MR. WILLIAM O. STODDARD AND COL. JOHN HAY have each prepared ‘A Life of Abraham Lincoln.’ Each of these gentlemen was President Lincoln’s secretary during the civil war and had exceptionally good opportunities for studying his life and character. Mr. Stoddard’s biography has just been given to the public from the press of Fords, Howard & Hulbert, and is an octavo book of 508 pages, with illustrations. The story of Mr. Lincoln’s life, though often told, is always new and interesting, and in the hands of Mr. Stoddard is so entertaining, so rich in anecdote and incident, and sparkles with so much humor, that it is invested with a greater charm than ever; while the book contains so much information that is of permanent value to the student of history that it cannot fail to receive an unusually cordial welcome. * * * * * LEOPOLD VON RANKE, the eminent historian, is the author, and G. W. Prothero, the English editor and translator, of an important work on ‘Universal History,’ the first volume of which has just been published by Harper and Brothers. We quote from _Harpers’ Magazine_ as follows: The entire work, when completed, will be a universal history of the world from the earliest historic period until our own day. Of this great undertaking he has completed four volumes, covering the earlier periods, and the volume now published relates to the oldest historical group of nations—the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Assyrian and other Asiatic nations—and the Greeks. Every page is instinct with broad and philosophic generalization, and the statement of unexpected but most convincing facts and conclusions. Its style is perfect; the reader is delighted by the charm of its steadily flowing narrative, while he is instructed by its revelations of the origins and development of things which have exerted, and continue to exert, a powerful influence upon mankind, and have thus a universal interest and application. Those who are curious may here find the record of the first development of small independent communities into nations, of the first maritime expedition and the first systematic war by land, of the first endowment of the individual in society with those rights and immunities which are the foundation of all civil order, of the first tragic person in history, of the first establishment of the principles of hereditary monarchy and democracy, of the first conquering power which we encounter in the history of the world, of the first time that the power of money made itself felt in the internal affairs of an important community, of the first employment of mercenary troops, and a multiplicity of other “first things” in history, whose analogues, parallels and counterparts are traced by the great historian down through the centuries to our own day. The volume before us brings the history down to the struggle