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Mrs. ESLING, better known as Miss Catherine H. Waterman, under which name she wrote the popular and beautiful lyric, “Brother, Come Home!” has in press a collection of her writings, under the title of The Broken Bracelet and other Poems, to be published by Lindsay & Blackiston of Philadelphia.

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M. ROSSEEUW ST. HILAIRE, of Paris, is proceeding with his great work on the History of Spain with all the rapidity consistent with the nature of the subject and the elaborate studies it requires.  The work was commenced ten years ago, and has since been the main occupation of its author.  The fifth volume has just been published, and receives the applause of the most competent critics.  It includes the time from 1336 to 1492, which comes down to the very eve of the great discovery of Columbus, and includes that most brilliant period, in respect of which the history of Prescott has hitherto stood alone, namely, the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.  M. St. Hilaire has had access to many sources of information not accessible to any former writer, and is said to have availed himself of them with all the success that could be anticipated from his rare faculty of historical analysis and the beautiful transparency of his style.

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THE REV.  ROBERT ARMITAGE, a rector in Shropshire, is the author of “Dr. Hookwell,” and “Dr. Johnson, his Religious Life and his Death.”  In this last work, the Quarterly Review observes, “Johnson’s name is made the peg on which to hang up—­or rather the line on which to hang out—­much hackneyed sentimentality, and some borrowed learning, with an awful and overpowering quantity of twaddle and rigmarole.”  The writer concludes his reviewal:  “We are sorry to have had to make such an exposure of a man, who, apart from the morbid excess of vanity which has evidently led him into this scrape, may be, for aught we know, worthy and amiable.  His exposure, however, is on his own head:  he has ostentatiously and pertinaciously forced his ignorance, conceit, and effrontery on public notice.”  We quite agree with the Quarterly.

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JOHN MILLS—­“John St. Hugh Mills,” it was written then—­was familiarly known in the printing offices of Ann street in this city a dozen years ago; he assisted General Morris in editing the Mirror, and wrote paragraphs of foreign gossip for other journals.  A good-natured aunt died in England, leaving him a few thousand a year, and he returned to spend his income upon a stud and pack and printing office, sending from the latter two or three volumes of pleasant-enough mediocrity every season.  His last work, with the imprint of Colburn, is called “Our Country.”

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Mr. PRESCOTT, the historian, who is now in England, has received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Oxford.  Two or three years ago he was elected into the Institute of France.