most important instrument, the
Opthalmoscope, will command the attention of the general reader.

Finally, we notice with peculiar satisfaction the elegant dress in which
the volume appears. A very marked feature of this is the agreeable tint
given to the paper, so much to be preferred to the glaring snowy white
which has been so long the rule with publishers everywhere. This is
especially befitting a volume whose object is the alleviation of ocular
distress, and we venture to say will meet with the commendation of every
reader. A similar shade was adopted, some time since, by the publishers
of "The Ophthalmic Hospital Reports," London, at the suggestion, we
think, of its accomplished editor, Mr. Streatfeild.

_Country Living and Country Thinking_. By GAIL HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor
& Fields. 12mo.

Our impression of this volume is that it contains some of the most
charming essays in American literature. The authoress, who chooses to
conceal her real name under the _alias_ of "Gail Hamilton," is not
only womanly, but a palpable individual among women. Both sex and
individuality are impressed on every page.

That the hook is written by a woman is apparent by a thousand signs.
That it proceeds from a distinct and peculiar personality, as well as
from a fertile and vigorous intellect, is no less apparent. The writer
has evidently looked at life through her own eyes, and interpreted it
through her own experience. Her independence becomes at times a kind of
humorous tartness, and she finds fault most delightfully. So cant
and pretence, however cunningly disguised by accredited maxims and
accredited sentimentality, can for a moment deceive her sharp insight
or her fresh sensibility. This primitive power and originality are not
purchased by any sacrifice of the knowledge derived at second-hand
through books, for she is evidently a thoughtful and appreciative
student of the best literature; but they proceed from a nature so strong
that it cannot be overcome and submerged by the mental forces and food
it assimilates.

Individuality implies will, and will always tends to wilfulness. The two
are harmonized in humor. Gail Hamilton is a humorist in her wilfulness,
and flashes suggestive thought and wisdom even in her most daring
caprices and eccentricities of individual whim. She is wild in
sentences, heretical in paragraphs, thoroughly orthodox in essays.
Her mind is really inclosed by the most rigid maxims of Calvinistic
th