But his obliging disposition made him equally ready to execute commissions for members of the Bonaparte family, his relations with whom grew closer and more interesting at a period subsequent to that which is embraced in this volume. Many other notabilities, both American and European, have more or less prominence in its pages. Some letters from Mrs. Grote are especially deserving of notice. As long as it is confined to personal topics the narrative is never dull. Without being distinguished for vigor or wit, it has the graceful and sprightly garrulity characteristic of the well-preserved veteran. Unfortunately, it betrays also the tendency to tediousness which belongs to a revered epoch, much of it, being devoted to persons and things seen only from a distance and without the powers of vision requisite for penetrating their true character. But, in spite of this defect, the book is exceedingly readable and enjoyable, and we trust to have a continuation of it which may show a restraining influence exercised with kindness and tact, such as were so often exerted by the author for the benefit of his friends. The Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg. By Anne Ayres. New York: Harper & Brothers. There could not well be a stronger contrast than between the subject of this book and that of the one just noticed. We have called Mr. Wikoff a model idler, and with at least equal truth we may call Dr. Muhlenberg a model worker, not because he was unremitting and methodical in labor or because his work was his delight, but because it was consecrated by a devoted singleness of purpose and crowned by the noblest achievements. The life of the founder of St. Luke's Hospital and St. Johnland, as exhibited in this faithful record, has the simplicity and grandeur of an antique statue, and in the contemplation of it the marvel of its rare perfection grows, till we are half inclined to ask whether it, too, be not some relic of the remote past rather than a product of our own age. Saintly purity, unbounded beneficence, intense earnestness and great-hearted liberality of sentiment were never more symmetrically blended than in the character of "the great presbyter," whose ministrations were neither inspired nor confined by any narrower dogma than "that love to man, flowing from love to God," which, as he himself, with no lack of humility, said, "had been their impulse." It has been justly observed that "he was eminently the common property of a common Christianity," and not less truly that "there is, and ever will be, more of Christian charity in the world because Dr. Muhlenberg has lived in it as he did." He was perhaps not a man of extraordinary intellect, but his singularly healthy mind, with its union of resoluteness and candor, sound sense and lively fancy, gave the needed counterpoise to his moral qualities, keeping his enterprises within the domain of the useful and the practical, and thus saving him from the disappointments that too