horn boys are drawn from the characters of persons who once
actually lived. Indeed, we could dispense very well with the low comedy
of Sally's brothers, and, in spite of Miss Betsy Lavender's foundation
in fact, we could consent to lose her much sooner than any other leading
character of the book: she seems to us made-up and mechanical. On the
contrary, we find Sally Fairthorn, with her rustic beauty and
fresh-heartedness, her impulses and blunders, altogether delightful. She
is a part of the thoroughly _country_ flavor of the book,--the rides
through the woods, the huskings, the raising of the barn,--(how
admirably and poetically all that scene of the barn-raising is
depicted!)--just as Martha somehow belongs to the loveliness and
goodness of nature,--the blossom and the harvest which appear and
reappear in the story.

We must applaud the delicacy and propriety of the descriptive parts of
Mr. Taylor's work: they are rare and brief, and they are inseparable
from the human interest of the narrative with which they are interwoven.
The style of the whole fiction is clear and simple, and, in the more
dramatic scenes,--like that of old Barton's funeral,--rises effortlessly
into very great strength. The plot, too, is well managed; the incidents
naturally succeed each other; and, while some portion of the end may be
foreseen, it must be allowed that the author skilfully conceals the
secret of Gilbert's parentage, while preparing at the right moment to
break it effectively to the reader.

_The South since the War: as shown by Fourteen Weeks of Travel and
Observation in Georgia and the Carolinas._ By SIDNEY ANDREWS. Boston:
Ticknor and Fields.

The simple and clear exhibition of things heard and seen in the South
seems to have been the object of Mr. Andrews's interesting tour, and he
holds the mirror up to Reconstruction with a noble and self-denying
fidelity. It would have been much easier to give us studied theories and
speculations instead of the facts we needed, and we are by no means
inclined to let the crudity of parts of the present book abate from our
admiration of its honesty and straightforwardness.

A great share of the volume is devoted to sketches of scenes and debates
in the Conventions held last autumn in North and South Carolina and
Georgia, for the reconstruction of the State governments; and Mr.
Andrews's readers are made acquainted, as pleasantly as may be, with the
opinions and appearance of the leaders