It appears to us that this volume is fully as felicitous as “Lady Willoughby’s Diary.” Like that it is in the form of a journal, written in the orthography and style of the seventeenth century. The simplicity with which the whole is conceived and wrought out is exquisite. The idea of the book is taken from the well-known incident of Milton’s first courtship and marriage; and its charm consists in accounting for the disagreement between the couple on grounds of nature which do not appear in the bold statement of the fact. It is a delicious volume, full of the essential spirit of poetry, and pure, tender, simple and refined throughout. * * * * * _The Yellowplush Papers. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo._ This is one of the earliest and best of Thackeray’s delightful works. It is a sort of autobiography of a London footman, Charles Yellowplush, comprising very vigorous sketches of his various masters, and written in a style which inimitably combines shrewdness with vulgarity. The spelling alone is a work of genius. The portion relating to Mr. Deuceace has passages of great power and pathos as well as humor, and exhibits the utter lack of sentiment and principle, the hard demoniacal selfishness of a true London blood, with extraordinary closeness to the fact. “Mr. Yellowplush’s Ajew” and “Epistles to the Literati,” are also riotous with mirth. Bulwer Lytton’s coxcombry is caricatured in these last very ludicrously. * * * * * _Putnam’s Semi-Monthly Library for Travelers and the Fireside. New York: George P. Putnam. 6 vols. 12mo._ This is one of the cheapest and best edited literary enterprises ever started in the United States. It is published in semi-monthly volumes, each of which is printed in large type on fine white paper, contains some two hundred and fifty pages, and is placed at the low price of twenty-five cents a volume. Two volumes are given to prose and poetical comicalities, carefully selected, humorous cuts and all, from “Hood’s Own;” three volumes consist of capital selections from Dickens’ Household Words, entitled “Home and Social Philosophy,” “The World Here and There,” and “Home Narratives;” and the last is an original production, written by Mr. Olmstead, and called, very aptly, “Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England”—an exceedingly interesting book, in which the author gives, in a homely but expressive style, his experiences among the farming population of England. We trust that Mr. Putnam’s admirable plan will be fully carried out, and that his success will be as complete as his enterprise is commendable. The price is hardly one-third of the usual cost of American reprints of equal elegance of execution. * * * * * _Lyra and Other Poems. By Alice Carey. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo._