t to these remarks, belongs to a
different, and, we hold, a better school. It originally appeared in
Sharpe's London Magazine, and has just been republished by E. Littell
& Co. Edith Kinnaird is a fiction which the most artistic mind will
feel delight in perusing, yet one which the humblest will understand,
and from which both may derive improvement. The heroine is neither a
saint nor a fool, but a living woman; her sufferings spring from her
errors, and are redeemed by her repentance: all is natural, beautiful,
refreshing and noble. We rise from the perusal of such a fiction
chastened and improved.

Instead of rendering its readers dissatisfied with themselves, with
their lot in life, with society, with every thing, this novel makes
them feel that life is a battle, yet that victory is sure to reward
all who combat aright--that after the dust and heat of the struggle
comes the repose of satisfied duty. Yet there is nothing didactic in
the volume. Its influence upon the heart is like that of the dew of
heaven, silent, gradual, imperceptible. Is not this a proof of its
intrinsic merit?

Consuelo herself, as an ideal, is not more lovely than Edith Kinnaird,
while the latter, in the eyes of truth, is infinitely the nobler
woman. We hope to hear from the author again. Let us have more of such
novels: there cannot be too many of them. How can noble and talented
souls do more good than by furnishing the right kind of novels. Just
as the old religious painters used to limn saints and Madonnas, let us
now write works of artistic and moral fiction.

_Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Boston: William D.
Ticknor & Co._ 1 _vol._ 12_mo._

Few novels published within the last ten years have made so great a
stir among readers of all classes as this. The Harpers have sold a
vast number of their cheap reprint, and we have here to notice its
appearance in the old duodecimo shape, with large type and white
paper. That the work bears unmistakable marks of power and originality
cannot be questioned, and in a limited range of characterization and
description evinces sagacity and skill. The early portions of the
novel are especially truthful and vivid. The description of the
heroine's youthful life--the exact impression which is conveyed of the
child's mind--the influences which went to modify her character--the
scenes at the boarding-school--all have a distinctness of delineation
which approaches reality itself. But when the authore