The Sketches by Boz are all exceedingly well managed, and never fail to _tell_ as the author intended. They are entitled, Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle—The Black Veil—Shabby Genteel People—Horatio Sparkins—The Pawnbroker's Shop—The Dancing Academy—Early Coaches—The River—Private Theatres—The Great Winglebury Duel—Omnibuses—Mrs. Joseph Porter—The Steam Excursion—Sentiment—The Parish—Miss Evans and the Eagle—Shops and their Tenants—Thoughts about People—A Visit to Newgate—London Recreations—The Boarding-House—Hackney-Coach Stands—Brokers and Marine Store-Shops—The Bloomsbury Christening—Gin Shops—Public Dinners—Astley's—Greenwich Fair—The Prisoner's Van—and A Christmas Dinner. The reader who has been so fortunate as to have perused any one of these pieces, will be fully aware of how great a fund of racy entertainment is included in the Bill of Fare we have given. There are here some as well conceived and well written papers as can be found in any other collection of the kind—many of them we would especially recommend, as a study, to those who turn their attention to Magazine writing—a department in which, generally, the English as far excel us as Hyperion a Satyr. The _Black Veil_, in the present series, is distinct in character from all the rest—an act of stirring tragedy, and evincing lofty powers in the writer. Broad humor is, however, the prevailing feature of the volumes. _The Dancing Academy_ is a vivid sketch of Cockney low life, which may probably be considered as somewhat too _outré_ by those who have no experience in the matter. _Watkins Tottle_ is excellent. We should like very much to copy the whole of the article entitled _Pawnbrokers' Shops_, with a view of contrasting its matter and manner with the insipidity of the passage we have just quoted on the same subject from the “_Ups and Downs_” of Colonel Stone, and by way of illustrating our remarks on the _unity of effect_—but this would, perhaps, be giving too much of a good thing. It will be seen by those who peruse both these articles, that in that of the American, two or three anecdotes are told which have merely a relation—a very shadowy relation, to pawn-broking—in short, they are barely elicited by this theme, have no necessary dependence upon it, and might be introduced equally well in connection with any one of a million other subjects. In the sketch of the Englishman we have no anecdotes at all—the _Pawnbroker's Shop_ engages and enchains our attention—we are enveloped in its atmosphere of wretchedness and extortion—we pause at every sentence, not to dwell upon the sentence, but to obtain a fuller view of the gradually perfecting picture—which is never at any moment any other matter than the _Pawnbroker's Shop_. To the illustration of this one end all the _groupings_ and _fillings in_ of the painting are rendered subservient—and when our eyes are taken from the canvass, we