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LITERARY NOTICES. I The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Long its, and Achillcs TaUm. Comprising the Ethiopics; or, Adventures of Theagenes and Gharkko; the Pastoral Amours of Daphius and Chloe; and the Love, of Clithopo and leucippe. Translated from the Greek, with Notes, by the Rev. Rowland Smith.—Henry G. Bohn, York-street, Covent Garden, London. Thpse Greek Romances require no explanation from us, as they are known to the general reader, who will be glad to have a translation of them so perfect as that now issued by Jlr, Bohn, who has spared no expense or trouble to obtain for this, as well as the other volumes of his Clas- sical Library, a really good translation from the original. We have critically examined this version, and admire it for its accuracy and fulness. It is well done into English, and will be highly valued by those who are not proficients in Greek. The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, Vol. V. -Henry George Buhn, York-street, Covent Garden, London. This volume contains the conclusion of the charge against Warren Hastings, and several political letters, in- cluding that addressed to a Member of the present Parlia- ment on the Proposals of Peace with the Regicide Direc- tory of France. The splendid edition, of which this i3 the fifth volume, proceeds most satisfactorily, being prepared with evident care and attention. No library should be without it. The Museum of Science and Art. Edited by Dionysius Lardner, B.C.L. Vol. VIII.-Walton and Maberly, Upper Gower-strect, and Ivy-lane, Paternoster Row, London. Attempts have at various times been made to diffuse the teachings of science and art widely among the people of this country, but never in a more easy, simple, and pleas- ing manner than by Dr. Lardner in these volumes. There is only one opinion of these works, and it is everywhere expressed in their favour. Science is stripped of technica- lities and the difficulties which ordinarily beset the path of inquiry are either removed or made easy of conquest. The illustrations are very numerous and finely executed. This volume contains-The Stellar Universe, Man, Magnifying Glasses, Instinct and Intelligence, the Solar Micoroscope, the Camera Lucida, the Magic Lantern, and the Camera Obscura. Brambletye House. By Horace Smith, The Queen's Necklace. By Alexander Dumas. (Parlour Library.) Thomas Hodgson, 13, Paternoster Row, London. These volumes are the latest additions to the Parlour Library, and they certainly rank among the best of the very many good works which have been issued in this form by Mr. Hodgson. Brambletye House" has long been fa- vourably known to the public, and the present neat edition will find a place in most libraries. The Queen's Necklace" is a work recently written by M. Dumas, whose name is a guarantee of its excellence. It is intended as a sequel to the Memoirs of a Physi- cian," but is in every respact complete in itself. Those who have read "Monte Christo" will entertain high ex- ectations of this. work, but not greater than a perusal will warrant. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine commences with an oppor- tune article on The Monopoly of Money," and is fol- lowed by the conclusion of Mary Sutherland," a tale which has found many admirers. The Reading Raids" are concluded in this number by "A gossip over the win- ter fire,a gossip, pleasant, pointed, and pungent. Dur- ing the progress of these papers we have frequently di- rected particular attention to them, from a conviction, in nowise shaken by reminiscence, that they possessed more than the ordinary merit of magazine articles, and our rea. ders will be glad to learn that the writer will continue his services, and meet them again in a new series of papers on the First of January." "Grievances of the Public Service" is a sensible paper, directed against the Super- annuation Act of 1834, which an effort is now being made to repeal. Many have long thought the tax of 5 per cent, levied on salaries over £100, and two and a half on those below that sum, notwithstanding its object—" to reduce prospectively the charge for superannuation" -is, to give it the most qualified term, a great hardship upon a portion of Her Majesty's servants, who are not over paid for the labour "iacted from them. Probably these efforts will bring about the desired change. The critique on Pres cott's History of the Reign of Philip II. is discriminat- ing and worth perusal, especially to those who have not had access to the original work. There are several cha- racteristic extracts given. We quote largely from Kin- bnrn and the Cossack." Those Cossacks were a singular people and in their manners and customs, ere they became one with the great Russian empire, offered characteristics of a very peculiar nature. Mixed up of all nations who successively invaded Eastern Europe-Goths, Russians, Bosniaks, and Tartars, fugitive serfs and outlawed noblemen of the neighbouring Palatinates, and even German, French, and Spanish ad- venturers-they formed a sort of independent republic of armed agriculturists, under the Polish lords who possessed the land and the Polish crown which held the fortresses. Although under arms, they at one and the same time ha- rassed the Russians in the north, and the Tartars in the south. As a place of safety against the probable of