This volume contains Legends of the Norman Conquerors, of the Crusaders, of Feudal Days, and of Scotland—fourteen splendid tales in all. As is usual with him, Mr. Herbert deals in this volume with the strongest passions, and exhibits their workings in powerful characters and striking events. His mode of narration is vehement, and the reader who once commits himself to the rushing stream of his style can hardly pause for breath until he has arrived at the end. His knowledge of history is extensive and minute, and it is a knowledge painted in living pictures on his imagination rather than hoarded in his memory. The past is present to him—in persons, scenery, dialect and costume, and he writes of it as if he were recording what was passing before his eyes. This power of vitalizing and vivifying every thing he touches is manifested throughout these “Legends.” He conceives with each intensity that he becomes a partisan in dealing with his own creations; is furiously hostile to some, and as furiously favorable to others. The effect of his intense representations is felt both in the reader’s brain and blood. It is not until after the book is read that we feel conscious that the author’s sympathies and antipathies disturb his powers of discrimination in his judgments of historical characters. * * * * * _Waverley Novels. Library Edition. Vol. 1. Waverley; or ’Tis Sixty Years Since. Boston: B. B. Mussey & Co. 12mo._ This is a new issue of Parker’s celebrated edition of the Waverley Novels, containing the author’s final additions, corrections and notes. It is printed in large type, is very cheap, and should meet with success. This, with Lippincott, Grambo & Co.’s edition, will doubtless induce a re-perusal of the novels of Scott. Nothing that has since been written has surpassed or even equaled them in the distinguishing features of romantic writing. It is Scott’s great and rare distinction that he created a school of novelists admitting the exercise of the most various genius, and that among the myriad writers who have felt his inspiration none has received or merited his fame. In England a hundred and twenty-five thousand copies of his novels have been sold, and the demand still continues. Scott should be read every five years. In the fourth perusal we have found his novels more interesting than the new romances of the day. * * * * * _Graces and Powers of the Christian Life. By A. D. Mayo. Boston: Abel Tompkins. 1 vol. 12mo._