It is always a boon to historical literature when a man of learning and industry devotes himself to a monograph of any particular person or period. When we saw, therefore, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, the able and interesting papers by Mr. Cunningham, on the history of one who, whatever might have been her life, so died, that Tennison did not hesitate to preach her funeral sermon, we felt sure that those papers could never be allowed to remain the "sole property" of the readers and admirers of our good friend Sylvanus Urban; and we have proved right in our anticipation. _The Story of Nell Gwyn, and the Sayings of Charles II., related and collected_ by Peter Cunningham, which has just been issued, consists of a reprint of those papers, greatly enlarged and increased in value by the information which has reached the author since they appeared in their original form. We know of no volume of the same extent calculated to give a more graphic or faithful picture of the heartlessness and depravity of the age of profligacy in which his heroine lived, an age which furnishes a striking proof how true it is that individuals, communities, and even whole nations, will after a time seek compensation for a state of gloomy and unchristian fanaticism in one of unbridled licentiousness. Mr. Cunningham has, in this handsomely illustrated volume, treated a subject which required very nice handling with great tact; and his book deserves to be placed on the shelves with Pepys and Evelyn, as a necessary supplement to them. Can we give it higher praise? Its quaint and characteristic binding is a clever fac-simile of the morocco binding which Charles II. so loved. We are indebted to the publishers of the _National Illustrated Library_ for a new memoir of the great founder of American independence. _The Life of General Washington, First President of the United States, written by himself; comprising his Memoirs and Correspondence, as prepared by him for publication, including several Original Letters now first printed_, edited by the Rev. C. W. Upham, forms two volumes, which have been written or compiled on the principle, now we believe first applied to Washington, of making the subject of the memoir, its far as possible, his own biographer. This task Mr. Upham has executed with much ability and excellent judgment; and we know of no work calculated to give the general reader a better or more correct idea of the personal character of one of whom the Americans boast, that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Some of our readers may be interested to know that the collection of black-letter ballads, formerly in the Heber collection, and described in the _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, vol. iv. pp. 28-33., was sold on Monday last at the auction of Mr. Utterson's library at Messrs. Sotheby's. After a rather brisk bidding, Mr. Halliwell became the purchaser at the sum of 104_l._ BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.