Who could look on the fair high face, facing our title page, and have the heart to criticize the revelations of its soul? Naomi is a book of feeling, passion, and considerable, if not yet mature, power. It is dedicated to Sr. Dn. Juan Clemente Zenea, editor of La Charanga, Havana. Our authoress says in her dedication: 'It is to you, therefore; and those who like you have deeply felt, that the history of a woman's soul-life will prove more interesting than the mere narrative of the chances and occurrences that make up the every-day natural existence.' Naomi is a woman of artistic genius and passionate character, becalmed in the stagnation of conventional life, who, throwing off the fetters of an uncongenial and inconsiderate marriage, attempts to find happiness and independence in the cultivation of her own powers. She is eminently successful as prima donna, is brilliant and self-sustained—but fails to attain the imagined happiness, the Love-Eden so fervently sought.

A novel of domestic life, in which the plot, apparently simple, is yet artistic and skilfully managed. The thread of life of the bridesmaids is held with that of the bride, the development of character, distinctly marked in each, progresses through a series of natural events, until the young people reach the point of life when impulse settles into principle, amiability into virtue, generosity into self-abnegation, and we feel that each may now be safely left to life as it is, that circumstance can no longer mould character, and are willing to leave them, certain they will henceforth remain true to themselves, and to those whose happiness may depend upon them, whatever else may betide. The bride is a pure, sweet, generous woman, but the character of the book is decidedly Lotty. Childish, petite, and indulged, she is yet magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing; fiery, fearless, and frank, she is still patient, forbearing, and reticent; we love her as child, while we soon learn to venerate her as woman. She and her docile bloodhound, Bear, form pictures full of magic contrast, groups of which we never tire. The cordiality and heartiness of her admiring relatives, the Beauvilliers, are contagious; we live for the time in their life, and grow stronger as we read. The book is charming. Its moral is unexceptionable, its characters well drawn, its plot and incidents simple and natural, and its interest sustained from beginning to end.

Tennyson has so many devoted admirers, that this volume cannot fail to receive due attention. The principal poem therein, Enoch Arden, is one of touching pathos and simplicity. Three children, Enoch Arden, Philip Ray, and Annie Lee, grew up together on the British coast a hundred years ago. Both youths loved Annie: she loved and married Enoch. They live happily together until three children are born to the house: then poverty threatens, and Arden leaves home to provide for the loved ones. He is cast away on an island, is not heard, from for ten years, and Annie reluctantly consents to marry Philip, who has been a father to her children during their long orphanage. Arden returns at last to his native village, so old, gray, and broken, that no one recognizes him. He hears how true his wife had been to him until all hope had died away, and how Philip cared for her peace, and cherished his children. The wretched man resolves to bear his grief in silence, and never to bring agony and shame to a peaceful home by disclosing his return. He does this in a spirit of Christian self-abnegation, lives near the unconscious darlings of his heart, earns his frugal living, watching round, but never entering the lost Paradise of his youth. He dies, and only at the hour of death, reveals to Annie how he had lived and loved. The theme of this tale has often been taken before. It has been elaborated with passion and power in the 'Homeward Bound' of Adelaide Procter, a poetess too little known among us.

There is great purity of delineation and conception in Enoch Arden. The characters stand out real and palpable in their statuesque simplicity. There is agony enough, but neither impatience nor sin. The epithets are well chosen; but the usual wildering sensuousness of Tennyson's glowing imagery is subdued and tender throughout the progress of this melancholy tale.

'Aylmer's Field,' about the same length, is a poem of more stormy mould. It hurls fierce rebukes at family pride, and just censures at tyrannical parents.

The volume contains many shorter poems, some of which are already familiar to our readers.

We like 'Azarian' better than any work we have yet seen from Miss Prescott. Ruth Yetton, the heroine, is so truly feminine, she might serve as a type of half our innocent maidens from sixteen to twenty. Azarian is real and drawn to the life, a hero who has his counterpart in every civilized city; a man of savoir-vivre, glittering and attractive, but selfish, inconsequent, frivolous, and deadly to the peace of those who love him. Miss Prescott's style is elaborate and florid, frequently of rare beauty, always giving evidence of culture and scholarship. Do we find fault with the hundred-leaved rose? Her fancy is luxuriant, of more power than her imagination. Her descriptions of flowers in the volume before us are accurate and tenderly beautiful. She knows them all, and evidently loves them well. Nor are the fragile blossoms of the trees less dear to her. She reads their secrets, and treasures them in her heart. She paints them with her glowing words, and placing our old darlings before us again, exultingly points out their hidden charms.

The author of this pleasant, unpretending little book visited the 'great wilderness of Northern New York, which lies in St. Lawrence county, on the western slope of the Adirondack Mountains. It forms part of an extensive plateau, embracing an area of many thousand square miles, and is elevated from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above the sea. The mineral resources of the plateau are of great value, immense ranges of magnetic iron traverse the country, and there are indications of more valuable minerals in a few localities. Of its agricultural importance too much cannot be said. The soil is rich and strong, peculiarly adapted to the grazing of cattle. The climate is that of the hill country of New England.'

The reader will see from this extract of what the book treats. The volume is pleasantly and simply written, imparts considerable information with respect to the region which it describes, is redolent of spicy forest breath, and brings before us Indian, deer, and beaver.

'These Letters were written amid camp scenes and on the march,' says our author, 'under circumstances unfavorable to literary composition, and were intended for private perusal alone. Portions of them appeared in the Providence Journal, and were received with a favor alike unexpected and gratifying. Numerous requests having been made that they should be gathered up as a Rhode Island contribution to the history of the War of the Rebellion, the author, with unaffected distrust of himself, has yielded to the judgment of others. While the aim has been to show the honorable position of the State in an unhappy war, it has also been the design to present a comprehensive view of the consecutive campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, with the fortunes of which several of the Rhode Island regiments and most of the batteries have, for longer or shorter periods, been identified.'

It is a noble record for Rhode Island, and a valuable contribution to the history of the war. It deals with facts, not polities or prejudices. We think every loyal State should prepare such a volume. A simple and reliable statement of what she has herself done, a sketch of her heroes of all ranks and parties, of her batteries, regiments, and companies, of her commandants and the battles in which her troops bore part, should be therein contained. This would lead to noble emulation among the States struggling for a common cause, and would be of great value both to State and general history. We look upon this book as a beginning in the right way. Such national records of nobly borne suffering and deeds of glory would be truly Books of Honor.

This book was issued to meet the demand in advanced schools for a larger number of carefully prepared and practical examples for review and drill exercises than are furnished from ordinary text books, and may be used in connection with any other books on this subject. 'The examples are designed to test the pupil's judgment; to bring into use his knowledge of the theory and applications of numbers; to cultivate habits of patient investigation and self-reliance; to test the truth and accuracy of his own processes by proof—the only test he will have to depend on in the real business transactions of afterlife; in a word, to make him independent of all text books, of written rules and analyses.'

Prof. Harkness's Grammar will be welcomed both by teacher and student. Our author is a man of great experience in the subjects of which he treats, and we doubt not he has supplied a general want in the work before us, and furnished a true grammar of the Latin tongue, worthy of adoption in all our educational institutions.

This novel is the autobiography of a young English girl, thrown by her father, a man of high birth, but worthless character, into the vicious influences of corrupt English and French society. The story is one of a constant struggle between these base examples on the one hand, and a strong sense of right and justice on the other. The plot is original and quite elaborate, and the interest well sustained. The character of the unprincipled, heartless, gambling father is well drawn, as well as that of the weak but self-sacrificing mother. Some of the scenes evince considerable power.