appreciation and popularity. The death, as recorded, is, we repeat, of the highest order of literary excellence—yet while none can deny this fact, there are few who will be willing to read the concluding passages a second time. Upon the whole we think the “Curiosity Shop” very much the best of the works of Mr. Dickens. It is scarcely possible to speak of it too well. It is in all respects a tale which will secure for its author the enthusiastic admiration of every man of genius. The edition before us is handsomely printed, on excellent paper. The designs by Cattermole and Browne are many of them excellent—some of them outrageously bad. Of course it is difficult for us to say how far the American engraver is in fault. In conclusion, we must enter our solemn protest against the final page full of little angels in smock frocks, or dimity chemises. * * * * * _“Writings of Charles Sprague.” Now first collected. Charles S. Francis, New York._ In the “publisher’s preface” to this volume (which is a handsome octavo) we are told that it has been printed partly with a view of anticipating a similar design from another quarter—“one which was not likely to be accomplished in a manner satisfactory to the friends of the author”—and also that Mr. S. has done “nothing to promote” the present publication, which he has “only not forbidden.” About the whole of this prolegomena there is much of unnecessary rigmarole, not to say of superfluous humbug. If the facts are as stated, and Mr. Francis has really made himself so busy as to force the gentleman into press, will I nill I; we can only say that he has been guilty of a singular piece of impertinence. But if Mr. Sprague, on the other hand, was privy and a party to the issuing of the book (as we believe he was, and as the preface intimates he was not) it may then be remarked that since the poet of the “Shakspeare Ode” is not ashamed of his efforts, and has no reason to be ashamed of them, it is but a weak affectation to counterfeit a modesty which he does not feel, and to sneak forth into the light of the public eye, wrapped up in that flimsiest of all veils, the veil of a “publisher’s preface.”