The characters are all invested with reality by skilfully introduced anecdotes, or by personal traits carelessly and happily sketched. But it is a costly expedient to give this reality, when our authors bring in pet names, and other "love-lispings," which are sacred in privacy and painfully ridiculous when exposed to the curious light. Many of us readers find all this mawkish and silly, and others of us are pained that to such scrutiny should be exposed the dearest secrets of affection, and are not anxious to have them exposed to our own gaze. It is too trying a confidence, too high an honor, to be otherwise than unwelcome. With this criticism we close our notice of "Say and Seal," in which we have been sparing neither of praise nor blame, earnestly thanking the authors for a book that is worth finding fault with. * * * * * _How Could He Help It? or, The Heart Triumphant_. By A.S. ROE. New York: Derby & Jackson. A fair representative of a class of books that are always pleasant reading, although written without taste, cultivation, or originality,--because they are obviously dictated by a kind heart and genuine earnestness. In this volume the numerous heroes (so similar in every respect that one might fancy them to be only one hero mysteriously multiplied, like Kehama) and the fair heroines (exactly equalling the heroes in number, we are happy to assure the tenderhearted reader) are not in the least interesting, except for sheer goodness of heart. This unaided moral excellence, however, fairly redeems the book, and so far softens even our critical asperity that we venture only to suggest,--first, that the utterly unprecedented _patois_ of Mrs. Kelly is not Irish, for which a careful examination of the context leads us to think it was intended,--secondly, that "if he had have done it" is equally guiltless of being English,--thirdly, that, if our author, desiring to describe the feelings of a lover holding his mistress's hand, was inspired by Tennyson's phrase of "dear wonder," he failed, in our opinion, to improve on his original, when he substituted "the fleshy treasure in his grasp." * * * * * _The New Tariff-Bill_. Washington. 1860.