We cannot divine the publisher’s object in engaging the services of “one of the best French Scholars in this Country,” and moreover “a member of the Philadelphia Bar,” to translate this miserable trash into bad English. Some of the later works of George Sand, undoubtedly evince genius, but the novel under consideration, one of the first products of her unregulated passions and speculative profligacy, has nothing in plot, character, incident, or style, to give piquancy to its coarseness. It is licentious, but then it is so stupid, that its perusal would be a penance to a _roué_. Its immorality and falsehood might have a charm to some minds, but the raciness of these qualities is spoiled by the detestable and yawn-provoking sentimentality by which they are pervaded. The publication of such books is an offence equally to taste and morals, and tends to corrupt the intellect as well as the conscience of such readers as are foolish enough to buy them, and bad enough to read them. One of the worst signs of the times is the systematic degradation of literature into a mere handmaid of profligacy, as exhibited in the numberless manufactories of cheap damnation spread all over the land—manufactories which send out an incessant stream of ugly looking pamphlet novels, whose leading claim to notice is their brazen brainlessness and stupid indecency. We have been informed that these things are read, but on what principles of human nature the assertion is made is a mystery to us. They are so absolutely unreadable, according to the worse view ever taken of the human mind by misanthrope or metaphysician, that we must be allowed to doubt the fact, and to congratulate the philanthropist that the devil, in this case, has underrated the taste even of our blackguards and flats. We do hope for the credit of the species, that if the popular heart and conscience are doomed to be corrupted by a cheap literature, it will not be done by such wretched stuff as forms the staple of George Sand’s “Indiana.” * * * * * _Women in America: her Work and her Reward. By Maria J. McIntosh. Author of “To Seem and To be,” etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._ The author of this volume has already distinguished herself as the writer of two popular novels, in which a distinct moral purpose is connected with well drawn characters and interesting events. In the present work she makes woman the reformer of social evils, and views her as she appears at the North, the South, and the West. There are many opinions expressed for which Miss McIntosh can only give what logicians call “the lady’s reason,” but, as a whole, the book is calculated to do good, and can be safely commended to the attention of “Women in America.” * * * * * JENNY LIND’S AMERICAN POLKA. COMPOSED BY N. STEENCKEN,