A very well-written and pleasant sketch of Nonconformist church life, exhibiting the influence which a good and wise pastor will always gather, and the impotence of mere faction and folly seriously to damage it. There is great good sense in the conception of the sketch, and considerable skill in the execution of it. _Checkmate._ By J. SHERIDAN LE FANU. Hurst and Blackett. Mr. Le Fanu occupies a distinctly original position among novel writers. He is a master of what it has become the fashion to call 'sensation,' yet does not attain his ends by the ordinary methods. The stereotype characters of such stories do not appear on his pages. Never do we encounter the lovely female fiend whose first type was 'Miladi' in the 'Three Musketeers' of Dumas the inexhaustible, and who has since committed bigamies and murders (the murders of best husbands by preference) in the works of popular authors whom we need not name. Again, Mr. Le Fanu is great at a mysterious plot, but his mysteries have the immense advantage of being not entirely translucent; and in the novel now under notice we think the readers of most experience in such matters may reach the middle of the third volume without penetrating the mystery which surrounds Longcluse. It is a real puzzle, based upon an original contrivance which it would be unfair to reveal. Mr. Le Fanu has also a strongly penetrative imagination, whereby he lights up luridly the strange scenes that he describes, producing an effect like a picture by Rembrandt, or like that observable when the electric flame through a lighthouse lens falls upon some scene in utter darkness. This power of giving intense reality to description makes every chapter of our author's work worth reading. The story of 'Checkmate' we shall leave untold; it has a curious fascination about it, and will pretty surely be finished by any one who commences it. Its characters are definite and varied. Longcluse, hero and villain, successful for a long time, yet checkmated at last, is an admirable portrait. The Arden baronets, father and son, might almost be identified in Lodge or Debrett. The ladies, especially Grace Maubray and Lady May Penrose, are choice studies of patrician life; and as to Baron Vanboeren, that wonderful patron and protector of scoundrels, he is one of the most original conceptions in modern romance. Critics who question the existence of romantic brilliancy may be referred to the _Times_ newspaper, which has daily to record events that no novelist dare imagine. Therefore we shall decline to inquire whether a Vanboeren exists or has existed--whether, indeed, his vocation is possible,--and shall simply say that he is an entirely new and strangely powerful character in the world of bizarre romance. _The Mad War-Planet._ By WILLIAM HOWITT. Longmans. _Muriel, and other Poems._ By E. T. WEATHERLY. Whittaker and Co. _Avenele, Desmond, and other Poems._ Two vols. By SOPHIA A. CAULFEILD. Longmans.