MR. ISAAC C. PRAY is the author of a beautiful volume on the eve of publication, on the History of the Musical Drama. One hundred and sixty pages are devoted to "Parodi and the Opera." Mr. Pray is a capital critic in this department; he has been many years familiar with the various schools of musical art, and at home behind the scenes in the great opera houses of Europe: so that probably no writer in America has more ample material for such a work as he has undertaken. He proposes a series of some half-dozen volumes on the subject. * * * * * MR. FREDERIC SAUNDERS, an industrious literary antiquary, is publishing in the _Methodist Quarterly Review_ and the _Christian Recorder_, a series of pleasant reminiscences of the great lights of the church in England, in the last generation. Among his papers that have appeared are entertaining sketches of Edward Irving and Dr. Chalmers. * * * * * "THE DUTY OF A BIOGRAPHER," is very justly described by a writer on this subject in the last _Democratic Review_. They certainly managed these things better in the days of king Cheops, but biographies would still be written truthfully and to some purpose if there were more honesty in criticism--if the mob of people who fancy they may themselves sometimes be heroes of such writing, did not for their prospective safety denounce every _post-mortem_ exhibition of infirmities; or if to the creatures most largely endowed with the means of hearing, slavering were not more easy than dissection. ASTONISHING ADVENTURE OF JAMES BOTELLO. WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY W. S. MAYO, M.D. AUTHOR OF KALOOLAH, ETC.