The title, although comprehensive, does not fully indicate the book. We have not only the Lives of the Queens from the Norman Conquest, but, in the Introduction, notices of the ancient British and Saxon ones. The Empress Matilda is included among the former; although she has never been so ranked by any previous historian. In this our author is fully justified, however; for Matilda, who herself claimed no title beyond that of “Domina of England,” was queen _de jure_, and, in a historical view, a monarch of high importance, as the mother of the Plantagenets, and the uniting link of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman dynasties. The materials of which her memoir is composed are derived chiefly from Norman and Latin chronicles, never before translated. These volumes are sufficiently well done in a mechanical point of view. The lithograph portrait of Matilda, however, is greasy and ineffective, and typographical blunders obscure the meaning of many important passages. In the very first paragraph of the Introduction, for instance, we have Solent _fæminrum_ ductu bellare; a sentence which we are quite sure was never put together by Tacitus, from whose Life of Agricola it is taken. The book, upon the whole, is one of rich interest and value, and must find a place in every historical library. * * * * * _The History of a Flirt. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia: 1841._ This novel displays considerable ability, wasted on very common-place incidents. If the author will undertake a subject worthy of her talents—are we wrong in fancying the writer a lady?—we may yet hail her as a novelist of no slight pretensions. * * * * * _Outlines of Geography and History, presenting a Concise View of the World. By_ Frederick Emerson, _author of the North American Arithmetic. Hogan & Thompson: Philadelphia._ The Preface of this little work greatly interested us in its favor, and a careful examination of its contents did not lessen the interest. In its arrangement, Geography and History are combined—the former being the leading topic, and the latter the concomitant. The author’s observations, in respect to this junction, are just. The two subjects are so intimately connected in their own nature, that, however they may be separated in books, they can never be disconnected in the mind. The simultaneous study of both, properly connected, secures the learner from imbibing false notions of either. The book is concise, but accurate, and well adapted either for a prefatory text-book, or for those whose limited school-time will not allow them to go through with a more diffuse system. It is very neatly and substantially gotten up. * * * * *