the reader's interest by any indiscreet foreshadowing. Everybody
seems to be reading or intending to read the book; and its success is
already so far assured that no hostile criticism can gainsay or check
it. Not the least of the merits of "Peculiar" is the healthy patriotic
spirit which runs through it, vivifying and intensifying the whole. The
style is remarkably animated, often eloquent, and would of itself impart
interest to a story far less rich than this in incident, and less
powerful in plot.

_The Life of William Hickling Prescott_. By GEORGE TICKNOR.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The third edition of Mr. Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature" was
noticed with due commendation in our number for November last. That was
a work drawn exclusively from the region of the intellect, and written
by the "dry light" of the understanding. The author appeared throughout
in a purely judicial capacity. His task was to summon before his
literary tribunal the writers of a foreign country, and mostly of past
generations, and pronounce sentence upon their claims and merits.
Learning, method, sound judgment, and good taste are displayed in it;
but the subject afforded no chance for the expression of those personal
traits which are shown in daily life, and make up a man's reputation in
the community where he dwells.

But the Life of Prescott is a book of another mood, and drawn from other
fountains than those of the understanding. It glows with human
sympathies, and is warm with human feeling. It is the record of a long
and faithful friendship, which began in youth and continued unbroken to
the last. It is the elder of the two that discharges this last office of
affection to his younger brother. Mr. Ticknor could not write the life
of Mr. Prescott without showing how worthy he himself was of having so
true, so loving, and so faithful a friend. But he has done this
unconsciously and unintentionally. For it is one of the charms of this
delightful book--one of the most attractive of the attractive class of
literary biography to which it belongs that we have ever read--that the
biographer never intrudes himself between his subject and the reader.
The story of Mr. Prescott's life is told simply and naturally, and as
far as possible in Mr. Prescott's own words, drawn from his diaries and
letters. Whatever Mr. Ticknor has occasion to say is said with good
taste and good feeling, and he has shown a fine judgment in making his
portrai