Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/196

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194
Works preparing for Publication.
[May

latter, Kutusof's Cluster (a group), and Suwarrof's Cluster. All these islands are covered with wood, partly uninhabited, and dangerous for navigators. The discoverer has sent to Count Romanzof a great many maps and drawings. On the 12th July O. S. Kotzebue designed to sail from Kamschatka to Behring's Straits, according to his instructions. He hopes to return to Kamschatka in September 1817. On the whole voyage from Chili to that place, he had not a single person sick on board. He touched at Easter Island, but did not find the inhabitants so friendly as La Peyrouse describes them. He thinks that something must have happened since that time, which has made them distrustful of the Europeans: perhaps it may be the overturning of their surprisingly large statues, which Kotzebue looked for in vain, and found only the ruins of one of them near its base, which still remains. He saw no fruits from the seeds left by La Peyrouse, nor any sheep or hogs, which by this time must have multiplied exceedingly. A single fowl was brought him for sale. It seems we may hope much from this young seaman, who is not yet thirty years of age. He was obliged, for many reasons, to leave the learned Dane, Wormskrold, behind in Kamschatka.



WORKS PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION.

Dr Drake, the elegant author of the Literary Hours, has a new work in the press, entitled, Shakespeare and his Times; including the biography of the poet, criticisms on his genius and writings, a disquisition on the object of his sonnets, a new chronology of his plays, and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature, of his age.

Mr John Bell has in the press a new work, in royal octavo, entitled, The Consulting Surgeon.

Dr J. A. Paris is preparing a Descriptive Catalogue of the Geological Specimens deposited in the Museum of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall; interspersed with observations tending to shew the economical application of geology to the agricultural, mining, and commercial interests of the county of Cornwall.

Mr Parkinson, of Hoxton, intends to publish, in the course of May, an Essay on the Disease called the Shaking Palsy.

Sir William Adams has in the press an Inquiry into the Causes of the frequent failure of the Operations of extracting and depressing the Cataract, and the description of an improved series of operations.

Dr Coote is printing the History of Europe, from the Peace of Amiens in 1802 to the Peace of Paris in 1815.

A History of Whitby, with a Statistical Survey of the Vicinity to the distance of twenty-five miles, by the Rev. George Young; with the assistance of some papers left by the late Mr R. Winter, and some materials furnished by Mr John Bird; is in the press, and will be published early in July.

Shortly will be published, an Historical Display of the Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Character and Circumstances of Nations; including a comparison of the ancients and moderns, in regard to their intellectual and social state; by by Mr John Bigland.

A Poem will speedily be published, by the Right Hon. Sir Wm Drummond, under the title of Odin. This poem is connected with the most interesting era of the northern mythology, and refers principally to the origin of the Gothic empire, which the author, availing himself of the privilege of the poet, and offering besides some probable conjectures, supposes to have been founded by Pharnaces.

The third part of Neale's Illustrated History of Westminster Abbey will be published the 1st of July.

A new edition of Philidor on Chess is nearly ready, with considerable improvements, and an original portrait of the author.

The fifth edition is nearly ready for publication of "the Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, St Barnabas, St Ignatius, St Clement, St Polycarp, Shepherd of Hermas, and Martyrdoms of St Ignatius and St Polycarp;" translated and published, with a preliminary discourse, by William, late Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Rev. Henry Rutter has in the press a Key to the Old Testament, or a summary View of its several Books, pointing out the persons, events, and ordinances, that were figurative of Christ and his Church; with a more minute detail of the Psalms and the Prophetic Writings.

An Essay is printing, on Capacity and Genius; endeavouring to prove that there is no original mental superiority between the most illiterate and the most learned of mankind, and that no genius, whether individual or national, is innate, but solely produced by, and dependent on, circumstances; followed by an Inquiry into the Nature of Ghosts, and other Appearances supposed to be supernatural.

Speedily will be published, in foolscap 8vo, Evening Hours, a collection of original poems.

Speedily will be published, a Medicochirurgical and Biographieal Chart of Medical Science, from Hippocrates to the pre-