Khan, Czar, or Sultan, they selected a district contiguous to the falls of the Dnieper. Here that river forms a magnificent series oj cataracts, which continue for forty miles, but are not dangerous; except after heavy rains. The waters launched over these tucceissive descents spread out over the adjacent plain into a sort of. inland sea, covered with innumerable islands, which afford at once the richest pas- tures, the fairest gardens, and the strongest citadels of na- ture. It was here the Cossacks formed their camp, and lay concealed beneath the shadow of countless rocks, called Parohi, or the Ladder-steps, on which the Dnieper was ever rolling its weight of waters. From this natural for- tress they were ready at any time to pour hordes of de- stroying warriors into the heart of Russia or Poland, Bes- sarabia or the Crimea. From Poland they had now seceded, after a successful war of rebellion against their masters. But not alone on land were the Cossacks terrible; the sea was equally their battle-field. Descending the Dnieper in boats,.apparently too fragile to buffet with the waves, they smote fear and terror into the hearts of all dwellers on the borders of the Black Sea. The slumbers of the Lord of Stamboul were broken even in the vicinity of his own capital. The suburbs of Constantinople were p)uudered— the sacred Serai of the omnipotent Padishah," as Koch calls it, was menaced. TrebUond and Sinope were more than once given up to massacre and pillage. The Suitins, Lords of Morning and of Evening Land, whose frown turned the cheek of Western Europe pale, were impotent before a band of robber Cossacks. The whole of Christendom trembles at my nod," ex- claimed Sultan Murad, when he heard of an unusually daring incursion of his enemies, and yet a band of Cos- sacks causes me sleepless nights." In the beginning of the seventeenth century the Crimea and the northern coast of the Black Sea, including the mouth of the Dnieper, fully recognised the suzerainty of the Porte. Bur, in spite of this, the Cossacks persisted in their depredations, andit was vain to chase their boats of Hght draught with vessels of war, since the former were soon rescued from pursuit in the channels of the smaller rivers, or the swampy canks of the larger ones. The Turks now set to work in earnest. But to under- stand what they did, we must first cast our eyes over the map of Southern Russia. We shall there see that the river Bug flows into the Dnieper, and the Dnieper into an estuary, properly called the Liman. This name of Liman is applied to all the swampy estuaries, from the Danube to the Dnieper. It is of Turkish origin, and means a port. However this may be, it is now principally used to desig- nate the species of 13guniY into which the Dnieper falls ere it merges into the sea. This lagune is some thirty to forty miles long, and five or six broad, and is of a some- what oval shape. It terminates towards the sea in a nar- row channel formed by two projecting promontories-a channel of rather less than a mile in width, and very shal- low; for at the promontories it is nowhere more than four fathoms deep, and higher up it shoals off to three. On these promontories the Turks determined to build two for- tresses— one on the east side, called Kinburn or Kil- bourn the other on the west side, called Oczakoff or Ochakoff. The latter was near the site of a Genoese fort whose ruins still gleam over the waters. This fort stood on a low point projecting from the cliff, of moderate height, on whose summit Oczakoff was built. On the left bank, how- ever, on the tongue of sand formed by the alluvial deposits of the Dnieper, the principal citadel, that of Kinburn, was erected. In both directions, both up and down the estuary, it has now a complete superiority of command. Besides these strongholds, the Turks threw a large iron chain over the Dnieper some distance higher up, and sta- tioned bodies of troops on either bank to watch and guard the passage with cannon, whose cross volleys, it was thought, would thenceforth be sufficient to stop the Cos- sack boats in their descent to the Black Sea. Not so, however for in the depth of night, when the wuiUg were high and the heaVens were clouded, the watch- men were often deceived. They noticed, as they thought the approach of the enemy toward the great chain, and pointed their cannon toward the impeiilled spot. Hoarse and angry boomed the thunder of those terrible instru- ments of war. But it was not the Tchaika, or Cossack Oats, that had shaken the chain, it was large trunks of trees, which the bold adventurers had allowed to drift in front of them, and receive the whole broadside. In their rear, the Cossacks approached gently and cautiously, and so succeeded in crossing the dangerous passage. By day, they concealed themselves in the ozier beds on the marshy banks, or covered their boats with reeds, that they might escape the notice of their enemies. The return was still more difficult, and, through the watchfulness of the Turkish videttes, the passage of the Dnieper was rendered fearfully dangerous. In order to avoid it the Cossacks generally went through the Straits of Kertch into the Sea of Azov, and thence up the Don to the confluence of the Donctz. It depended on the state of the water how far they proceeded up this tributary stream. As soon as the navigation was found impossible, the Cos- sacks carried their