JOHN P. KENNEDY has in the press of Putnam a new and carefully revised edition of his _Swallow Barn, or a Sojourn in the Old Dominion_, one of the most pleasant books illustrative of local manners and rural life that has ever been written. It is more like Irving's Bracebridge Hall than any other work we can think of, and is as felicitous a picture of old Virginia as Jeffrey Crayon has given us of Merrie England. The first edition of Swallow Barn was published twenty years ago; the new one is to be beautifully illustrated in the style of Irving's _Sketch Book_. * * * * * Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER, the learned Professor of the South Carolina College, has been elected a member of the National Institute of France. Dr. Lieber is a German, but he has resided in this country many years. Among Americans who have been thus complimented are Mr. Prescott and Mr. Bancroft. The late Henry Wheaton was also a member of the Institute. * * * * * The entertaining book, _Ship and Shore_, by the late Rev. WALTER COLTON, has just been published by A. S. Barnes & Co., who will as soon as practicable complete the republication of all Mr. Colton's works, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry T. Cheever. * * * * * The _Domestic Bible_, by the Rev. Ingram Cobbin, just published in a very handsome quarto volume in this city by S. Hueston, we think decidedly the best edition of the Scriptures for common use that has ever been printed in the English language. Its chief merit consists in this, that without embracing a syllable of debatable matter in the form of notes, it contains every needful explanation and illustration of the text that can be gathered from ancient art, literature and history, expressed with great distinctness and compactness, together with such well-executed wood engravings as unquestionable knowledge in this age could suggest--omitting altogether the absurd fancy embellishments which in most of the illustrated Bibles are so offensive to the taste, and so worthless as guides to the understanding. The editor we believe is a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in England, but he has had the good sense to avoid, so far as we can see, everything that would vex the sectarian feelings of any one who admits that the Bible itself is true. * * * * *