le difficulty and delay
from the United States." The collection referred to was made by the
editor of the _International_, for the same love Miss Mitford feels for
its delightful contents, and was published many years ago by Langley, a
bookseller in the Astor House. It is the only volume by Praed ever
printed, and it has been long out of the market. Mr. Redfield's new
edition will be much more complete.

* * * * *

MR. R. H. STODDARD, the poet, is preparing a volume of fairy tales for
children. Poets were always the friends of fairies; they it is who bring
them within the sphere of human sympathies. That Mr. STODDARD is the
very Laureate of Titania, to sing her summer revels, the rare delicacy
of perception and graceful music of the volume of poems published by him
in the autumn, is the certificate.

* * * * *

Rev. H. N. HUDSON continues his admirable edition of Shakspeare. Early
drawn to the study of the poet, and pursuing that study against every
disadvantage, until he had embodied, in a series of lectures, his views
of Shakspeare and impressions of his plays, we well remember the
excitement which greeted his public reading of them in Boston, before
the literary aristocracy of the Athens of Massachusetts. A shimmering
brilliancy played along his analysis, rather of fancy than of
imagination,--almost rather of conceit than thought; but they approved
him a most competent critic, and this edition shows his admirable
editorial qualities.

* * * * *

The _History of Classical Literature_, by R. W. BROWNE, which has lately
been much praised by London critics, has been republished by Blanchard &
Lea, of Philadelphia. The volume commences with Homer and closes with
Aristotle; and the plan pursued is to give a biography of each author,
an account of the period in which he flourished, and then a criticism on
the character of his works. All the chapters are written with a careful
remembrance that the general, and not the strictly scholarly, reader, is
being addressed; and hence a comprehensive historical air most desirable
in a book assuming to be a history rather than an analysis of a
literature. The _Iliad_ is examined as a poem, but also as affording
evidences of the manners, customs, and civilization of the east at the
time at which the poem was composed. The philosophers are enumerated;
but their philosophy is examined more