It is a question if the list of sainted martyrs in repute has not been left to the arbitrament of the painters; for we find many deposed, and the adopted favourites of art not found in the early list, as represented in their processions. We find a Saint Reparata, after having been the patroness saint of Florence for six hundred years, deposed, and the city placed under the tutelage of the Virgin and St John the Baptist. Yet these were early times for the influence of art; but, at a period when pictures were thought to have a kind of miraculous power, it is not improbable that some potent work of art representing the Virgin and St John may have caused the new devotional dedication--as was the case in modern times, when the imaged Madonna de los Dolores was appointed general-in-chief of the Carlist army. Painters were what the poets had been--_Vates sacri_. Events and the memory of saints may have perished, _Carent quia vate sacro_. We wish our own painters were more fully sensible of the power of art to perpetuate, and that it is its province to teach. With us it has been too long disconnected with our religion. It will be a glorious day for art, and for the people that shall witness the reunion. In taking leave of these two fascinating volumes, we do so with the less regret, knowing that they will be often in our hands, as most valuable for instant reference. No one who wishes to know the subjects and feel the sentiment of the finest works in the world, will think of going abroad without Mrs Jameson's book. We must again thank her for the beautiful woodcuts and etchings; the latter, in particular, are lightly and gracefully executed, we presume mostly (to speak technically) in dry point. Mrs Jameson writes as an enthusiast, her feeling flows from her pen. Her style is fascinating to a degree, forcible and graceful; but there is no mistaking its character--feminine. We know no other hand that could so happily have set forth the _Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art_. AMERICAN THOUGHTS ON EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONS. BOSTON, _December 1848_. THE YEAR OF CONSTITUTIONS is drawing to its end, to be succeeded, I doubt not, by the Year of Substitutions. I am sorry, my Basil, that you do not quite agree with me as to the issue of all this in France; but I am sure you will not dispute my opinion that this year's work is good for nothing, so far as it has attempted construction, instead of fulfilling its mission by overthrow. Its great folly has been the constitution-fever, which has amounted to a pestilence. When mushrooms grow to be oaks, then shall such constitutions as this year has bred, stand a chance of outliving their authors. Will men learn nothing from the past? How can they act over such rotten farces,--make themselves such fools!