through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them." We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to which they belong. To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is "... full of great dark meanings like the sea:" and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal man, that engage us. Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the world:-- "Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee, But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired; Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired, Like blood to his heart. The course of study he Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree He took was high; it was wise wretchedness. He suffered perfectly, and gained no less A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth. The autumn of that seed is in these pages."