Mr. James has probably written more than any other living English author. We have not now a list of his works, but a London bookseller advertises a set of them, as “nearly complete,” containing _one hundred and twenty-three volumes_. Many of them are historical, and one is poetical; but the greater number is composed of novels and romances. These last have some excellent qualities which distinguish them from nearly all other works of their kind, especially from the romances of Walter Scott. They are truer as histories than the chronicles and biographies of the author of Waverley. Whatever incidents he may invent, Mr. James draws his real characters with scrupulous fidelity. Philip Augustus, Richelieu, and Henri IV. are great historical pictures, of which the details are imaginary, but the general impression given so correct that a man may learn nearly as much by reading them as from Sismondi’s History of France for the periods to which they relate. While Scott’s histories are as unworthy of credit as his novels, James, in his historical writings, is singularly careful as well about their minutest incidents as their principal effect, so that he is in a way one of the best of living historians. Of The Life of Edward the Black Prince we have not space for a review; but we have found it exceedingly interesting, and we gladly commend it to the favorable attention of our readers. * * * * * _The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times. By R. R. Madden, M. D., author of “Travels in the East,” “Infirmities of Genius,” etc. Two vols. 12mo. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard._