As the great Duke of Marlborough confessed that he acquired his knowledge of his country's annals in the historical plays of Shakspeare, so we believe there are many who find it convenient and agreeable to study them in Miss Strickland's _Lives of the Queens of England_. To all such it will be welcome news that the first and second volumes of a new and cheaper edition, and which comprise the lives of all our female sovereigns, from Matilda of Flanders to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, are now ready; and will be followed month by month by the remaining six. At the close of the work, we may take an opportunity of examining the causes of the great popularity which it has attained. Mr. M. A. Lower has just published a small volume of antiquarian gossip, under the title of _Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian, and Metrical_, in which he discourses pleasantly on Local Nomenclature, the Battle of Hastings, the Iron Works of the South-East of England, the South Downs, Genealogy, and many kindred subjects; and tries his hand, by no means unsuccessfully, at some metrical versions of old Sussex legends. Several of the papers have already appeared in print, but they serve to make up a volume which will give the lover of popular antiquities an evening's pleasant reading. We beg to call the attention of our readers to the opportunity which will be afforded them on Wednesday next of hearing Mr. Layard lecture on his recent _Discoveries at Nineveh_. As they will see by the advertisement in our present Number, Mr. Layard has undertaken to do so for the purpose of contributing to the schools and other parochial charities of the poor but densely populated district of St. Thomas, Stepney. BOOKS RECEIVED.--Mantell's _Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight, &c._ This reprint of one of the many valuable contributions to geological knowledge by the late lamented Dr. Mantell, forms the new volume of Bohn's _Scientific Library_.--_Retrospective Review, No. VI._, containing interesting articles on Drayton, Lambarde, Penn, Leland, and other writers of note in English literature.--Dr. Lardner's _Museum of_ {163} _Science and Art_, besides a farther portion of the inquiry, "The Planets, are they inhabited Worlds?" contains essays on latitudes and longitudes, lunar influences, and meteoric stones and shooting stars.--_Gibbon's Rome, with Variorum Notes_, Vol. II. In a notice prefixed to the present volume, which is one of Mr. Bohn's series of British Classics, the publisher, after describing the advantages of the present edition as to print, paper, editing, &c., observes: "The publisher of the unmutilated edition of Humboldt's Cosmos hopes he has placed himself beyond the suspicion of mutilating Gibbon." * * * * * BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES Wanted To Purchase. TORRENS ON WAGES AND COMBINATIONS. Longmans. 1834.