rom almost all the other islanders in the South Sea;
they are as black as negroes, have short woolly hair, and resemble them in
their features. Their religion also is different; in every village in the
island there is a house dedicated to the Deity. At the principal chapel,
the skulls of all the people who were killed, belonging to the ship that
grounded at Whanoo, are still preserved. The natives of Tucopia,
unaccustomed to the sight of human bones, avoid, as much as possible, when
they visit the island, approaching the sacred house where the skulls are
deposited.

* * * * *

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.

* * * * *

WAVERLEY NOVELS.

The _new edition_, (of which _Waverley_ has just appeared,) is, without
exception, the handsomest book of the day, in editorship, literary and
graphic embellishment or typography. Perhaps little persuasion was
necessary for a second reading of so delightful a novel as _Waverley_, but
the author's piquant notes to the present edition would alike tempt the
matter-of-fact man, and the inveterate novel reader to "begin again." The
prefatory anecdotes to _Waverley_ are extremely interesting--and the
little autobiographic sketches are so many leaves from the life of the
ingenious author. We hope to introduce a few of the notes of the Series;
but content ourselves for the present with the following: being the
original of the legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck:

Mr. R----d of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala,
was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of
teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family,
the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes.) Mr. R----d was strongly
impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process
peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands from the titular,
and therefore that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an
industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the
public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted
law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his
defence. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his
lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to
Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of
compromise. He went