t memoir of some great man
of the world, constantly recurring glimpses of world-wide celebrities,
pictures of travel, bits of gossip of people in whom every body is
interested, the whole interwoven with the kindliest and most genial
traits of character. If Irving's works are essential to every library,
it may be said with equal truth that the 'Life and Letters' are quite as
inseparable from the works themselves.

BAYARD TAYLOR'S WORKS. NORTHERN TRAVEL. New-York: G. P. Putnam.
Boston: A. K. Loring.

Within a few years the tide of English and of American travel has flown
far more than of old over Scandinavia, a land so little known as to bear
a prestige of strange mystery to many. Books of travel describing it are
comparatively rare; it has not, like Germany or England, been 'done to
death,' and the consequence is, that a good book describing it, like
this of Taylor's, has a peculiar charm of freshness and of novelty. In
it, as in every volume of his travels, Bayard Taylor gives us the
impression that the country in question is his specialty and favorite,
the result being a thoroughly genial account of all he saw. Readers not
familiar with this series may be pleased to know that as regards
typography, illustration, and binding, it is in all respects elegant,
though furnished at an extremely moderate price.

EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. By Theodore Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
1862.

To a certain extent novels are like dishes; while there is no dispute as
to the surpassing excellence of a few, the majority are prized
differently, according to individual tastes. Public opinion has
unanimously rated the Winthrop novels highly, some readers preferring
'Cecil Dreeme,' while to judge by the press, it would seem that 'Edwin
Brothertoft' best pleases the majority. It is certainly a book of marked
character, and full of good local historical color. The author had one
great merit--he studied from _life_ and truth, and did not rehash what
he had read in other novels, as do the majority of story-tellers at the
present day, when a romance which is _not_ crammed with palpable apings
of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Adam Bede' is becoming a rarity. In 'Edwin
Brothertoft' we have a single incident--as in 'John Brent'--the rescue
of a captive damsel by a dashing 'raid,' as the nucleus, around which
are deftly woven in many incidents, characters, and scenes, all well set
forth in the vigorous style of a young writer who was dee