workings of iron and coal mines may be lighted with gas with
perfect safety, protecting the flame with wire gauze and a circular shield
of talc.

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON A FRENCH SCOLD.

Ci git ma femme; ah! qu'il est bien
Pour son repos et pour le mien.

* * * * *

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.

* * * * *

PENELOPE, OR LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

This is one of the most deservedly attractive novels of the past season;
and the good sense with which it abounds, ought to insure it extensive
circulation. It has none of the affectation or presumptuousness of
"fashionable" literature; but is at once a rational picture of that order
of society to which its characters belong, and a just satire on the
_superior_ vices of the wealthy and the great. The author is evidently no
servile respecter of either of the latter classes, for which reason, his
work is the more estimable, and is a picture of _real_ life, whereas
fashion at best lends but a disguise, or artificial colouring to the
actions of men, and thus renders them the less important to the world, and
less to be depended on as scenes and portraitures of human character. The
former will, however, stand as lasting records of the men and manners of
the age in which they were drawn, whilst the latter, being in their own
day but caricatures of life, will, in course of time, fade and lose their
interest, and at length become levelled with the mere ephemera, or
day-flies of literature. It is true that novel-writing has, within the last
sixteen, or eighteen years, attained a much higher rank than it hitherto
enjoyed; but it should be remembered that this superiority has not been
grounded in mawkish records of the fashionable follies of high life, such
as my Lord Duke, or my Lady Bab, might indite below stairs, for the
amusement of those in the drawing-room; on the contrary, it was founded in
portraits and pictures of human nature, strengthened by historical, or
matter-of-fact interest, and stripped of the trickery of fancy and romance;
whereas, the chronicles of fashion are little better than the vagaries of
an eccentric few, who bear the same proportion to the general mass of
society, that the princes, heroes, and statesmen of history do to the
whole world. This is a fallacy of which thousands of Bath and Cheltenham
novel-readers are not yet aware, and whi