Foster is well known as the author of a volume of essays, laden with weighty thought and acute observations on character and life. The present volume, containing his letters and journals from his earliest to his latest years, is one of great value, not merely to his own sect, the Baptists, but to all who can appreciate originality of character and thought. Foster was a hard, determined, patient thinker, gifted with much imagination, and impressing on every thing he wrote the invincible honesty of his character. His correspondence reveals to us the inmost recesses of his mind and disposition, and constitutes a kind of psychological autobiography, replete with materials of interest and instruction. The separate thoughts scattered over these volumes would alone be sufficient to reward abundantly the trouble of its perusal. One of the strongest peculiarities of genius, Foster says in one place, “is the power of lighting its own fire.” Of a soft and pensive evening, he remarks—“It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all the air.” Shakspeare, he observes, had perceptions of every kind; “he could think every way. His mind might be compared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, which _had eyes all over_.” Again he says—“Lord Chatham did not _reason_; he struck, as by intuition, directly on the _results_ of reasoning; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark without your seeing its course through the air as it moves towards its object.” When shown a piece of ornamental worsted-work, with a great deal of red in it, he said “it was red with the blood of murdered time.” The volumes are full of thoughts and observations equally striking and pointed. * * * * * _The New Timon. A Romance of London. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 12mo._