It is needless to say that we earnestly commend this book to all who are truly interested in the great questions of the time. TRAGEDY OF SUCCESS. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. Another of the extraordinary series bearing the motto, '_Aux plus desheritees le plus d'amour_'--works as strongly marked by talent as by misapplied taste. The dramatic ability, the deep vein of poetry, the earnest thought, faith, and humanity of these dramas or drama, are beyond question--but very questionable to our mind is the extreme love of over-adorning truth which can induce a writer to represent plantation negroes as speaking elegant language and using lofty, tender, and poetic sentiments on almost all occasions, or at least to a degree which is exceptional and not regular. If we hope that the time may come when all of GOD'S children will be raised to this high standard of thought and culture, so much the more reason is there why they should not now be exaggerated and placed in a false light. Yet, as we have said, the work abounds in noble thoughts and true poetry. It may be read with somewhat more than 'profit,' for it has within it a great and loving heart. True _humanity_ is impressed on every page, and where that exists greatness and beauty are never absent. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. By VICTOR HUGO. New-York: Dick and Fitzgerald. 1862. Many years ago--say some thirty-odd--when French literature still walked in the old groves, and the classic form and style of the old revolution still swayed all the minor minds, there sprung up a reaection in the so-called romantic school of which Victor Hugo became the leader. The medieval renaissance, which fifty years before had penetrated Germany and England, and indeed all the North, was late in coming to France, but when it did come it stirred the Latin Quarter and Young France wonderfully. If its results were less remarkable in literature than in any other country, they were at least more admired in their day. Principal among these results was the novel now before us. And this book is really a tolerable imitation of Walter Scott. The feverish spirit of modern France craved, indeed, stronger ingredients than the Wizard of the North was wont to gather, and the _Hunchback_ is accordingly 'sensational.' It has in fact been called extravagant--yes, forced and unnatural. Even ordinary readers were apt to say as much of it. We well remember meeting many years ago in a well-thumbed circulating-library copy of the _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ the following doggerel on the last page: 'In Paris when to the Greve you go, Pray do not grieve if VICTOR HUGO Should there be hanging by a rope, Without the blessing of the Pope, Or that of any human creature On him who libels human nature.'