y by the pertinence of the
matter and the impertinence of the tone, the volume is unexcelled by any
other book on the subject of Russia.

_The New Priest in Conception Bay_. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co.
1858. 2 vols. 12mo.

The southeastern portion of the island of Newfoundland, as may be seen
by a glance at the map, may be well described by that expressive epithet
of "nook-shotten," which in Shakspeare is applied to the mother-island
of which it is a dependent. The land is indented by bays and estuaries,
so that it bears the same relation to the water that the parted fingers
of an outstretched hand do to the spaces of air that are between them.
One of these inlets bears the name of Conception Bay; and it is around
the shores of this bay that the scene of this novel is laid. Everything
in it suffers a sea-change; everything is set to the music of the winds
and the waves. We find ourselves among a people with whom the sea is
all, and the land only an appendage to the sea,--a place to dry fish,
and mend nets, and haul up boats, and caulk ships. But though the view
everywhere, morally and physically, is bounded by the sea, and though
one of the finest of the characters is a fisherman, yet the moving
springs of the story are found in elements only accidentally connected
with the sea, and by no means new to novel-writers or playwrights. The
plot of the novel is taken from, or founded upon, the peculiar relations
existing between the Roman Catholic priesthood and the female sex; and,
with only a change in costume and scenery, the events might have taken
place in Maryland, Louisiana, or France.

The novel is one of a peculiar class. To borrow a convenient phraseology
recently introduced into the language, its interest is more subjective
than objective,--or, in other words, is derived more from marked and
careful delineations of individual character than from the march of
events or brilliant procession of incidents. With a single
exception,--the abduction of the fisherman's daughter,--the occurrences
narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living
near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be
popular than those in which the interest is derived from a
skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving
events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not
undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the
capriciousness o