play with the correct and intelligent performance in course of presentation before them? It is not in the
nature of such exertions as Mr. Macready's to fail, and such a theatre as that of Sadler's Wells is but one
of the many fruits they are sure to bear. Generations of unborn playgoers will yet profit by them; and, as
time moves on, and statesmen are compelled to inquire practically into educational agencies now lightly
laughed at as Utopian, it may even come to be discovered that a well conducted theatre, set apart for the
presentation of the masterpieces of English dramatic genius, might prove a help to popular instruction of
the most important kind.

Doctor Johnson had two modes of treating booksellers. On a particular occasion he knocked one down
with one of his own folios. On another, he proclaimed them, without stint, generous, liberal minded men,
and the true patrons of literature. But his ordinary and settled opinion may be said to have lain between
these two extremes, and to be best expressed by what he said to his friend Dr. Wetherell: "I suppose, with all
our scholastic ignorance of mankind, we are still too knowing to expect that the booksellers will erect themselves
into patrons, and buy and sell under the influence of a distinguished zeal for the promotion of learning."
We are reminded of these judgments of bibliopolist humanity by a most surprising banquet given the other
day to M. Lamartine, by what our English papers call "the editors," but more properly should have called
the publishers, of his works. On this occasion M. Lamartine returned thanks to his worthy paymasters in a
style of the most rapturous enthusiasm. He protested that it was not only the glory of their name that
poets and historians owed to the profession of booksellers, but that they owed them also, in modern times,
that independence of sentiment, that dignity of character, and that attitude of pride before power, which so
well became those devoted to literary pursuits—of which attitude M. Lamartine showed certainly a very odd
forgetfulness in these exaggerated epithets. He asserted that the greatest poets, the most splendid geniuses,
the most immortal writers of ancient and remote times, had never attained to "independence of
sentiment;" for that Corneille, Racine, Boileau, Lafontaine, had been compelled altogether to sacrifice their
dignity for that which the mere necessities of existence enforced upon them—namely, submission to the
kings, the courts, the favourites, even the moneyed men of their day. M. Lamartine seems to have
forgotten, unfortunately, that things change less than names; and that there was a sort of submission to
the moneyed men of the day which at least the Racines and Lafontaines escaped. They never made
speeches about themselves at public dinners, of which the only design was to puff the wares they had
themselves just sold to the "moneyed" givers of the feasts. For, alas that we should say it! this magnificent
banquet to M. Lamartine turned out to be nothing else than simply a magnificent quack advertisement for
his forthcoming Histoire de la Restauration, just purchased by the booksellers who entertained him!

The publishers have been less active of late than is
customary at this season of year, and are probably
reserving their efforts for the great foreign invasion of
May.

Major Edwardes's narrative of a Year on the Punjab
Frontier might have passed, by its size, for a history
of India since the days of Clive. This points to the
defect of the book, in marking the showy and glaring
tastes which detract somewhat from the character of
its author. He talks too much of his own exploits;
though it is as little to be denied that he talks well as
that he acted efficiently and nobly. But one cannot
conceive a Clive, a Munro, or a Wellington, signalising
the outset of their career, or indeed illustrating any
part of it, by such a book as this.

The Life of the late excellent Bishop Stanley by his
son, the biographer of Arnold, is a timely publication.
It is a slight but sufficient delineation of a thoroughly
good, earnest, sensible, liberal Churchman; and never
at any part of her history did the English Church
need such records of her best and most faithful class of
ministers, for example and support. Another and
striking contribution to the biography of an illustrious
Englishman, and sound friend to Protestantism, is the
fourth series of Southey's Commonplace Book. It
contains a curious and ample collection of ideas and studies
for literary composition, from which a young writer
may derive lessons, in the art to which he aspires, of the
utmost value to him. It contains also anecdotes and
recollections, set down with the same view; and is
altogether the most remarkable public exhibition of what
may be called the private workshop of a great literary
man, that has ever been given to the world.

Lavengro will somewhat disappoint the great expectations
raised by its announcement as Mr. Borrow's
Autobiography . So much evident fiction is mixed up
with its fact, that it will be difficult to apportion the
precise interest or value due to either. Yet the genius
of the writer is unmistakeably impressed upon the book.
The other most recent publications, best worth mention,
are An Argument for the Royal Supremacy, much more
detailed, elaborate, and ably reasoned than any other we
have seen, by the Rev. Mr. Sanderson Robins; a capital
translation, by Sir George Head, of that extremely
curious romance of the Second Century, the Golden Ass,
full of all sorts of foreshadowings of the later romances
of the middle ages, and even of the strictly modern novel,
which Sir George publishes under the title of the
Metamorphoses of Apuleius; a neatly written book, called
the Saxon in Ireland, describing the sort of settler for
whose energy and enterprise that country would now
offer larger scope than even the best of our colonies
could supply; an illustrated book of a tour chiefly in
Cornwall, by the son of Mr. Collins the painter, called
Rambles beyond Railways; another volume of the
Princesses of England, by Mrs. Everett Green; a graceful
little treatise, under the title of Euphranor, on
sources of education which exist independent of mere
book studies or black-letter researches; a book of
interesting travel, by Commander Forbes, on Dahomey
and the Dahomans; and a small treatise on Popery
British and Foreign, by Mr. Walter Savage Landor,
eloquent as well as humorous, and full of thoughts
pertinent to the day.

Mrs. Cowden Clarke, whose Concordance of Shakspeare
shows such mastery of the letter of the poet's
works, now evinces her appreciation of their spirit in a
series of fictions entitled the Youth of Shakspeare's
Heroines; of which the antecedents of Portia, Helena,
and Lady Macbeth have already been issued. The whole
of Shakspeare's Plays are also to be reproduced in the
shilling volumes of the Parlour Library under the
editorship of Mr. William Hazlitt. We may add that
Mr. Henry Rumsey Forster has published a Pocket
Peerage and Baronetage, which suits the pockets of
the commonalty in more ways than one: being
portable and cheap,

Several new pieces have been produced at the theatres
with success:—at the Haymarket, a farce, by Mr.
Buckstone, called Good for Nothing; at the same house,
a drama, taken from the French, by Mr. Stirling Coyne,
called Presented at Court; at the Olympic, a melodrama,
also taken from the French, by Mr. Bourcicault, called
Sixtus the Fifth; and at Drury Lane, a spectacle
called The Prodigal, which is Scribe and Auber's new
Opera, L´ Enfant Prodigue, stripped of its music.

The only notable musical event has been the performance,
at Exeter Hall, of David, an Oratorio, the work of
a young musician, Mr. Charles Edward Horsley. Its
success has been complete.