With this incapacity to understand the diverse springs of human action, Mr. Reade is clearly no novelist in the true sense of the term. He is, however, an admirable describer and a capital story-teller. He is consequently always entertaining and secure of his reader. Yet, inasmuch as he professes to relate and describe only actual facts, we cannot but regret that he should have adopted a form which is ill suited to this object, and which makes him a mere retailer of other people's observations. In the book before us he paints the interior of Africa from somebody else's information: had he gone thither himself his picture would have had great value. So, too, he is continually instructing us about the processes used in the arts and manufactures; but his knowledge being gained at second hand and crammed for the occasion, we mistrust the teacher. If he would apply himself to such matters, and give us the results of his experience, our gain would be great. He could not, of course, as now, traverse the whole field; but what his teaching might lose in superficial extent would be more than made good by its greater accuracy and reliability. He might select, for instance, the useful art of coopering. We know his powers, we appreciate his genius. It is safe to say that a cask made in accordance with his directions, after he had served a short apprenticeship, would not only be fair to see and easy to handle, but would also hold water. This is more than we should venture to affirm of the plot of any of his novels. The Fishing Tourist. By Charles Hallock. New York: Harper & Brothers. I Go A-Fishing. By W. C. Prime. New York: Harper & Brothers. Mr. Hallock tells us in his preface that his province is to write an anglers' guide without embellishment. It would have been well if he had adhered to this plan. After some pages of high-flown periods he informs us that twenty-six years ago fly-fishing was in its infancy, being scarcely known in America, and but little practiced in England. If he had asserted that fly-fishing was scarcely known among his "green hills" at that period, and but little practiced in Hampshire county, the statement need not have been impugned; but hundreds of books have been written upon this art in England since the time of Dame Juliana Berners, and in America fifty years ago there existed many such practitioners as Fay, Eckley and Bethune.