After Mr. Collins is fairly embarked, however, on his voyage of exploration, his book becomes more interesting. He shows himself a thoroughly good-humored, observant, and intelligent traveller. If, in the earlier pages of his journal, he is indiscreetly communicative as to the good cheer he enjoyed, in the later ones he does not waste time in grumbling at discomforts and lenten fare. He observes minutely and describes well all that he sees along the great river,--the people, the productions, the scenery, and the vegetation. He gives us a lively impression of the capabilities of the country, and of the results which are to follow the introduction of steam-navigation on the Amoor. Like a true American, he believes in the manifest destiny of Russia, and looks forward to the not distant time when, with a kind of retributive justice, the Muscovite is to swallow up the Manchew, as Charles Lamb used to call him. Already American merchants have established themselves at the mouth of the Amoor, and, unless Mr. Collins is oversanguine, a great trade is to spring up between the Californians and their opposite neighbors on the eastern coast of Asia. On the whole, we take leave of Mr. Collins with a feeling of decided esteem for his genuine good qualities, and can safely commend his book as both lively and instructive. _Revolutions in English History_. By ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D. Vol. I. _Revolutions of Race_. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860. pp. xvi., 663. We do not think that Dr. Vaughan has been happy in his choice of a title for his book. It is more properly an introduction to the study of English history, than the limitation of the title would seem to import. The Saxon occupation of England is, perhaps, the only event which may fitly be called a revolution of race. The volume, however, is a solid and sensible one. Dr. Vaughan is not a brilliant writer; but brilliancy is not always the best quality in an historian, for it as often leaves readers dazzled as taught. A decidedly matter-of-fact turn of mind prevents his being a theorist, so that he does not formulate characters and events in accordance with some fixed preconception. His learning seems sometimes limited by what was accessible to him at the least expense of study,--as, for example, in his account of the religion of the Teutonic races, where he depends almost altogether on Mallet. His style is generally clear and unpretending, never remarkable for any rhetorical merit, sometimes disfigured by inaccuracies, which, had they occurred in an American book, would have been attributed by English critics to the low grade of our culture and civilization. In one instance he is guilty of the barbarous cockneyism of using the word _party_ as an equivalent for _person_. He speaks of the Roman Wall as having been kept _perpetually_ guarded when he means _constantly_, of border land as "separating between" two races, and of ornaments made "from jet."