This is a charming novel, full of fine character painting, and strongly marked by that exquisite development and analysis of the female heart, which distinguishes all the novels of this writer. As an autobiography, partaking of the nature of _confessions_, it has afforded fine scope for the display of the peculiar powers of the author. Agnes Grey, the heroine, herself, is one of the most vigorous and truthful drawings of character—one of the finest pieces of pen-limning that we have encountered any where, though not to young readers, perhaps, as distinctive as that of “Shirley,” as it has less of the really romantic to give it impressiveness. He gives in this novel a charm to love, in the vulgar course of this world’s affairs, by laying bare the sentiment of the heart—the exceeding beauty of pure love unadorned. As Hazlett says of Shakspeare’s women, “We think as little of her face, as she does herself, but are let into the secrets of her heart, and are charmed.” It is not until she has fallen in love, that our hearts open kindly to receive her, for the full beauty of the woman is then exposed to our worshiping eyes. Rosalie Murray is a different character, but drawn with a keen discrimination, a nice discernment of coquetry, rarely met with. She is the most finished flirt of all the class—nature, and a heart totally uneducated, no less than the scheming of an ambitious mother, made her a very beautiful fiend. He who quarrels with the loves of Edward Weston and Agnes Grey, must have read the novel, and studied human nature indifferently. We commend the work cordially to our readers, admonishing them that they will complain of its shortness; for we are mistaken if they do not find themselves, on closing the book, desirous—as we felt—of following the heroine in the holy duties and daily beauty of her life in her new sphere. * * * * * _The Poetical and Prose Writings of Charles Sprague. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._