We believe Mr. Elliot's leisure is not to be seriously interrupted by public employments, and trust, therefore, that he will proceed, with as much rapidity as possible, with his grand survey of the advance of Liberty, down even to our own day--which it is not unlikely will conclude a very important era of his subject.
Dr. Bowring, who is now, we believe, British Consul at Canton, was the editor of the last and only complete edition of Jeremy Bentham's works; he has been one of the most voluminous contributors to the Westminster Review, and he is eminent as a linguist, though if we may judge by some of his performances, not very justly so. He translated and edited specimens of the poetry of several northern nations, and it has often been charged as an illustration of his dishonesty, that he omitted a stanza of the sublime hymn of Derzhaven, a Russian, to the Deity, because it recognized the divinity of Christ, as it is held by Trinitarians--the Doctor being a Unitarian. He is sharply satirized, and treated frequently with extreme and probably quite undeserved contempt, in the Diaries and Correspondence of the late Hugh Swinton Legaré.
Mr. Henry Rogers, of Birmingham, has published in London two stout volumes of his contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_. They are not the best things that ever appeared under the old "buff and blue," though they are neat and very readable. Hitherto Professor Rogers has not been known in literature, except by an edition of the works of Burke. The reviewals or essays in this collection are divided into biographical, critical, theological, and political. The first volume consists principally of a series of sketches of great minds,--in the style, half-biographical, half-critical, of which so many admirable specimens have adorned the literature of this age. Indeed, such _demonstrations_ in mental anatomy have been a favorite study in all ages. Among Mr. Rogers's subjects, are Pascal, Luther, Leibnitz, and Plato, and he promises sketches of Descartes, Malabranche, Hobbes, Berkeley, and Locke. The first article, on Thomas Fuller, may look rather dry at first; but the interest increases, we admire the quaintness of old Fuller, and not less the fine, accurate, and complete picture given of his life, character, and works. In this, as in the other biographical articles, Mr. Rogers tells his story fluently. If he has not the wit of Sydney Smith, nor the brilliance of Macaulay, he has not the prosiness of Alison, nor the bitterness of Gifford. He is witty with Fuller, sarcastic with Marvell, energetic with Luther, philosophical and precise with Leibnitz, quietly satirical with Pascal, and reflective and intellectual with Plato. "Dead as a last year's reviewal" is no longer among the proverbs. Books are too numerous to be read, and people make libraries of the quarterlies,--thanks to the facilities afforded by Mr. Leonard Scott! And reviews, properly written,--evincing some knowledge of the books which furnish their titles, are very delightful and useful reading, frequently more so than the productions which suggest them, of which they ought always to give an intelligible description. And this condition is fulfilled almost always by the reviews published in London and Edinburgh. Our _North American_ sometimes gives us tolerably faithful abstracts, and its readers would be glad if its writers would confine themselves to such labors. But we read an article in it not long ago, under the title of Mr. Carey's "Past and Present," which contained no further allusion to this book, nor the slightest evidence that the "reviewer" had ever seen it. On the other hand, the last number contains a paper on the Homeric question, purporting to have been occasioned by Mr. Grote's History of Greece, but deriving its learning, we understand, altogether from Mr. Mure's History of Greek Literature, a work so extensive that it is not likely to be reprinted, or largely imported.