light boats, which only consisted of a hollow willow or poplar tree, on their shoulders to the Samara, and thus reached their homes, perhaps after three, four, or six months delay. Soon, however, the restraint which the Turks thus vainly endeavoured to put upon the Cossacks was incurred by themselves, in their voluntary recognition of the Czar as their suzerain, in the year 1654. They for some time, indeed, still continued their free and easy method of deal- ing with their neighbours' property; but by and by Peter the Great ascended the throne, and brought them to a stricter submission. Fort St. Elizabeth was built on the Dnieper to hold them somewhat in check. They gradually became merged in the uniformity of the Russian Empire, till, ultimately, in 1804, their privileges as an independent race were all but taken away. When the Cossacks disappeared in the vortex of Mus- covite dominion, the Turks found they had only exchanged a band of republican freebooters for an empire of system- atic aggressors. The estuary of the Dnieper again became the scene of conflicts. In 1747 Munich led his serried hosts against Oczakoff-then a fortress whose walls were twenty-five feet high. The Turks fought like madmen, and 18,000 Russian corpses bore record to their prowess in defence. But the Spread Eagle waved over the dismantled walls, and that was all Munich cared for. Soon, however, the Turks approached with an army of 70,000 strong, and the Russians were in turn assaulted. They fought then as they fight now at Sebastopol, and drove the Osmanlies away with the loss of 20,000 men-at least, according to their own accounts. When the peace of Belgrade was signed, in 1739, Oczakoff was again ceded to Turkey but with all its more important works destroyed. The Turks, however, fortified it anew in 1743, and held it until 1788, when, after a siege of six months, Potemkin decided on a general assault. Suwaroff was his lieutenant on the occa- sion. In the night of the 17th of December, he took the works by storm, though they had only been slightly breached. Yet the attempt would have failed, had it not been for the explosion of a powder magazine in the enemy's stronghold. Suwaroff was wounded; the slaughter was terrible; the city was plundered for three days more than 30,000 human beings perished on both sides ;—but such is glory, and Potemkin, as a reward for his achievement, received the great riband of St. George, a present of 100 roubles, the title of Hetman of the Cossacks, and a baton set with diamonds and encircled with branches of laurel. In 1791, Oczakoff was definitely ceded to Russia. Its lister fortress, Kinburn, had been earlier attacked and easier won. Demolished by the Russians in 1736, it had been again restored to Turkey, and rebuilt. When Catha- rine gained the Crimea in 1774, she also gained the left bank of the Dnieper as far as the sea. Oczakoff on the one side, and Kinburn on the other, thus became the out- posts of Ottoman and Muscovite dominion. In 1787, the Turks endeavoured to regain their lost stronghold. They besieged it both by sea and land; but Suwaroff, after considerable loss, succeeded in repulsing them. We have no sympathy with those who attempt to interpret what is denominated prophecy. Who has any right to enter within the sacred domain of the ancient seer ? Surely this age is not favoured with another Daniel to tell the dream and the interpretation thereof." The world has had enough of those who from the Book of the Revelation of St. John in Patmos pretend to tear away the veil from the future-to trace a seeming resemblance be- tween the mystical writings of prophets and the events of the times in which they live. Out upon such impotent assumptions We have only glanced through the paper Who are the Kings of the East ?" which aims at an in- terpretation of the text "And the Sixth Angel poured out his phial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared" and must confess that it is no to our liking, with every allowance for a deep-rooted pre- judice. We are all more or less curious, but why should the propensity to pry into futurity lead to absurdities ? There are several other papers in this number, which is altogether a good one. During the year Tait has certainly improved, and bids fair to regain the reputation of old lang syne." The best things in Punch are made familiar to our rea- ders through these columns, and in noticing this monthly part we have only to add that its high character is fully sustained. The Family Friend for 1855. The hackneyed phrase multum in parvo is the fittest description of this little serial, which is literally filled to repletion with the useful and amusing. It merits at our bauds unqualified appro- val, and we readily accord it. The Editor tells us that the great aim has been to raise the standard of comfort, to inculcate a knowledge of useful things, and to combine with truthful facts those lighter features which recreate the mind and encourage home amusements, as well as occu- pations." This is no easy task, but it has been most suc- cessfully accomplished. We know of no cheap serial which we would place on our domestic table in preference to the Family Friend.

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RAILWAY TIME TABLE.1

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VALE OF NEATH RAILWAY,

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