, which in the broad
perception and brilliant style of the first volumes of his History
recognized the master, awaits with eagerness the conclusion. After the
long silence of Mr. BANCROFT, the present volumes will be doubly
welcome. The first volume, which will appear before the others, treats
of the causes of the Revolution.

* * * * *

The Hon. JOHN G. PALFREY, L.L.D., has just published (by Crosby and
Nichols, of Boston) the third and fourth volumes of his very able work
on the _Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities_. It is about ten years, we
believe, since the first and second volumes appeared. Without finding
fault with Dr. Palfrey's politics, we are glad to chronicle his return
to the pursuits of scholarship.

* * * * *

MR. GEORGE W. CURTIS has in press another volume of Eastern travel, in
which the public will welcome the sequel to his very successful _Nile
Notes of a Howadji_, one of the most brilliant books the last year added
to English literature. We understand, from those who have been favored
with a sight of the manuscript, that the _Howwadji in Syria_ will be
somewhat graver in its tone than its predecessor, as befits a book which
records the impressions of Palestine and the Arabian desert, but, that
it will breathe the same Oriental atmosphere, and abound in the same
graceful humor and flowing imagination which lent so great a charm to
that work. No traveller so truly reproduces the soul and sentiment of
these ancient and mysterious countries of the Orient as Mr. Curtis, and
this makes him as much preferable, for our reading, to the collectors of
dry statistics and the jotters down of petty daily adventures, as the
artist who paints a lovely person in the full glow of beauty is to a
tedious gossip who describes the color of her gloves or the material of
her bonnet. The one gives you a living reality; the other mere accidents
and circumstances.

* * * * *

The poems of WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED are in press, by Redfield. Miss
Mitford, in her _Recollections of a Literary Life_, just published in
London, says of these writings: "That they are the most finished and
graceful verses of society that can be found in our language, it is
impossible to doubt. At present they are so scarce that the volume from
which I transcribe the greater part of the following extracts is an
American collection, procured with considerab