"The subject hardly yields in romantic variety, strange turns of fortune, characters of strong expression, and tragedies of the deepest pathos, to anything created by the imagination. Within the period and in the land which was marked by the fortunes of Pedro of Castile, the scene is crowded with figures over which both history and song have thrown a lasting interest. The names of Planche of France, Inez de Castro of Portugal, Du Guesclin,--the Black Prince, the White Company--belong alike to romance and to reality. The very 'Don Juan' of Mozart and Byron plays his part for an hour as no fabulous gallant at the court of Seville; Moors and Christians join in the council or in the field here, as well as in the strains of the Romancero; and the desperate game played for a crown by the rival brothers whose more than Theban strife was surrounded by such various objects of pity, admiration or terror, wants no incident, from its commencement to its climax, to fill the just measure of a tragic theme. One more striking could scarcely have been desired by a poet; yet M. Mérimée, who claims that character, has handled it with the judgment and diligence of an historian." * * * * * Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest living American writer born in the present century, has just published, through Ticknor, Reed and Fields, a volume for juvenile readers, in the preface to which he says: "It has not been composed without a deep sense of responsibility. The author regards children as sacred, and would not for the world cast anything into the fountain of a young heart that might embitter and pollute its waters. And even in point of the literary reputation to be aimed at, juvenile literature is as well worth cultivating as any other. The writer, if he succeed in pleasing his little readers, may hope to be remembered by them till their own old age--a far longer period of literary existence than is generally attained by those who seek immortality from the judgments of full grown men." * * * * * An attentive correspondent of the _International_, at Vienna, mentions that letters have been received there from the eccentric but daring and intelligent American, Dr. Mathews, formerly of Baltimore, who, some years since, assumed the style of the Arabs, with a view to discovery in Northern and Central Africa. We hope to obtain further information of Dr. Mathews, respecting whose adventures there has not hitherto been anything in the journals for several years. * * * * *