works of Art, many of which
come naturally into the story, show a cultivated and observant eye and
a command of judicious language. The characters are well developed,
and, with an unimportant exception, there is nothing introduced into
the book that is not necessary to the completion of the story. "Vernon
Grove" will commend itself to all readers who like works of fiction
that are lively and healthy too; and will give its author a high rank
among the lady-novelists of our day and country.

* * * * *

_Arabian Days' Entertainments_. Translated from the German, by HERBERT
PELHAM CORTIS. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 1858.

In this famous nineteenth century of ours, which prides itself on being
practical, and feeds voraciously on facts, and considers itself almost
above being amused, we for our part rejoice to greet such a book as
this. Our great-great-grandfathers, when they were boys, were happy in
having wise and good grandfathers who told them pleasant stories of
what never happened,--and who loved well to tell them, because they
were truly wise men, and knew what the child's mind relished and
fattened upon,--nay, and because, like all truly good men, they
themselves indulged a fond, secret, half-belief that these child's
stories of theirs were, if the truth could be got at, more than half
true. We should be sorry to believe that this good old life of
story-telling and story-hearing had utterly gone out. It belonged to an
age that only very foolish men and very vulgar men laugh at without
blushing.

"We of the nineteenth century" have a certain way of our own, however,
of enjoying that most rarely fascinating class of literary productions
known as _stories_,--a critical, perhaps over-intellectual, way,--but
still sufficing, it is comfortable to know, to keep the story at very
near its ancient dignity in the realm of letters. Perhaps it is a true
sign of the perfect story, that it ministers at once to these two
unsympathizing mental appetites, and pleases completely, not only the
man, but his--by this aide--ever-so-great-grandfather, the child.

Everybody thinks first of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," when we
fall into such remarks as these,--that marvellous treasure, from which
the dreams of little boys have been furnished forth, and the pages of
great scholars gemmed with elegant illustration, ever since it was
first opened to Western eyes. With this book the title which