This is, on all sides, admitted to be the very best of the many cook books that have been issued by the press of late years. The editor, be she whom she may, understands the art of preparing a delicious meal, of any material, it seems, and our taste has passed favorable judgment upon a fruit cake of most inviting look, and of quality the best. A lady, in whose judgment we have the most unbounded confidence, pronounces this “the only cook book worthy of a housekeeper’s perusal.” Next to the intellectual feast, which is spread before the reader of Graham each month, we suppose, will come a snug breakfast, a glorious good dinner, or a cozy, palate-inviting supper of birds, with mushrooms. Now, without Peterson’s Cook Book, the meal cannot be perfection. Of this we feel convinced. * * * * * _The Gallery of Illustrious American Daguerreotypes by Brady. Engraved by D’Avignon. Edited by C. Edwards Lester, assisted by an Association of Literary men. 205 Broadway, New York._ We have received the sixth number of this truly national work—the first and second we have before this noticed. The third, fourth and fifth numbers the publishers have omitted to send us. As we have before stated, this is a publication of great merit, and cannot fail to attract a liberal encouragement both in this country and abroad. The portraits are executed with wonderful fidelity, and are the best specimens of the lithographic art we have ever seen. Mr. Brady deserves much praise for his exact and skillful daguerreotypes, from which D’Avignon has produced these masterly “counterfeit presentments” of our great national characters. The selection from our living worthies have been well made. The publishers have not confined themselves to the faces of our elder public men long familiar in the print shops, but they have well chosen alike from the old and the young—those who have been long famous by past services, and those whose genius and precocious merit have excited a keen interest and a just pride in the heart of every American. This number is adorned by a life-like portrait of Col. Fremont; and the editor, Mr. Lester, has in this, as he has in those numbers which have preceded it, and which have been sent to us, given a brief and pointed sketch of the marvelous youth whose adventures in the camp of science outstrips the wildest tales of romantic daring. A work like this must prosper. * * * * * _The History of the Confessional. By John Henry Hopkins, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._