ore with religious, and less with social questions, written in
a more obscure and uncertain stage of experience, this production is a
sparkling effervescing fragment, abounding in passages of singular
beauty and heart-rending pathos, with some delineations of character,
which, for originality of conception and force of coloring, can rarely
be matched in contemporary literature. The work is abrupt, spasmodic,
and, of course, very unequal in its execution; the plot serves only as
an apology for the exhibition of psychological studies; and although it
breaks off with little warning and no satisfaction, its perusal can not
fail to touch the deepest sympathies of the reader.

Stanford and Swords have published a neat edition of _The Angel's Song,
a Christmas Token_, by CHARLES B. TAYLOR, one of the best religious
stories of that popular writer. His style is marked by a beautiful
simplicity, which gives an unfailing freshness to his narrative, while
his skill in availing himself of the most effective incidents
challenges the constant curiosity of the reader. The volume is got up in
a uniform style with the seven preceding volumes, forming a valuable
series for the family or parish library.

_Stuart of Dunleath_, by Mrs. NORTON. (Harper and Brothers.) With scarce
an exception, no novel of the present season has received such
enthusiastic praise from the English press as this brilliant production.
The style is no less chaste and exquisite, than the plot is deep and
absorbing. Variety, movement, passion, and intense interest, pervade the
whole narrative, which, at the same time, is singularly natural,
depending for its effect on its truthful revelations of character and
life. In the profusion of superior novels which have recently made their
appearance, we can not hesitate to yield the pre-eminence to "Stuart of
Dunleath."

_Isabella_ is the subject of the Sixth Tale in the Girlhood of
_Shakspeare's Heroines_, by MARY COWDEN CLARKE, published by Geo. P.
Putnam. The narrative shows the fertility of invention which
characterizes all the Tales of the present series, and as an exercise of
fanciful ingenuity, is not inferior to any which have preceded it. The
reverence for Shakspeare, which is an inwrought element in the character
of the author, may palliate, if it does not excuse the presumption of
her enterprise. It must be confessed that her success thus far has to a
great degree falsified the predictions which the announcement