In spite of these faults, however, Mr. Kingsley's reputation is not greater than he deserves. He is one of the most sincere; truthful, and courageous of writers, has no reserves or concealments, and pours out his feelings and opinions exactly as they lie in his own heart and brain. We at least feel assured that he has no imperfections which he does not express, and that there is no disagreement between the book and the man. He is commonly on the right side in the social and political movements of the day, if he does not always give the right reasons for his position. His love, both of Nature and human nature, is intense and deep, and this gives a cordiality, freshness, and frankness to his writings which more than compensate for their defects. The present volume of his miscellanies contains not only his essays and reviews, but his four lectures on "Alexandria and her Schools," and his "Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers." Of the essays, those on "North Devon" and "My Winter Garden" are the best specimens of his descriptive power, and those on "Raleigh" and "England from Wolsey to Elizabeth," of his talents and accomplishments as a thinker on historical subjects. The literary papers on "Tennyson," "Burns," "The Poetry of Sacred and Literary Art," and "Hours with the Mystics," are full of striking and suggestive, if somewhat perverse, thought. The volume, as a whole, is read with mingled feelings of vexation and pleasure; but whether provoked or delighted, we are always interested both in the author and his themes. _A Journey due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia._ By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. Although the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest, its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description, lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its confident, decisive, "knowing" tone, its independence of the judgments of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight and self-elation.