IT had long been known that Mr. CHARLES GREVILLE kept a journal of the principal political occurrences he had witnessed in the course of his long and active life, and that he left it at his death to be published, after a certain lapse of time, by his friend and colleague Mr. | HENRY REEVE. Probably no man who lived in the first half of this century was more highly qualified than Mr. GREVILLE to leave behind him a vivid and faithful He picture of the society around him. had been a page of KING GEORGE III. at 12; he was private secretary to Lord BATHURST, a Cabinet Minister, at 18; he lived in the intimacy of the Duke of YORK, and took the management of the Duke's race-horses at 24. In the following year he became Clerk of the Council, and lived for the next forty years of his life in daily and intimate communication with the Duke of WELLINGTON, Lord LYNDHURST, Lord BROUGHAM, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Lord MELBOURNE, Holland House, Lord DOVER, Princess LIEVEN, LadyJERSEY, TOM MOORF, MACAULAY, and, in short, all the most brilliant and illustrious society of his day. He was equally well known at Newmarket and in Whitehall, and in the literary circles of London, to which he was attracted by strong literary tastes. He was the universal referee in a thousand difficulties and disputes-ever ready to serve his friends, or to take up his pen for any just

cause.

A record of the time traced by a man so conversant with it, so popular and so unprejudiced, can scarcely fail to have an unusual degree of interest; especially as these NOTES have not been rearranged or altered to square with subsequent events, but are faithfully published as they were written at the very time the different

incidents occurred. They have, therefore, the character of strictly contemporary evidence, and they convey to the reader the impression of the time exactly as it existed at that moment.

On many political transactions of moment, such as the second reading of the Reform Bill, the refusal of PEEL to take office in May 1832, and his subsequent struggle in 1835, these volumes throw a new and important light. But to many readers the most interesting portion of the book will be the literally reported conversations with the Duke of WELLINGTON about his campaigns, and his Grace's opinions on a multitude of subjects. The SOVEREIGNS themselves who give their names to these volumes cut, it must be confessed, a poor figure in it. The egregions selfishness and wilfulness of GEORGE IV. and the rough buffoonery of his wellmeaning successor, were never more minutely described. The young Princess VICTORIA appears in the distance, and the work closes with the striking scene of her accession to the throne.

It is impossible to give in this brief summary more than a very faint idea of the varied interest, the anecdotes, the graphic sketches of character, the curious predictions, and the acute remarks which diversify these volumes. In the judgment of the Editor they are a very valuable contribution to a most popular branch of literature-that of Memoirs-in which the French are richer than ourselves; and it is in such works that the very sources of history are to be traced, especially when they are written as this book is, with perfect frankness, independence, and good faith, and in a very pungent and attractive style.