And then I sang and shouted,
    Keeping measure, as I sped,
  To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe
    As it sprang beneath my tread.

  Nor far into the valley
    Had I dipped upon my way,
  When a dusky figure joined me,
    In a capuchon of gray,

  Bending upon the snow-shoes
    With a long and limber stride;
  And I hailed the dusky stranger,
    As we travelled side by side.

  But no token of communion
    Gave he by word or look,
  And the fear-chill fell upon me
    At the crossing of the brook.

  For I saw by the sickly moonlight,
    As I followed, bending low,
  That the walking of the stranger
    Left no foot-marks on the snow.

  Then the fear-chill gathered o’er me,
    Like a shroud around me cast,
  As I sank upon the snow-drift
    Where the shadow hunter passed.

  And the otter-trappers found me,
    Before the break of day,
  With my dark hair blanched and whitened
    As the snow in which I lay.

  But they spoke not, as they raised me;
    For they knew that in the night
  I had seen the shadow hunter,
    And had withered in his blight.

  Sancta Maria speed us! 
    The sun is falling low,—­
  Before us lies the Valley
    Of the Walker of the Snow!

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

A New History of the Conquest of Mexico. In which Las Casas’ Denunciations of the Popular Historians of that War are fully vindicated.  By ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, Counsellor at Law; Author of “Mexico and its Religion,” etc., Philadelphia:  James Challen & Son.  Boston:  Crosby, Nichols, & Co.

(SECOND NOTICE.)

According to the well-authenticated legend of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the Saint, as he lay upon the grid-iron, conscious that he had been sufficiently done on one side, begged the cooks, if it were a matter of indifference to them, to turn him on the other.  Common humanity demanded compliance with so reasonable a request.  We fancy that we hear Mr. Wilson, preferring a similar petition; and we hope we are too good-natured to be insensible to the appeal.  We cannot, at this moment, indeed, think of him otherwise than good-naturedly.  With many things in his book we have been highly pleased.  The number, the novelty, and the variety of his blunders have given us a very favorable impression of his ingenuity, and have afforded us constant entertainment in what we feared was to be a drudgery and a task.  We had intended to cull some of these beauties for the amusement of our readers and the personal gratification of Mr. Wilson himself.  But, as children, gathering shells on the sea-shore, resign, one after another, the treasures which they have collected, and grasp at newer, and, therefore, more pleasing specimens, which are abandoned in their turn, so we, finding our stores accumulate beyond our means of transportation,