has been assisted in his undertaking by Mr. H. C. Watson, Mr. W. Wilson, Mr. W. A. Leighton, Dr. Murray, Mr. W. Pamlin, Mr. Beevis, Mr. Castles, and the Rev. W. T. Bree, and we must consider the book a most valuable and acceptable addition to this department of our native plants. With this volume we have also received an excellent tabular Catalogue of British Flowering Plants and Ferns, by the same author. We are by no means surprised to find that it has reached its third edition. A Synopsis of the Birds of Australia and the adjacent Islands. By John Gould, F.L.S., &c. Part I., coloured or plain. January, 1837. London: Published by the Author, 20, Broad-street, Golden-square. NUMEROUS and important as have been the ornithological works of Mr. Gould, we are glad to find him persevering in his course of usefulness; and perhaps the present publication, of which the part on our table is the commencement, will yield in value and excellence to none of his other undertakings. The scientific ornithologist must be especially obliged to him for illustrating the birds of a country in which, comparatively, so little has hitherto been done in the same line. Lewin's Birds of New Holland is valuable as far as it goes, but is extremely deficient as regards the number of species it describes, and, with the exception of a memoir by Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield, in the fifteenth volume of the Linnean Transactions, that is the only work on the subject with which we are acquainted. The field Mr. Gould has now chosen for his labours is one of great interest and importance in an ornithological point of view, and abounds in forms remarkable for their beauty and interest. In the present Synopsis we have a concise and masterly description of each species, with synonyms, &c.; and a drawing of the head is, in every case, given, with occasionally the wings and other parts supplied in outline. These plates-which may be had either coloured or plain, according to the taste or resources of the student-are satisfactory in every respect, and are, unquestionably, the best of the kind we have seen. We think it would not have been amiss to have supplied the English names of the birds described. To those who have not enjoyed the "benefits of a sound classical education"—and the number of these is yearly increasing-such names as Ocypterus albovittatus, Neomorpha crassirostris, &c., however familiar to the ears of the initiated, must appear strangely uncouth to those "honest folk" who Vare debarred the advantages of college instruction. We cannot I agree with the naturalists who wish to exclude Latin names alto25 gether any more than we are disposed to "chime in" with those who declare the English designations to be useless. On the contrary, we are inclined to compromise the matter, and unite the two languages so as to suit all tastes, and of course this plan cannot fail to facilitate the study. Indeed, the method we advocate is so ge nerally agreed on that we are only surprised to find our author departing from it. The Synopsis of the Birds of Australia is to extend to six or eight quarterly parts, and the work will, we doubt not, be supported in the manner its merits so richly deserve. The Naturalist's Library. Conducted by Sir W. Jardine, Bart. Ornithology, Vol. VII.-Birds of Western Africa. By W. Swainson, Esq., A.C.G., &c. Edinburgh Lizars-London : Highley. 1837. THIS, too, considering the limits which must necessarily be attended to in this series, and the popular complexion of the undertaking, is a work of no small value. The Ornithology of Western Africa has scarcely received a greater share of attention than that of Australia, though equally deserving the investigation of the naturalist. We are glad to find Mr. Swainson intends to give us another volume on the same subject, and feel confident that it will be executed in the same careful and philosophic manner so conspicuous in all the writings of that gentleman. Above thirty species are figured-not a few of which are new-the engravings being by Lizars, from drawings by the author. These illustrations are, at least, equal to those in any of the preceding volumes. Mr. Swainson's introduction is so interesting and beautiful that had we not elsewhere (The Naturalist, vol. ii., p. 109) freely extracted from it, we should have presented our readers with various extracts from it; but we prefer our readers to peruse the whole volume. This book opens with a plate and remarkably interesting memoir of Bruce, the African traveller, by Andrew Crichton, Esq., author of the History of Arabia. FINE ARTS. MUSIC. John Sebastian Bach's Grand Studies for the Organ. Cramer & Co. THE