know is well brought out, and
additional materials might serve only to sustain the opinion formed by
what is offered. We regard Mrs. Ellet's work only as a prelude--a
rich, delightful, prelude--but it must be followed by other
performances. The work is enriched with the likenesses of several
ladies whose biographies are given--one or two of these we know are
correct. The others resemble what we recollect to have heard
denominated good likenesses.

* * * * *

_Orators of the American Revolution. By E. L. Magoon.
New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

Mr. Magoon is a writer of great fluency and sensibility, who "wreaks"
his thoughts upon expression. He has given us a very exciting volume,
glowing with revolutionary fervor, and eloquent of revolutionary
heroes. The great difficulty is that each of his orators is described
in terms which a cool person might hesitate in applying to Demosthenes
and Cicero. Mr. Magoon writes too much on the high-pressure principle.
As we move down the Mississippi stream of his rhetoric, we are pleased
with the rapidity of the motion, and the chivalrous feeling of the
captain of the boat, but we look occasionally at the boiler and the
engine with some fear of an explosion.

Seriously, the volume will doubtless serve its purpose of impressing a
great idea of our revolutionary orators on the popular mind--to reach
which mind a certain extravagance of statement and description is now
considered necessary. The glowing mode of writing history and
biography is, doubtless, better than the dry and dead mode, but a
medium between the two, combining life and movement with accuracy and
discrimination, is better still. However, we know of no book on the
subject so good as the present. It can be read at one sitting, and it
leaves a strong impression on the mind of the power of our great
orators. Every production which forcibly conveys an idea of our
historical men as living souls, as well as living names, deserves to
succeed.

* * * * *

_Historical and Miscellaneous Questions. By Richard
Mangnall. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This has been one of the most successful educational books ever
published. The present edition is from the _eighty-fourth_ London
edition. The sale in England has reached a hundred thousand copies. A
mere glance at the book will explain its popularity. It embraces the
elements of Mythology, Astron