We have read this unpretending little volume with great pleasure. Its gifted author unites to a fervid and sparkling imagination a profound and enthusiastic love of Nature, and a rare and poetical appreciation of its beauties. It is a daring task to undertake the description of the seasons after Thomson; but Mr. Hosmer has succeeded in presenting the distinctive features of our ever changing and ever beautiful American scenery, with a grace and truthfulness that will challenge the admiration of every reader of taste. “Each of the within,” say the neat and modest preface, “is marked by its own distinctive features, clothed in its appropriate garb, and hallowed by the recollection of the events which have occurred during its stay. The year which came with the one closes with the other. There is, in this constant, never-ending change, something congenial to the nature of man, which is stamped on every thing around him. Were our skies to be ever of an azure blue, clear and unclouded, we should soon become wearied with the sameness of their aspect. “Who would be doomed to gaze upon A sky without a cloud or sun?” We select, as a seasonable and gratifying specimen of the author’s manner, the following, from his description of October: The partridge, closely ambushed, hears The crackling leaf—poor, timid thing! And to a thicker covert steers On swift, resounding wing: The woodland wears a look forlorn, Hushed is the wild bee’s tiny horn. The cricket’s bugle shrill— Sadly is Autumn’s mantle torn, But fair to vision still. Bright flowers yet linger—from the morn Yon Cardinal hath caught its blush, And yellow, star-shaped gems adorn The wild witch-hazel bush; Rocked by the frosty breath of Night, That brings to frailer blossoms blight, The germs of fruit they bear, That, living on through Winter white, Ripens in Summer air. Yon streamlet, to the woods around, Sings, flowing on, a mournful tune, Oh! how unlike the joyous sound Wherewith it welcomed June! Wasting away with grief, it seems, For flowers that flaunted in the beams Of many a sun-bright day— Fair flowers!—more beautiful than dreams When life hath reached its May. * * * * * _The Power of the Soul over the Body, considered in Relation to Health and Morals. By Geo. Moore, M. D. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 16mo._