* * * * * _Carleton, A Tale of Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-Six. Two volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard._ We have heard this novel attributed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and also to a citizen of New York. The question appears to be a moot one still, but, like many other moot points, is one of amazingly little importance. The book seems to be the composition of a young man, well educated in consonance with some of those Pharisaical literary creeds which are all-potent in deadening the higher powers in favor of the common-place. He has been taught _propriety_ as the chief of the cardinal virtues, and instructed to regard _originality_ as the sum total of the cardinal sins. His peculiar intellect, at the same time, has been a soil precisely adapted for the seed sown. In regard to “Carleton,” we may say in its behalf that its style is strikingly _correct_, and that its incidents and its reflections never, even by accident, startle us into unpleasant excitement. With this peace-offering upon the shrine of the _decorous_, we now take the liberty of throwing the book out of the window. * * * * * _Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest; With Anecdotes of their Courts; Now first Published from Official Records and Other Authentic Documents, Private as well as Public. From the Second London Edition, with Corrections and Additions. By_ Agnes Strickland. _Vols. 1 and 2. Lea & Blanchard. Philadelphia._ This book has been well received in England, and justly so. Its design is obviously good, and its execution does honor to the fair author—for in this instance it is scarcely right to call her a compiler. The work is quite as original as any similar work can be. The task of composing it has been an arduous one indeed; and there are few women who could have accomplished it, as we see it accomplished. The ground upon which Mrs. Strickland has so boldly yet judiciously ventured is one hitherto unbroken, and, although she has trodden among flowers, she has not escaped the delving drudgery of the pioneer. In short, a deep research has been demanded for this labor, in quarters far out of the reach of the ordinary investigator.