NEW EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.

It is rather late in the day to speak of what is technically termed the “getting-up” of this elegant edition of the most popular works of our time.  There are now three volumes published—­Waverley, in two vols. and one vol. or half of Guy Mannering.  Each of the former contains upwards of 400 pages, and the latter nearly that number—­beautifully printed in what we call a very inviting type, on excellent paper, of rich colour, and not too garish for the eye of the reader.  The engravings to Waverley are by Graves, C. Rolls, and Raddon, after E.P. and J. Stephanoff, Newton, and Landseer—­a frontispiece and plate title page and vignette to each volume.  To our taste the vignettes are exquisite—­one by Landseer, David Gellatley, with Ban and Buscar, is extremely beautiful.  The illustrations to the volume of Guy Mannering are by Duncan, and C.G.  Cooke, after Leslie and Kidd.  The volumes are in substantial canvass binding.  Their low price, a crown a-piece, is the marvel of bookselling, for were they only reprints without copyright, they would be unprecedentedly cheap.  The whole series will extend to forty volumes, to be published in three years, and will cost ten pounds.  Fifteen-pence a week for the above term will thus provide a family with one of the most elegant drawing-room libraries that can be desired.  They will about occupy three cheffonier shelves;—­or what delightful volumes for fire-side shelves, or a “little book-room,” or a breakfast parlour opening on a carpet of lawn—­or to read by the hour, with a golden-haired lady-friend, and chat awhile, and then turn to the most attractive scenes in the novel, while we ourselves are perhaps enacting the hero in a romance of real life.  Few novels admit of a second reading; but the Waverley series will never lose their attraction—­and to remember when and where, and with whom you first read each of them, may perhaps revive many pleasantries.

Of the literary Notes and emendations of the present edition, we have already expressed our opinion by the selection of several of them for the pages of the MIRROR; and in the progress of the publication, we shall endeavour to award similar justice to each of the works.

In the Athenaeum, of August 5, the presumed profit on the whole edition is estimated at L100,000.!  The calculation of the sale of 12,000 of each work is a reasonable one, and splendid as, in that case, the reward will be, the reading-public will be the gainers.

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THE FAMILY LIBRARY.

HISTORY OF THE JEWS.