the emotions of "a living presence." The sea and the mountains, the night and the storm, the "dewy morn," the "hush of eve," the "light of setting suns," the battle-field and the shipwreck, the chamber of death, the desert and the ruin, the rage of fierce passions, the calmness of despair, stamp themselves upon the reader's brain, and linger like the haunting effigies of personal experiences. Scrutiny reveals innumerable flaws, reflection discloses a want that makes the whole fabric seem little better than phantasmal; but we never lose the sense of an abounding life, of a vigor that cannot be repressed and a splendor that cannot be dimmed, of a genius always ripening, though condemned by its very nature to perpetual immaturity. We have left ourselves little space to speak of Mr. Nichol's execution of a not too easy task. With matter so abundant his restrictions in regard to treatment could not but press hardly upon him. Too often he is compelled to summarize baldly or to rely upon the reader's previous familiarity with details. But subject to the qualifications arising from the conditions imposed upon him, his performance may be pronounced satisfactory and successful. The arrangement is skilful, the story is well told, and the criticism, if somewhat deficient in definiteness and force, shows both sympathy and comprehension and steers with tolerable directness between the extremes of praise and censure. Opposing judgments are quoted or referred to with needless iteration, and sometimes, as in the case of Carlyle and Goethe, with an exaggerated emphasis and a misapprehension of the relative points of view. It would be easy to take exception also to particular judgments or the manner in which they are expressed. When we are told, in allusion to _Cain_, that "Lord Byron has elsewhere exhibited more versatility, fancy and richness of illustration, but nowhere else has he so nearly 'struck the stars,'" we cannot but demur to the substitution of a borrowed rhetorical phrase for the more literal statement which the preceding limitations lead us to expect. When we find it said of the _Vision of Judgment_ that "every line that does not _convulse with laughter_ stings or lashes," and of the _Letter to the Editor of the British Review_ that "no more laughter-compelling composition exists," we can only infer that Mr. Nichol's risible muscles are much more flexible than those of most people. But whatever its faults or shortcomings, this volume, as well from the deep interest of the subject as the ability with which it is handled, is one of the most agreeable, and can hardly fail to be one of the most widely read, of the series to which it belongs. Four Centuries of English Letters. Edited and arranged by W. Baptiste Scoones. New York: Harper & Brothers.