Now Ready, Second Edition, In 3 vols, post 8vo, TALES OF THE COLONIES. BY CHARLES ROWCROFT, A LATE COLONIAL MAGISTRATE. "An exceedingly lively and interesting narrative, which affords a more striking view of the habits of emigrant colonial life than all the regular treatises, statistical returns, and even exploratory tours, which we have read-though the former convey much useful information, and the latter are full of hair-breadth escapes and details of extraordinary enterprise and suffering. The present publication, however, combines the fidelity of truth with the spirit of a romance, and has altogether so much of De Foe in its character and composition, that whilst we run we learn, and, led along by the variety of the incidents, become real ideal settlers in Van Diemen's Land."-Literary Gazette. "This life-like and truthful picture makes the reader quite enamoured of the ease, freedom, and ultimate comfort and prosperity of emigrant life.The settler makes a long journey in search of good land, and falls in with a Man Friday in an old English humorist, a good agriculturist, by name Crab, and of a very crabbed temper, though possessed of an excellent disposition. This man, who had come out as an emigrant, railed every day of his life at the colony and all its ways; was for ever going to return to England, but died in Van Diemen's Land.--The journal kept from day to day shews their progress, and is truly an interesting record."-Tait's Magazine. "This is a book, as distinguished from one of the bundles of waste paper in three divisions, calling themselves 'novels.'-The opening scenes of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw' are not more graphic than one we shall presently exhibit-the delightful prosing of Sir Edward Seward's Diary,' not more agreeably minute than our Emigrant's details of disaster, and the gradual growth of his prosperity."—Athenæum. "Since the time of Robinson Crusoe, literature has produced nothing like these 'Tales of the Colonies.' Characterized by perfect simplicity and intense interest, a union so rare as to be often deemed incompatible, yet where found, most potently enhancing each other's power, the narrative carries on the reader with a resistlessness from which he could not, if he would, escape, and from which he would not if he could. Truthfulness and novelty-can there be things of more attractive power?-are stamped on the whole conduct of the work: the truthfulness conducts from page to page, the novelty breathes over the whole. We are here led into a new walk of literature. We might say that Goldsmith's delicate wit, and De Foe's realizing power of detail, uniting in this delightful narrative, bestow on each other a new charm. We could, indeed, almost regret that the vast information respecting these colonies should have been magazined into a work which may unwittingly be passed over as one of pure imaginativeness, and its very worth be lost in its very charm; as, under a somewhat graver title, and with a methodized arrangement, the same matter would have formed a perfect hand-book of Australia. Written, as this work undoubtedly is, by one of the colonial magistrates, possessing at once the most ample opportunities of observation, and the best powers for profiting by them, the intended settler could consult no more competent authority as a reference and guide. Here will he find the most capable and faithful of advice presented under the most attractive of forms."-Metropolitan Mag. a "These adventures of an emigrant are true to the life. To those who would prefer reading of adventures to encountering them, these volumes will prove deeply interesting. Samuel Crab seems to be one of the most whimsical and amusing fellows it has been our lot to cope withal, whether in fiction or in real life. He bears no sort of resemblance to Sam Weller. But he is to the Tales of the Colonies what Sam Weller was to the Pickwick Papers. He is every day, for two-and-twenty years, threatening to leave what he calls 'this wretched country,' and grumbles on in a style as quaint as it is original. We could go on quoting till we had transferred the contents of the three volumes to our columns, and we should delight to impart to our readers the varied emotions which the perusal of them awakened in our bosoms. But they must peruse the work. If the hero of these Tales of the Colonies be not a veritable William Thornley, telling his own story, then has the spirit of De Foe revisited the earth, and presented us with an excellent counterpart to Robinson Crusoe."-Atlas. "The tales are simply and feelingly written, and wear the strict impress of truth."-Sun. "This is a singular work. No mere romance, no mere fiction, however skilfully imagined or powerfully executed, can surpass it. The work to which it bears the nearest similitude is Robinson Crusoe, and it is scarcely, if at all, inferior to that extraordinary history. Samuel Crab, the Shropshire man, is an admirably sustained charac ter, equal to anything in Sam Slick or Boz. Truth is stamped upon every feature."— John Bull. "As a series of adventures-and it professes to be nothing more-it would be difficult to surpass this work. Mr. Thornley, or whoever is the author of the 'Tales of the Colonies,' possesses abilities which he ought not to allow to remain idle after this one effort. We need not recommend it to the Circulating Libraries. The freshness of its descriptions, the extraordinary value of the adventures it contains, and the humour which is here and there interspersed, will insure its reception in that quarter.”—Sunday Times. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON TALES OF THE COLONIES. "We have just received a publication entitled 'Tales of the Colonies, or the Adventures of an Emigrant,' that, in our opinion, surpasses anything of the kind we have met with for many a day.--Had De Foe or Dickens written or imagined them,-had Denon, the supposed or real Egyptian traveller, described them,-had Bruce (long erroneously deemed a fabulist) been the narrator, nothing more extraordinary, entertaining, or instructive, could have been penned. All is so skilfully told, that you appear to be with the writer, and to see what he sees, and to be astonished, perplexed, or alarmed, as he is astounded, puzzled, or terrified. The power obtained over you is extraordinary.”— Morning Advertiser. "It is an original work in manner of treatment as well as in respect of subject. As narratives, seldom has human writing been more truthful than these Tales, more fresh in regard to life and nature, more various yet faithful in respect of character, or more exciting in point of incident; the author having gone on in his strength and glee with perfect self-confiding, and with a perfect knowledge of what he wrote about. Let no one suppose that because the work passes under the name of Tales, that therefore nothing better than feigned things, merely to amuse the devourer of novels, enter into these volumes; for the fact is, that the reader can no more doubt of the truth of the narratives than were it a book of De Foe's that he had before him, nor rise from the perusal of a single passage, be the subject gay or sad-of beautiful civilization or of savage features-without being instructed and bettered. We do not hesitate to say, that for a settler in a new country, and especially if similarly circumstanced with Van Diemen's Land, a truer, a more informing, or a more inspiriting publication does not exist."-Monthly Review. "In place of a critical account of the work, we must offer a recommendation to the reader-it is that he will procure the volumes, and peruse them for himself. He will be largely rewarded, both in amusement and information. He will meet at the very outset with a settler worth knowing, if it were only for the advantage of meeting in his company a farming man from Shropshire, one Mr. Crab, who, cutting a figure that defies both pen and pencil, (having been stripped and dressed up again, not re-dressed, by the bushrangers,) pours out all his honest old soul in abuse of Van Diemen's Land, and everything Van Diemenish. We can offer but scant specimens of the prodigiously natural and pleasant humour of this personage."—Ainsworth's Magazine. "No design would appear less promising at the first view than to work out an amusing tale from the scanty incidents afforded by the monotonous life of a settler in Van Diemen's Land; yet the skill of the author of these highly entertaining volumes has wrought upon the matter-of-fact history of a corn-dealer and half-farmer, at Croydon, whom the losses of trade drive, with his remaining capital, to emigration, a tissue of adventures possessing a deep and continual interest, resulting, not merely from the incidents, but from the characters, which are drawn with the truth and precision of Sir Walter Scott. The settler himself, Mr. Thornley; the magistrate; but above all, Samuel Crab, whose peculiarities are developed in a vein of genuine humour, are individualized, with distinct characteristics and qualities.-The work unites the apparently incongruous merits of a hand-book of instruction for the emigrant, and an entertaining novel."-Asiatic Journal. "We are much in want of a class of writings, of which this may be called the initia tive, calculated to dispel the gloom that hangs over the thoughts of exile, even when voluntary, and throw a ray of light, and life, and hope, and courage into the recesses of a darkening heart. Guide-books, and natural histories, and statistical returns, weigh down the spirit deeper and deeper still, and neither inform nor encourage the females (the better portion of the emigrating family) to come o'er the sea,' with a fond and faithful companion, in search of a less expensive home, and happier auspices for their offspring.-Miss Edgeworth placed the Irish character in better relief, by her tales of their peculiar habits; Scott's novels gave an interest to 'the land of the mountain and flood,' which it had never enjoyed before; and subjects that appear gloomy and uninviting may often be much relieved by treatment of a light and cheerful character. The pleasant volumes now before us will yet win over many an adversary to the cause of emigration, by dispelling false apprehensions and unfounded prejudices; and, while insensibly working out this useful object, cannot fail to communicate a species of knowledge, and a habit of thinking, which new settlers should always endeavour to acquire." -Colonial Magazine. "This is an able and interesting book. The author has the first great requisite in fiction-a knowledge of the life he undertakes to describe; and his matter is solid and real. The early struggles of a settler and the social system in a penal colony are a fresh subject, and possess more attraction from their novelty than equal or greater powers might attain on an historical' or 'fashionable' theme.-The main substance of the book, and the more interesting parts of it, are the striking incidents of colonial life.”— Spectator. WITHOUT A PROFESSION. • BY CHARLES ROWCROFT, AUTHOR OF "TALES OF THE COLONIES OR THE ADVENTURES IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. |