Scarcely a year has elapsed since the appearance of the first volume of Mr. BLAINE'S _Twenty Years in Congress_, which details the history of our time from the outbreak of Secession to the death of President Lincoln. To maintain the interest attached to that work, a second and concluding volume ought to have been published ere this. Indeed, the public had a right to expect it. But, now, another bid for public consideration and favor has been put forth under the rather attractive title of _Three Decades of Federal Legislation_.[7] The author is the Hon. S.S. Cox of New York, at one time a formidable opponent of Mr. BLAINE in the halls of Congress, and at the present time American minister to Turkey. Mr. COX was a member of Congress for twenty-four years, his four terms from an Ohio district covering the war and the period immediately preceding it. As a politician, he was always ranked on the Democratic side, and was universally regarded as one of the closest, most competent and most conscientious observer of men and things. His acknowledged literary skill and his passion for accuracy rendered it almost certain that his history would be both fascinating and truthful. Contemporary history is at the present moment in high favor. All intelligent people realize that the records of the last fifty years are of more vital importance to living Americans than are the annals of all previous eras. Hence, when a man so thoroughly equipped with the gifts of mind and of expression as Mr. Cox has shown himself to be in earlier books from his pen,--we say when such a man sets out to relate the story of his time, it follows without further argument that his work will not only be sought but will be read.