structed
work of fiction. It is an interest not derived from stirring adventures,
for Mr. Prescott's life was very uneventful, but from its happy
portraiture of those delightful qualities of mind and character of which
his life was a revelation. Though it tells of constant struggle and not
a little suffering, the tone of the book is genial, sunny, and cheerful,
as was the temperament of the historian himself. For it is a remarkable
fact that Mr. Prescott's bodily infirmities never had any effect in
making his mind or his character morbid. His spiritual nature was
eminently healthy. His leading intellectual trait was sound good sense
and the power of seeing men and things as they were. He had no whims, no
paradoxes, no prejudices. His histories reflect the aggregate judgment
of mankind upon the personages he describes and the events he narrates,
without extravagance or overstatement in any direction. And it was the
same with his character, as shown in daily life; it was frank, generous,
cordial, and manly. No man was less querulous, less irritable, less
exacting than he. His social nature was warm; discriminating, but not
fastidious. He liked men for the good there was in them, and his taste
in friendship was wide and catholic. He was rich in friends, and this
book proves how just a title to such wealth he could show. We shall be
surprised, if this biography does not attain a popularity as wide and
as enduring as that enjoyed by any of Mr. Prescott's historical works.
It is largely made up of extracts from his letters and private journals,
which are full of the playful humor, the ready sympathy, the sunny
temper, the kindly judgment of men and things, which made the historian
so dear to his friends and so popular among his acquaintances.

We cannot dismiss this book without saying a word or two in praise of
its externals. Handsome books are, happily, no longer so rare a product
of the American press as to require heralding when they do appear, but
this is so beautiful a specimen of the art of book-manufacturing that it
deserves special commendation. The type, paper, press-work, and
illustrations are all admirable, and the whole is a result not easily to
be surpassed in any part of the world.

_My Farm of Edgewood. A Country Book_. By the Author of "Reveries of a
Bachelor." New York: Charles Scribner. 12mo.

When "Ik Marvel" ten years ago turned farmer, a good proportion of the
reading public supposed that his experim