The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 340, Supplementary Number (1828)

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828), by Various
E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Michael Hermen, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

For some days past our table has been glittering with these caskets of song and tale in their gay attire of silken sheen and burnished gold—till their splendour has fairly put out the light of our sinumbra , and the drabs, blues, and yellows of sober, business-like quartos and octavos. Seven out of nine of these elegant little books are in watered silk bindings; and an ingenious lady-friend has favoured us with the calculation that the silk used in covering the presumed number sold (70,000) would extend five miles, or from Hyde Park Corner to Turnham Green.
Brilliant as may be their exteriors, their contents are, as Miss Jane Porter says of her heroines, transcendently beautiful. But of these we shall present our readers with some exquisite specimens. Our only trouble in this task is the embarras du richesses with which we are surrounded; otherwise it is to us an exhaustless source of delight, especially when we consider the gentle feelings and affections which this annual distribution will cherish, and the innumerable intertwinings of hands and hearts which this shower of bon-bons will produce; and such warm friends are we to this social scheme, that our presentation copies are already in the fair hands whither we had destined them.
We begin with the parent-stock,
Edited by Frederic Shoberl , Esq.
The present volume, in its graphic and literary attractions is decidedly superior to that of last year, an improvement which makes us credit what the Ettrick Shepherd says of the proprietor— There's no a mair just, nay, generous man in his dealings wi' his authors, in a' the tredd, than Mr. Ackermann.
This beautiful Annual contains the original of our ENGRAVING, from a plate by A. Freebairn, after an admirable picture by S. Prout, of which the following story is illustrative:—