Those accustomed to the wearisome labor of deciphering illegible handwriting will welcome the appearance of any 'standard text-book enabling all to become tolerable writers.' What a desideratum! Let the disappointment over manuscripts frequently rejected, simply because illegible, and the despair of printers, tell. The book before us seems well adapted to attain the end it proposes. The writer says: 'This work is no creation of a leisure hour, but a careful elaboration of _practical_ notes, taken in the midst of active duties. The materials of which it is made are facts, not embodied in our school books, which it appeared important for all to know, together with conclusions drawn from them, and answers to questions of practical interest, which have arisen in the course of my school and after experience, to which no books within ordinary reach could afford satisfactory explanation. These facts and observations have gradually accumulated till it has occurred to me that a compilation of them, properly arranged, might prove as acceptable to other inquirers as such a work would have been to myself.' This book is full of valuable information in all that relates to the abused and neglected art of penmanship, and we cordially recommend it to schools, teachers, and pupils. ANNETTE; OR, THE LADY OF THE PEARLS. By Alexander Dumas (the younger), author of 'La Dame aux Camelias; or, Camille, the Camellia Lady.' Translated by Mrs. W. R. A. Johnson. Frederick A. Brady, publisher and bookseller, 24 Ann street, New York. A novel in the Eugene Sue, Dumas, father and son, style. The plot is complicated, and the translation flowing and spirited. The novels of this school are peculiar. No sense of right and wrong ever seems to dawn upon their heroes or heroines; no intimations of an outraged Decalogue ever add the least embarrassment to the difficulties of their position. The events grow entirely out of human incidents, passions, and interests--conscience has no part to play in the involved drama. After passing through seas of _naive_ intrigue and _innocent_ vice, we are quite astonished at the close of 'The Lady of the Pearls' to be landed upon a short moral. POLITICAL FALLACIES: An Examination of the False Assumptions, and Refutation of the Sophistical Reasonings, which have brought on this Civil War. By George Junkin, D.D., LL.D. New York: Chas. Scribner, 124 Grand street. 1863.