_Molly Bawn_ disarms criticism by its exuberant gayety, its lusciousness of description, its imperturbable good-humor and self-satisfaction, and its utter absence of responsibility. What can an auld _critic_ do wi' a young _book_? And such a very young book!--so full of sweets and prettinesses, of audacious coquetries, and of jokes delivered with such a simple and fatuous joy that the meed of our laughter cannot be denied them! If we were to suggest that there is rather a surfeit of these good things, our objection would be liable to be set aside as the acrid cavilling of one whose taste for sweetmeats has been vitiated by dyspeptic tendencies. We can only recommend the book with hearty good-will to those whose sweet tooth still preserves its enamel, congratulating them upon the acquisition of a novel which may be read without any of those harassing perplexities or dismal ideas in which petulant authors embroil our tender susceptibilities--a novel in which the utmost pathos is in the little poutings of true lovers; in which kissing goes by favor, and favor is lavishly distributed; in which ugliness is the only crime, and virtue, or rather beauty (which is the same thing), is unfailingly triumphant. The stock scenery and properties, together with the usual characters of a society novel appear in _Molly Bawn_; and the personages are invested, if not with the divine gift of life, with a certain wire-strung movement which does not lack vivacity, and in some cases novelty; the villain, for example, having but little employment in his original capacity, and being utilized as a laughing-stock for the amusement of his victims. Even the grammar of the book can hardly be taken _au sérieux_. It exhibits a serene carelessness of rules, with a tendency to bulls which suggests that the heroine's nationality is also that of the author. A sentence in which we are told of a house that it is "larger, at first sight, than it in reality is," strikes a blow at the very essence of things, and those much-abused words _will_ and _would_ usurp the place of their relatives, _shall_ and _should_, with a uniformity that proves the absence of negligence. Samuel Johnson. By Leslie Stephen. (English Men of Letters, edited by John Morley.) New York: Harper & Brothers.