two, with the followers and liege men of Morton—a gang of ferocities, rascalities and un-moralities from the lowest London taverns—constitute the chief carnal ingredients of the novel. Opposed to these we have grand and life-like portraits of Miles Standish, Endicott, Winthrop, and other Puritan celebrities, with only an occasional view of the Indians. The business of the affections is principally transacted by two persons—a pure, elevated, large-hearted and high-spirited woman, and a noble-minded but somewhat irascible man; and this portion of the novel has the ecstasies and agonies which are appropriate to the subject. We think the novel a real addition to American literature, whether considered in respect to the amount of new information it conveys, or the splendor, vivacity and distinctness of its representations both of character and scenery. A dozen passages might be extracted, which, viewed simply as descriptions, are grand enough to establish a reputation. But the author’s great merit consists in having as clear and distinct a notion of the Cavalier, in his daily life and conversation, as of the Puritan, and this merit, rare in an American, he could only have obtained from a profound study of the elder dramatists of England, and a vivid insight into the very heart of their characters. Out of Scott, we do not know where to look for finer representations of these two great classes of English society, as they must have appeared when brought into opposition to each other. No one familiar with Marston, Deckar, Beaumont and Fletcher, or any other dramatist in whose plays the bullies and minor reprobates of the Elizabethan age appear, will call even Bootefish, Cakebread and Company, improbable or unnatural. The leading defect of the novel is the lack of a steady, orderly and artistical development of the plot. The narrative wants rapidity of movement; the rich materials of the work are imperfectly fused together; and occasionally things good in themselves seem to be in each other’s way. All those faults which beset the creations of the most fertile intellects, when they aim to give great variety of incident and character without having a grand, leading, ever-present conception of their work as a whole, are visible in this novel, and mar its harmony as a work of art. But these defects inhere in many romances which are read with delight by thousands, and though the splendid talents of the author of Merry-Mount may not always hide the heterogeneousness of his plan, they are amply sufficient to prevent it from interfering seriously with the interest of his novel, and sufficient also to delineate persons and scenes which leave on the reader’s mind a strong impression of power and beauty. * * * * * _The Female Poets of America. By Rufus W. Griswold. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 8mo._