to the most extravagant height, is the fullest we have met with. Something approaching the same spirit of speculative insanity we have occasionally seen in our own times, but we do not remember any case like the following:

"The projectors took the first opportunity of a rise to sell out, and next morning the scheme was at an end. Maitland, in his 'History of London,' gravely informs us, that one of the projects which received great encouragement, was for the establishment of a company 'to make deal-boards out of saw-dust.' This is, no doubt, intended as a joke; but there is abundance of evidence to show that dozens of schemes hardly a whit more reasonable, lived their little day, ruining hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion-capital, one million; another was 'for encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe and church lands, and repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage houses.' Why the clergy, who were so mainly interested in the latter clause, should have taken so much interest in the first, is only to be explained on the supposition that the scheme was projected by a knot of the fox-hunting parsons, once so common in England.

The shares of this company were rapidly subscribed for. But the most absurd and preposterous of all, and which showed, more completely than any other, the utter madness of the people, was one started by an unknown adventurer, entitled 'A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.' Were not the fact stated by scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that any person could have been duped by such a project. The man of genius who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity, merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of 1007. cach, deposit 27. per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to 100l. per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained, he did not condescend to inform them at that time, but promised, that in a month full particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining 987. of the subscription. Next morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of 2,000l. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again."

The next paper gives an account of the tulip mania that took possession of our sober neighbors the Dutch, which is followed by a chapter on "Relics," "Modern Prophecies," "Popular Admiration for Great Thieves," and "Fashions of Beards and Long Hair." The paper which succeeds, "On Duels and Ordeals," is perhaps the best in the volumes, both in its argumentative tone and its historical details.

"Popular Follies of Great Towns," forms the subject of a very amusing paper, well introduced by the following just and striking reflec

tion:

"He who walks through a great city to find subjects for weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at every corner to wring his heart; but let such a man walk on his course, and enjoy his grief alone-we are not of those who would accompany him. The miseries of us poor earth-dwellers gain no alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely hunt them out to be pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often impairs his eyesight by his wo, and becomes unable from his tears to see the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases."

The second volume is devoted to the "Crusades," the "Witch Mania," the "Slow Poisoners," and "Haunted Houses;" and both volumes together, to which we shall again have occasion to refer, form a work in which not only every page is readable, but is so written as to possess an unusual degree of interest.-Westminster Review.

4.-The Mental and Moral Dignity of Woman. By the Rev. Benjamin Par

THE subject of this work is one to which we shall embrace the first opportunity of returning when we can take it up with any prospect of practical usefulness. The work itself is rather too much in the char

acter of a learned and elaborate metaphysical treatise, but the writer is undoubtedly not one of the least able defenders of the claims of woman to a higher social and intellectual position than she is allowed to attain by the present laws and usages of society.-Westminster Review.

5.-An inquiry into the Use of Church Authority, Tradition, and Private Judgment in the Investigation of Revealed Truth, etc. By Rev. John Moore Capes, B. A. London, 1842.

This work is directed against some of the most pernicious errors of the Oxford School of high-church divinity. It appears to be the production of a mind possessed of unfeigned piety, considerable acuteness, sound learning, and calm judgment. The author has delivered an earnest and fearless, yet singularly modest and impartial, testimony in be half of the principal truths, which the Oxford writers have impugned, and especially against that enormous error which would invest "tradition" with an authority co-ordinate with that of the "Scriptures." The sixth chapter, "Of the possibility of ascertaining the supposed Apostolical tradition through the medium of the church catholic; and of the rule of Vincentius Lirinensis:"-the seventh, "On the authority of the early Christian writers:"-and the eleventh, on the "Abuse of Private Judgment," are amongst the most interesting in the volume. The work we hold to be the more valuable, that it comes from Oxford.-Eclectic Review.

6.-Annali di Fiscia, Chimica, et Mathematiche. Dal Professore Majocchi. Milano, 1841.

We can do little more than announce this work, which we expected would long since have reached us. It contains, among others, the following Dissertations: "On the Electric Telegraph of Professor Wheatstone, by Quatelet; "On a spark produced by simple tension from a Volcanic Battery, by Crosse;" "On the Determination of the mean Density of the Earth, by Professor Giulio;" "An Exposition of a new Nomenclature, expressing Atomic Affinities, by Luigi Luciano Buonaparte di Canino;" "Some Observations on a Soap for making Cloth and Stuff water-proof, without removing the circulation of air;" "On the best mode of constructing Magnets." It is evident from the above, that the Italians are not quite slumbering through existence.-Foreign Quarterly Review.

7.-Arcana Entomologica, or Illustrations of new, rare, and interesting Exotic Insects. By J. O. Westwood, F. L. S., etc. Nos. 2, 3, 4. London, 1841.

Since our former notice of this work, three more numbers have made their appearance, and fully keep up the interest of the first number in the beauty and singularity of the insects represented. Amongst them we may particularize two splendid moths from Assam, contained in the collection of R. H. Solly, Esq., of large size, which have all the appearance of species of the true genus Papilio; some curious Tenthredenidæ from New Holland and tropical Africa; a gigantic walking-stick insect; and a figure with details of that most anomalous animal the Hypocephalus

armatus, accompanied by a series of observations, from the pen of Dr. Burmeister, on its affinities.-Annals of Natural History.

8.-The Mortality, Sufferings, and Diseases of Grinders. Part I., Fork Grinders. By G. Calvert Holland, M. D., Physician to the Sheffield Dispensary. London, 1841.

Dr. Holland has here drawn a sad picture of human misery, and has described the sufferings of a large class of human beings, which, we fear, are very little known. The details furnished by the author, exhibit a case of distress which can have but few parallels. There is no occupation in the kingdom so destructive to life as that of fork-grinding; it not only materially shortens, but also embitters existence with a distressing and incurable disease.

"Fork-grinding," says Dr. Holland, "is always performed on a dry stone, and in this consists the peculiarly destructive character of the branch. In the room in which it is carried on there are generally from eight to ten individuals at work, and the dust which is created, composed of the fine particles of the stone and the metal, rises in clouds, and pervades the atmosphere breathed by the artisan." This dust produces permanent disease of the lungs, cough, and a wasting of the animal frame, often at the early age of twenty-four. In a thousand persons above twenty years old, the proportion of deaths between twenty and twenty-nine years, in England and Wales, is annually 160: in Sheffield, 184; but among the fork-grinders the proportion amounts to the ap palling number of 475!-Church of England Review.

9.-On the remote Causes of Epidemic Diseases. By John Parkin. London, 1841.

Mr. Parkin, with much skill and ingenuity, by following the inductive method of reasoning, has connected the remote causes of epidemics, and especially the cholera morbus, with volcanic action manifested on the crust of the globe, the effects of which action, he shows, are regulated by laws similar to those which govern the duration and progress of various malignant diseases. That pestilence has prevailed in times and places remarkable for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, has been before noticed; and, although it is not pretended that earthquakes and volcanoes are the immediate cause of epidemic diseases, he argues that the different phenomena are common effects of a common cause; that the atmospherical vicissitudes, produced by volcanic action, may in turn produce those diseases which prevail along the same lines, or portions of the globe; so that "the cause of the production of epidemic diseases is the same as that which gives rise to the eruption of the volcano and the shock of the earthquake." Adopting the theory of Sir H. Davy, as to the cause of volcanic action, he supposes that it may consist in a process of oxygenation; at all events, he concludes that one result of the existence of volcanic action is the evolution of various gases from the interior of the earth, to the direct agency of which may be referred the origin of epidemic diseases.

If this ingenious theory can be established by facts and observations,