should produce such an impression in a translation so uncouth and
blundering as Mr. Schuyler has given us is a strong testimony to its
merit. It is usually thought that a translator ought to be tolerably
familiar with two languages, but readers of _The Cossacks_ will be
forced to doubt if Mr. Schuyler is acquainted with one.

Molly Bawn: A Novel. By the author of "Phyllis." Philadelphia: J.
B. Lippincott & Co.

_Molly Bawn_ disarms criticism by its exuberant gayety, its lusciousness
of description, its imperturbable good-humor and self-satisfaction, and
its utter absence of responsibility. What can an auld _critic_ do wi' a
young _book_? And such a very young book!--so full of sweets and
prettinesses, of audacious coquetries, and of jokes delivered with such
a simple and fatuous joy that the meed of our laughter cannot be denied
them! If we were to suggest that there is rather a surfeit of these good
things, our objection would be liable to be set aside as the acrid
cavilling of one whose taste for sweetmeats has been vitiated by
dyspeptic tendencies. We can only recommend the book with hearty
good-will to those whose sweet tooth still preserves its enamel,
congratulating them upon the acquisition of a novel which may be read
without any of those harassing perplexities or dismal ideas in which
petulant authors embroil our tender susceptibilities--a novel in which
the utmost pathos is in the little poutings of true lovers; in which
kissing goes by favor, and favor is lavishly distributed; in which
ugliness is the only crime, and virtue, or rather beauty (which is the
same thing), is unfailingly triumphant. The stock scenery and
properties, together with the usual characters of a society novel appear
in _Molly Bawn_; and the personages are invested, if not with the divine
gift of life, with a certain wire-strung movement which does not lack
vivacity, and in some cases novelty; the villain, for example, having
but little employment in his original capacity, and being utilized as a
laughing-stock for the amusement of his victims. Even the grammar of the
book can hardly be taken _au serieux_. It exhibits a serene carelessness
of rules, with a tendency to bulls which suggests that the heroine's
nationality is also that of the author. A sentence in which we are told
of a house that it is "larger, at first sight, than it in reality is,"
strikes a blow at the very essence of things, and those much-abused
words _will