It will be observed that we have criticized this work from a scientific rather than from a popular point of view. As questions of popular interest, it is perhaps of very little importance whether the earth's orbit will or will not become circular in the course of millions of years, or in what the principle of areas consists or does not consist. But if such facts or principles are to be stated at all, we have a right to see them stated correctly. However, in the first nine chapters, which part of the book will be most read, few mistakes of any importance occur, and the method pursued by Newton in deducing the law of gravitation is explained in the author's most felicitous style. * * * * * _El Fureidîs_. By the Author of "The Lamplighter" and "Mabel Vaughan." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. That large army of readers whose mere number gave celebrity at once to the authoress of "The Lamplighter" will at first be disappointed with what they may call the location of this new romance by Miss Cummins. The scene is laid in Syria, instead of New England, and the "village" known to New Yorkers as Boston gives way to "El Fureidîs," a village in the valley of Lebanon. But while so swift a transition from the West to the East may disappoint that "Expectation" which Fletcher tells us "sits i' the air," and which we all know is not to be balked with impunity, there can be no doubt, that, in shifting the scene, the authoress has enabled us to judge her essential talent with more accuracy. Possessing none of the elements which are thought essential to the production of a sensation, "The Lamplighter" forced itself into notice as a "sensation book." The writer was innocent of all the grave literary crimes implied in such a distinction. The first hundred and fifty pages were as simple, and as true to ordinary nature, as the daisies and buttercups of the common fields; the remaining two hundred pages repeated the stereotyped traditions and customary hearsays which make up the capital of every professional story-teller. The book began in the spirit of Jane Austen, and ended in that of Jane Porter.