instrumental works of this greatest of all composers are now at length beginning to attract some portion of that attention and admiration which they so well deserve; but his vocal masterpieces are, by some unaccountable fatality, entirely unknown to the public at large, and even to a great majority of the professors of this country. At some future time we will, as far as in us lies, endeayour to dispel some portion of the cloud of ignorance and prejudice VOL. VI.NO. XX. UU which have so long obscured the name of this truly great man. At present we must content ourselves with quoting a passage from his life by Forkel, a work which cannot be too highly praised, as well for its dignified estimate of the art, as for its constant inculcation of whatever is greatest and noblest in that art :— “ When an artist has produced a great number of works, which are all of the most varied kind, which are distinguished from those of all other composers of every age, and have in common an abundance of the most original ideas, and a most lively spirit which charms every one, whether connoisseur or not, there can hardly be room to ask whether such an artist was a great genius or not. The most fertile fancy; the most inexhaustible invention; the most acute and accurate judgment in the just application to every object of the rich flow of thoughts issuing from the imagination; the most refined taste, which cannot endure a single arbitrary note, or which does not duly accord with the spirit of the whole; the greatest ingenuity in the suitable use of the most delicate and unusual resources of the art; and, lastly, the highest degree of talent in the execution-qualities in which not one, but all the powers of the soul, in the most intimate union, must act—these must be the characteristics of real genius, or there are none such: and he who cannot find these characteristics in the works of Bach, is either not acquainted with them (the works) at all, or else not sufficiently so. He who does not know them, cannot possibly have an opinion of them, or of the genius of their author; and he who does not know them sufficiently, must consider that works of art, in proportion as they are great and perfect, require to be the more diligently studied to discover their real value in its full extent. That butterfly spirit which flutters incessantly from flower to flower, without resting upon any, can do nothing here." Grand Duet, in three movements, for the Piano-forte or Organ. Ry THIS duet is neither entirely fitted for the organ, nor for the piano-forte. The parts are often too straggling and detached to produce a good effect on the former, while the general character of the piece is too heavy and spiritless to be suitable to the latter instrument. The last movement, a fugue on two subjects, is decidedly the best of the whole, and would make a good organ piece played by itself, or with a short introduction; but nothing that we can see in it at all justifies the title of the "English Sebastian Bach," which one of his admirers has bestowed on its author. Mr. Wesley is a very respectable composer, but certainly no Sebastian Bach. Favourite Airs. In two books; selected from Cimarosa's opera " II Matrimonio Segreto." Arranged for two Performers on the Piano-forte. By W. Watts. R. Mills, 140, New Bond-street. WHEN an arrangement from a great work is in contemplation, what is the object which the arranger should propose to himself? Certainly, if he has any respect for his author, to give the clearest and most adequate idea of the work from which he is arranging, in a manner consistent with the character and capabilities of the instrument to which he is adapting it. That Mr. Watts, however, is not of our mind is but too evident from the duets before us, for stranger and more lamentable vagaries, and a more pitiable murdering of a fine work, it never fell to our lot to witness. To speak of the arrangement alone, compare the small portion of the first finale, which is here vouchsafed to us, with the admirable and elaborate arrangement of the same finale by Dr. Crotch. The slovenliness and want of effect in the former will be seen in striking contrast with the care and faithful rendering of the original which distinguish the latter. But what are we to say when we find the second finale (a piece of music, as well from its scientific arrangement as from its dramatic treatment, every way worthy of the chef d'œuvre it concludes) transformed, in the merciless hands of the arranger, into a pol-pourri of favourite airs! As if there were no composer better fitted for his purpose-no inventor of favourite airs ready made to his hand, without troubling him either