countrywomen to literature. Mrs. Mowatt is entitled to a high rank among our female novelists. Mrs. Lee, by her lives of Jean Paul and the Buckminsters and the Old Painters, her novel of "Naomi or Boston Two Hundred Years Ago," and other works, is omitted with about as much reason as the Prince of Denmark might be from Hamlet. Another lady of this name, the authoress of "The Huguenots," "The Three Experiments of Living," "The Life and Times of Luther," &c., we believe has done more good by her writings than any other woman in America, and for literary abilities she is entitled to distinguished praise. Miss Peabody is too well known by her essays in Æsthetics to need characterization. Mrs. Follen is one of the best known, and most esteemed female writers of the time. Mrs. Brooks's "Idomen, a Tale of the Vale of Yumuri," is an exquisite production, which alone would preserve the name of _Maria del Occidente_ in the lists of illustrious women. Mrs. Whitman is a writer of remarkable acuteness and richness, as is shown by her essays on the Transcendental Philosophy. Mrs. Putnam (a sister of James Russell Lowell), is distinguished not more for that masterly controversy which she carried on last summer with the _North American Review_, respecting the Revolutions in Northern Europe, than for that extensive and varied learning, among the fruits of which were the first American translations of Swedish and Danish literature, including some of the novels of Miss Bremer. Mrs. Southworth, by her "Deserted Wife," "Mother-in-law," &c., appears to have acquired a larger share of popularity than is enjoyed by any of her female American contemporaries. Miss A. E. Dupuy, authoress of "The Conspirator" (lately published by the Appletons), has won praise from eminent critics in the same department. Miss Alice Carey, by her "Ill-starred," and other novelettes, has evinced the possession of such genius as entitles her to a place in the very highest rank of our literary women. And who that knows any thing of American literature forgets Mrs. Sedgwick, who wrote "Allen Prescott;" or Mrs. Louisa J. Hall, who wrote "Joanna of Naples?" We think we have shown that Dr. John S. Hart knows nothing about "The Female Prose Writers of America." Our readers certainly can judge for themselves; but to us the selection of the persons who are named in the second of the above columns, to the exclusion of those whose names are in the first column, would seem to be an elaborate quiz, if the manner of the thing did not evince a genuine earnestness of purpose. We might have dismissed the book with half a dozen lines, but when we have occasion to condemn any performance thus decidedly, we think it but fair to prove the justice of our judgment. * * * * *