This series of sketches is superior to the first, and indicates plainly, not only the growth of the author’s mind, but a firmer and more confident grasp and control of her various resources of intellect, sentiment and acquisition. It is the production of the same individuality which gave zest to her first volume, but an individuality of larger moral and mental stature. The full, easy, almost majestic flow of emotion and sentiment, which gave vividness to the conceptions and vigorous movement to the style of her former sketches, is visible here in a brighter and more powerful form; and, it may be added, that the faults proceeding from the intensity of her mind, and her custom of surveying things which properly claim the decision of judgment through an atmosphere of feeling, are not altogether absent from her present work. She exaggerates both in her praise and blame; her eulogy being too generous, her condemnation sometimes too sharp and indiscriminating; and many of her criticisms are, therefore, but an ingenious and splendid exhibition of likes and dislikes, rather than a record of intellectual judgments. She has not yet obtained the faculty of viewing things as they are in themselves, independent of the feelings they excite in her own soul. This fault is a source of raciness, and doubtless makes her books all the more stimulating to a majority of renders; but it would seem that a mind which gives such unmistakable hints of sharp insight, penetrating wit, and clear, intuitive reason as Grace Greenwood’s, should keep the enthusiasm of her nature a little more under control; and this could be done, we opine, without breaking up into waves and ripples that superb sweep of her prose style, which is her great charm as a writer. We may add that the Letters in this volume, especially those from Washington, have often a delightful combination of observation, wit and fancy, and in their rambling references to individuals, almost raise gossip to the dignity of a fine art. * * * * * _Moby-Dick; or The Whale. By Herman Melville. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._