Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens Of England, republished by Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia, in ten or twelve volumes, is a work of very great interest and value, for its illustrations of the higher and progressive British civilization. Her Lives of the Queens of Scotland, soon to be issued from the press of the Harpers, resembles generally her former work, by the success of which it was probably suggested, as much as by the desirableness of the biographies of the Northern Queens, as "adjuncts" to the lives of those of England. A good deal of matter was collected in reference to the later Queens of Scotland during the biographer's researches for the Queens of England; and this, augmented by further inquiries among public and private archives, especially among the muniment-chests of noble Scottish families, forms the materials of the present undertaking. The "lives" do not begin till the Tudor times, when the nearer relationship with England imparts a greater interest to the subject, not only from the closer communication between the courts, but from the prospects of the Scottish succession to the English crown.
John S. Dwight, of Boston, has recently delivered an admirable lecture before the Mercantile Library Association of this city, on "Operatic Music," illustrated by a critical examination of Rossini's Don Giovanni. Mr. Dwight's rare musical learning and accomplishments, his exquisite taste in art, and his remarkable felicity of expression, were displayed to singular advantage in this masterly lecture, and won the cordial applauses of the most appreciative critics in his large and highly intelligent audience.
A History of the Greek Revolution is soon to be given to the public by Baron Prokesh Osten, who for many years was Austrian ambassador at Athens, and who now fills the same office at Berlin. Of course his book will be published at Vienna.
A New Edition of the Complete Works Of Göethe, in thirty volumes (it would look much better and be far more convenient in fifteen), is advertised in Berlin. Two volumes are ready, and the whole are to be issued before the close of 1851.
W. G. Simms, LL. D., is referred to in the Southern Literary Gazette as having delivered in Charleston lately an elaborate poem entitled "The City of the Silent," on the occasion of the consecration of a beautiful rural cemetery near that city.