The first of the old historians to be edited in the light of the modern discoveries in Assyria, is _Herodotus_, to appear in a new English version, translated from the text of Gaisford, and edited by Rev. GEORGE RAWLINSON, assisted by Col. RAWLINSON and Sir J. G. WILKINSON, with copious notes, illustrating the history and geography by Herodotus, from the most recent sources of information, and embodying the chief results, historical and ethnographical, which have been arrived at in the progress of cuneiform and hieroglyphical discovery. This edition will be printed for Mr. Murray in four octavo volumes. The translation has been undertaken from a conviction of the inadequacy of any existing version to the wants of the time. The unfaithfulness of Beloe, and the unpleasantness of his style, render his version insufficient in an age which dislikes affectation and requires accuracy; while the only others which exist are at once too close to the original to be perused with pleasure by the general reader, and defective in respect of scholarship. * * * * * SIR JAMES STEPHEN, whose brilliant contributions to the Edinburgh Review are familiar through Mr. Hart's Philadelphia edition, has nearly ready _Lectures on the History of France_, and _The History of France_, compiled, translated and abridged from the works of De Sismondi, and of other recent French authors, and illustrated with historical maps and chronological and other tables. * * * * * J. S. BUCKINGHAM, the author of fifty volumes of _Travels_, (of which eight large octavos are about our own unfortunate country,) has at length succeeded in his long contest with the East India Company for indemnification for his losses as an oriental journalist. The bill before parliament for restitution has been withdrawn, the court of directors and the government having agreed to settle upon him a pension of four hundred pounds per annum. * * * * * We perceive that the British government has bestowed a pension of five hundred dollars a year on Mrs. JAMESON. We think of no Englishwoman who is more deserving of such distinction. Mrs. Jameson has spent a pretty long life in the most judicious exercise of her literary abilities, and as a critic of art she is unquestionably superior to any woman who has ever written on the subject. One of her most popular works, the _Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second_, will be issued in a splendid edition, with all the original portraits, in a few weeks, by the Appletons of this city. * * * * * SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON has published _Critical Discussions in Philosophy, Literature, and Education with University Reform_, chiefly from the Edinburgh Review, but now corrected, vindicated, and enlarged. * * * * *