When one takes the book piecemeal, however, the author's statements of his own observations and analysis are so thorough and so admirable, his drawings so good, and the interest of many separate portions so great, that it seems hardly fair to complain of the rather fragmentary effect of their combination, and the rather obscure tenor of the whole. Professor Clark holds that the old doctrine, _Omne vivum ex ovo_, is now virtually abandoned by all, since all admit the origin of vast numbers of animated individuals by budding and self-division. There are, in fact, types of animals, as the Zooephyta, where these appear the normal modes of reproduction, and the egg only an exceptional process. From this he thinks it but a slight step to admit the possibility of spontaneous generation, and he accordingly does admit it. Touching the development theory, his conclusion is that the barriers between the five great divisions of the animal world are insurmountable, but "that, by the multiplication and intensifying of individual differences, and the projection of these upon the branching lines of the courses of development from a lower to a higher life, the diverse and successively more elevated types among each grand division have originated upon this globe." (p. 248.) This sentence, if any, gives the key-note of the book. To say that this is one of its clearest statements, may help to justify the above criticisms on the rest. _A Noble Life._ By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman," etc. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1866. The story of a man born cruelly deformed and infirm, with a body dwarfish, but large enough to hold a good heart and clear brain,--and of such a man's living many years of pain, happy in the blessings which his great wealth and high rank, and, above all, his noble nature, enable him to confer on every one approaching him,--could hardly have been told more simply and pathetically than it is in this book, but it might certainly have been told more briefly. The one slight incident of the fiction--the marriage of the Earl of Cainforth's _protegee_ and protectress and dearest friend to his worthless cousin, who, having found out that the heirless Earl will leave her his fortune, wins her heart by deceit, and then does his worst to break it--occurs when the book is half completed, and scarcely suffices to interest, since it is so obvious what the end must be; while the remaining pages, devoted to study of the Earl's character, do not develop much that is new in literature or humanity. Still, the story has its charm: it is healthful, unaffected, and hopeful; and most people will read it through, and be better for having done so. _Literature in Letters; or, Manners, Art, Criticism, Biography, History, and Morals, illustrated in the Correspondence of Eminent Persons._ Edited by JAMES HOLCOMBE, LL. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.