from the hut to the skies, and pours the light of heaven on all she touches by the way. Humor and pathos, fun and earnestness, fiery indignation and loving charity, detailed truths and bold imaginations meet in her singularly rich, graphic, natural, and original pages. We have often heard fault found with them by the artificial, as fault is always found with things fresh and natural; but for ourselves we would not willingly lose a single line she has ever written. No affectation, no cant, no sickly feeling, no weakness, no inflation, no appealing for petty sympathy, no writing for the sake of seeming fine, does she ever indulge in. She coins words at will, for she writes from her heart and is no purist; but we feel them to be appropriate, and requisite to express the shade of thought in question: we may laugh at them at first, but so natural and naive are they that we soon find them stealing into our own vocabulary. The beneficial effect of such writings upon American women cannot be overestimated. They act as invigorating tonics, courses of beefsteak and iron upon the somewhat too fragile loveliness, the exacting and fastidious fine-ladyism, the morbid helplessness, far too prevalent among them. Their ideal of womanhood has been wrong, narrow and contracted, wanting in strength, breadth, and charity. Miss Muloch and Gail Hamilton, while cherishing the sanctity of womanhood, are giving broader views, higher aims, truer delicacy, and greater self-reliance to their plastic sex. Their lessons and examples are bracing as the sea breeze, and soothing as air fresh from the piny mountain. Gail Hamilton dares to call things by their right names; humbugs die and shams perish as her clear, deep eyes gaze upon them. She has the bravery of virtue, and battles courageously with wrong, selfishness, and weakness, though we always feel it is a woman's arm that strikes the blow, and the Halicarnassuses of earth are ready to kneel to receive it. But that she has explicitly forbidden all intrusion into her privacy, we would say more about her. Meantime we frankly offer her our sympathy and humble admiration, our true and leal homage, our grateful appreciation of her strong, womanly, truthful, pure, and generous nature. Move on in peace, fair iconoclast of false idols, stripper of tinsel shrines, bringer of pleasant hours to the quiet home-hearth, vigorous painter of home tasks and duties; and may Halicarnassus feed upon your pungent and salty wit, drink the wine of your valiant and patriotic heart, and bask in the sunshine of your loyal and loving soul forever and ever! OUR OLD HOME: A Series of English Sketches. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.