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CHILD’S ARITHMETICAL TABLES.

The Seventh Edition, besides being well adapted for Schools, will be found useful in the business of life.  It includes the monies, weights, and measures, mentioned in Scripture, the length of miles in different countries, astronomical signs, and other matters computed with great care.

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THE GEORGIAN ERA.

This work is intended to comprise Memoirs of the most eminent characters who have flourished in Great Britain during the reigns of the four Georges:  the present volume being only a fourth of its extent, and containing the Royal Family, the Pretenders and their adherents, churchmen, dissenters, and statesmen.  The importance of the chosen period is prefatorily urged by the editor:  “In comparison with the Elizabethan or the Modern Augustan, (as the reign of Anne has been designated) that which may be appropriately termed the Georgian Era, possesses a paramount claim to notice; for not only has it been equally fertile in conspicuous characters, and more prolific of great events, but its influence is actually felt by the existing community of Great Britain.”

The several memoirs, so far as a cursory glance enables us to judge, are edited with great care.  Their uniformity of plan is very superior to hastily compiled biographies.  Each memoir contains the life and labours of its subject, in the smallest space consistent with perspicuity; the dryness of names, dates, and plain facts being admirably relieved by characteristic anecdotes of the party, and a brief but judicious summary of character by the editor.  In the latter consists the original value of the work.  The reader need not, however, take this summary “for granted:”  he is in possession of the main facts from which the editor has drawn his estimate, and he may, in like manner, “weigh and consider,” and draw his own inference.  The anecdotes, to borrow a phrase from Addison, are the “sweetmeats” of the book, but the caution with which they are admitted, adds to their worth.  The running reader may say that much of this portion is not entirely new to him:  granted; but it would be unwise to reject an anecdote for its popularity; as Addison thought of “Chevy Chase,” its commonness is its worth.  But, it should be added, that such anecdotes are not told in the circumlocutory style of gossip, nor nipt in the bud by undeveloped brevity.  We have Selden’s pennyworth of spirit without the glass of water:  the quintessence of condensation, which, we are told, is the result of time and experience, which rejects what is no longer essential.  Here circumspection was necessary, and it has been well exercised.  The anecdotes are not merely amusing but useful, since only when placed in juxtaposition with a man’s whole life, can such records be of service in appreciating his character.