von Horn, lately published at Frankfort, are worth the attention of those whose novel reading is not confined to our own language. The style is clear and pleasing, and the characters full of truth and naturalness. The _Erzaehlungen aus dem Volksleben der Schwerz_ (Tales of Popular Life in Switzerland) by Ieremias Gotthelf, also deserves a respectful mention. Gotthelf is a religious moralist, who sets forth the doctrines of virtue, religious trust in God, and the blessed influence of domestic life, in a pleasing and effective manner. * * * * * DR. SCHAeFFNER'S _Geschichte der Rechtsverfassung Frankreichs_ ("History of French Law"), just published, is noticed with high praise by the _Frankfurt Oberpostamts Zeitung_. The work has just been completed by the publication of the fourth volume, which only confirms the reputation which the earlier portions gained for the author among the jurists of all Europe. Dr. Schaeffner, with equal learning and perspicacity, sets forth the relation of French law, and the changes it has undergone, to the history of the political institutions of the country. In this respect the work interests a much wider public than is ordinarily addressed by a juridical treatise. It opens with an account of the conflict between the elements of Roman and German law in France. Then it exposes the establishment of the feudal aristocracy and its contests with the power of the Church; next, the culmination of the royal authority, based on a bureaucratic administration, its final fall into the hands of the triumphant revolution, and its subjection to the various powers that have succeeded each other within the last sixty years. The fourth and last volume contains the history of the Constitution, of Law, and of the administration from the revolution of 1789 to the revolution of 1848. Dr. Schaeffner exhibits in this volume no admiration for the various attempts to re-create the State according to abstract theories; he goes altogether for moderate progress, gradual reform, and keeping up the relation between the present and the past. * * * * *