Fairy Tales from all Nations. By Anthony R. Montalba. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.
The Harpers fairly bewilder critics by the number and variety of their publications. In following their books we have to make the most violent ascents and descents to and from one department of letters to another. We had hardly finished a survey of a Latin Dictionary before we came directly upon this delicious volume of fairy stories, containing a representation of supernatural novelties from Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Iceland, Bohemia, and some Eastern countries. The collection is one of the most fascinating we have ever seen, and its interest is much increased to the younger class of readers by some thirty grotesque illustrations.
The History of England. By David Hume. Vol. 5. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co.
This volume of the cheap Boston edition of Hume is devoted to Charles I. and the Commonwealth; contains the principal alleged offences of the author against the principles of civil and religious liberty, and is, accordingly, that part of his great work which has been made the subject of the most vehement controversies. It is, perhaps, the ablest in style and matter of the whole, and may be profitably read in connection with Macaulay’s views on the same subjects.
Saint Leger, or The Threads of Life. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.
This is the work of a man of intense conceptions, whose style is urged on by the furor of his thinking, and who, by sheer strength, drags the readers along with him from the first to the last page. The detail of the hero’s personal experience, if given with less vividness, would certainly tire, but as expressed in the author’s vehement style, it fastens attention as much as the incidents.