This book can hardly be characterized as an important addition to elegant or learned literature; nor, indeed, does it aspire to any such distinction. We notice it, in passing, as giving us a glimpse into that world within the world, over whose surface we walk every day, scarcely conscious of its existence; and we accept also the opportunity to make due and honorable mention of the services of that class of men through whose sagacity, integrity, and steadfastness the rest of us are enabled to become sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights. It is well occasionally to recollect how far the safety and order of the city depend upon a brave, vigilant, and trustworthy police, that a due recognition of the fact may serve both as acknowledgment for the past and increased security for the future. The brief chronological sketch at the beginning of the book furnishes many curious and interesting facts of old as well as new time, some of which we should, on the whole, be rather glad to forget. Without confessing that we were sinners above others, we yet are not so clean given over to mutual admiration as to take special pleasure in learning that Hugh Bowett was banished for maintaining that he was free from original sin, (though in our day we generally find such saints disagreeable enough to deserve banishment,)--nor that Oliver Holmes was whipped for being a Baptist,--nor that William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson were hung on the Common as Antinomians and heretics,--nor that a Frenchman, who was _suspected_ of setting a fire near the dock, which consumed eighty buildings, was sentenced to stand in the pillory, to have both ears cut off, pay charges of court, give five hundred pounds bonds with sureties, and stand committed till sentence was performed. We must also suspect the early English traveller, Mr. Ward, of a little Old-Country prejudice, when he writes of Boston,--"The buildings, like their women, are neat and handsome; and their streets, like the hearts of their men, are paved with pebbles. They have four churches, built with clapboards and shingles, and supplied with four ministers,--one a scholar, one a gentleman, one a dunce, and one a clown. The captain of a ship met his wife in the street after a long voyage, and kissed her, for which he was fined ten shillings. What a happiness, thought I, do we enjoy in Old England, where we can not only kiss our own wives, but other men's, without a danger of penalty!" Unquestionably Boston was no place for Mr. Ward, and Mr. Ward not at all the man for Boston. Yet, with an occasional blemish and many a casualty, the record is also one of good works and alms-deeds.