A singular work has recently been published by Decker of Berlin, entitled _Monasticus Irenæus, von Jerusalem, nach Bethlehem_ (or Irenæus Monasticus: a public message to the noble Lady Ida, Countess of Hahn-Hahn: for the profit and piety of all newly converted Catholics.) In this work we find much talent, deep learning, and abundance of Schleiermachian philosophy; but remark on the other hand the following weak points: Firstly, that the author cuts down a gnat with a scimitar, or in other words overrates the talent and abilities of his adversary; and, secondly, that he affects to assume the tone and style in which her work was written, even in the title. (The reader will remember that the work of the Countess was entitled "_From Jerusalem_," and bore the motto, "SOLI DEO GLORIA.") In other respects also is this work, if not decidedly wrong, at least quite indifferent. * * * * * LAMARTINE'S History of the Restoration is reviewed at length in the _Journal des Débats_, by M. Cuvillier-Fleury. It is a very severe piece of criticism. Lamartine is charged with injustice, confusion, and even a systematic perversion of the truth, especially toward Napoleon. The account of the Emperor's last days at Fontainebleau, is pronounced a tragi-comedy, full of grimaces, of explosions, of puerile hesitations, of impossible exaggerations. Men and facts are judged without reflection, by prejudice, by blind passion, by a sort of fated and involuntary partiality. The method of the book runs into declamation, turgidity, and redundancy; he does not narrate, he discourses or expounds; he falls into mere gossip or is lost in analysis; instead of portraits he paints miniatures, and does not conceive an historical picture without a fancy vignette. His descriptive lyricism, instead of imparting a grandeur to his subject, diminishes it; instead of refining it, renders it petty. Besides, in his overstrained and exaggerated style, he is guilty of writing bad French; M. Cuvillier-Fleury quotes several striking examples of this. The article concludes by saying that the historian writes without ballast, and goes at the impulse of every breeze which swells his sails, and with no other care than the inspiration of the moment. His subject carries him off by all the perspectives it opens to his imagination or his memory. He is like a ship moving out of port with streamers floating from every mast, its poop crowned with flowers, and every sail set, but without a rudder. In spite of all criticism, however, this history has a large sale in France: the first edition is already exhausted. The practice of pirating, usual at Brussels and Leipzic, with reference to French works of importance, has been prevented, in this case, by the preparation of cheap editions for Belgium and Germany, which were issued there cotemporaneously with the publication at Paris. * * * * *