This relation we have given in brief, and consequently it implies little or nothing. The result, however, to which the reader is ingeniously led by the author, is that the real Peter Snook has been duped, and that the Peter Snook who made the various purchases about town, and who appeared to Ephraim only during the morning and evening twilight of the eventful day, was, in fact, no other person than the captain of “the strange, black-sided ship.” We are to believe that, taking advantage of Peter's communicativeness, and a certain degree of personal resemblance to himself, be assumed our hero's clothes while he slept, and made a bold and nearly successful attempt at wholesale peculation. The incidents of this story are forcibly conceived, and even in the hands of an ordinary writer would scarcely fail of effect. But in the present instance so unusual a tact is developed in the narration, that we are inclined to rank “Peter Snook” among the few tales which, each in their own way, are absolutely faultless. Such things, however, insignificant in themselves or their subjects, satisfy the mind of the literary critic precisely as we have known a few rude, and apparently unmeaning touches of the brush, fill with unalloyed pleasure the eye of the artist. But no—in the latter case effect is produced chiefly by arrangement, and a proper preponderance of objects. “Peter Snook” is rather a Flemish _home-piece_, and entitled to the very species of praise which should be awarded to the best of such pieces. The merit lies in the _chiaro 'scuro_—in that blending of light and shadow where nothing is _too distinct_, yet where the idea is fully conveyed—in the absence of all rigid outlines and all miniature painting—in the not undue warmth of the coloring—and in the slight tone of exaggeration prevalent, yet not amounting to caricature. We will venture to assert that no painter, who deserves to be called so, will read “Peter Snook” without assenting to what we say, and without a perfect consciousness that the principal rules of the plastic arts, founded as they surely are in a true perception of the beautiful, will apply in their fullest force to every species of literary composition. LIFE OF RICHELIEU. _Lives of the Cardinal de Richelieu, Count Oxenstiern, Count Olivarez, and Cardinal Mazarin. By G. P. R. James. Republished by Carey, Lea and Blanchard._