to transpose or curtail-no composer who writes with especial eye to the edification of the young ladies, or none who never introduce into their compositions anything heavier than a waltz, or at most a favourite air! As long as there are such we would beg Mr. Watts to keep off his unhallowed hands from Cimarosa, and from all who have written for posterity. Six Grand Waltzes. By Miss Mounsey. Clementi, Collard, & Collard, 26, Cheapside. The Erl King. The poetry by Goethe, with an English translation by W. Bartholomew, Esq. The music by Miss Mounsey.J. A. Novello, 69, Dean-street, Soho. IN these waltzes Miss Mounsey has escaped the Strauss mania, which is beginning to make such great ravages, and has apparently taken Beethoven for her model, without, however, being in the slightest degree amenable to the charge of imitating, still less of copying, his phrases or ideas. They are beautiful, and sufficiently ornamented without being flippant, the usual besetting sin of compositions of this class; and being such they deserve the popularity they have by this time, doubtless, obtained. The Erl King is a composition of a very superior order. The poetry presents considerable difficulties, not with regard to the language, but to the feelings and emotions to be depicted. Over these difficulties the fair composer has triumphed most completely. The introduction is admirable, and most successfully pourtrays the dark and stormy night in which the father is hiding with his "lovely boy." The fears of the child, the blandishments of the "Erl King," the horror of the father on discovering the terrible reality, are all depicted with a power, a truth, and, at the same time, a poetic feeling, which must be in the highest degree delightful to those who wish to see, in the cultivators of art, that earnest striving after ideal excellence, without which art degenerates into a mere idle and sensual gratification. EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. ZOOLOGY. ON A NEW GROUP OF INSECTS OF THE FAMILY Mantide.-M. Duméril has communicated some observations on a new group of insects of the family of Mantida. The forms of the species belonging to this family are most singular; some resembling walking sticks, others appearing like green leaves fastened together, and walking thus united. Their head, abdomen, legs, &c., present the greatest varieties of shape, from which they have received names expressive of their reinarkable contour, as Spectres, Phasmes, Phyllis, Mantes or Diables, Pregadious. It is a new group of this family, named, by M. Duméril, Anomides, (Anomide), that M. Lefebvre has described. He has collected several species in Egypt. In a monagraph on the subject, he gives an account of the organization of the two new genera, which he names, the one, Eremiophilus, because he has only met with it in deserts; the other, Heteronutarsis, on account of the tarsi, and especially the nails, being different in the posterior and anterior legs. Another paper, by the same author, will describe the larva and perfect insect of a new species of Clerus, which he has found in a medullary substance with which the bottom of an insect-tin was covered, and which proceeded from the root of Æschynomene paludosa. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGGS OF Planorbis.-M. Jacquemin has communicated to the Académie des Sciences of Paris new details relative to the development of the eggs of Planorbis. He indicates, each day, the progress of this development, observes on the tenth day the first trace of the formation of the testicle, on the eleventh the pulsations of the heart, and on the thirteenth the action of deglutition. On the fourteenth day the hatching takes place; but pulmonary respiration only commences six or eight days afterwards.-Echo du Monde Savant BOTANY. ON TWO NEW SPECIES OF Spitzelia. We have already more than once had occasion to speak of the works of M. Schultz, Sur les Chicoracées, (Cichoracea). In the first article we described the genus Spitzelia, Delile; and in the second we spoke of another species of the same genus, Crepis radicata, Sieber. Through the kindness of M. Ad. de Jussieu, the author has been enabled to add to this genus two other plants, Picris lyrata, Delile, and Leontodon coronopifolium, Desf. M. Schultz arranges the species of his new genus in two groups, and distinguishes them as follows: I. Scariositas acheniorum radii basin fere usque in pilos divisa. 1. S. ægyptiaca.-Acheniis disci breve rostratis. 2. S. Sieberi.-Acheniis disci truncatis. II. Scariositas acheniorum radii cupuliformis, ad medium tantum in pilos divisa. 3. S. lyrata. Caule foliato subramoso (Picris lyrata, Del.) |