a thinker on historical subjects. The
literary papers on "Tennyson," "Burns," "The Poetry of Sacred and
Literary Art," and "Hours with the Mystics," are full of striking and
suggestive, if somewhat perverse, thought. The volume, as a whole, is
read with mingled feelings of vexation and pleasure; but whether
provoked or delighted, we are always interested both in the author and
his themes.

_A Journey due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia._ By GEORGE
AUGUSTUS SALA. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.

Although the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest,
its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things
described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The
characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description,
lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To
his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and
conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its
confident, decisive, "knowing" tone, its independence of the judgments
of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from
such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a
pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk
of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who
reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives
us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight
and self-elation.

The three introductory chapters, describing the journey to St.
Petersburg, are perhaps the most brilliant portions of the book. The
delineations of his fellow-passengers, in the voyage from Stettin to
Cronstadt, especially the portraits of the swearing Captain Smith and
the accomplished Hussian noble, are admirable equally for their humor
and their sagacity. The account of the landing at Cronstadt, the scenes
at the Custom-House, the author's first walk in St. Petersburg, and his
first drive in a droschky, are masterpieces of familiar narration, and
fairly convert the readers of his hook into companions of his journey.
The description of the manners and customs of the Russian people, the
shrewd occasional comments on the policy of the government, and the
thorough analysis of the rascality of the Russian police, are admirable
in substance, if somewhat flippant in expression. In power of holding
the amused attention of the reader, equall