wide rhodora marshes, where some fleece of burning mist seemed to be fallen and caught and tangled in countless filaments upon the bare twigs,”—­such traits as these are not to be found in the newspapers nor in the botanies.  With all her seeming lavishness, she rarely wastes a word.  Though she may sometimes heap upon a frail hepatica some greater accumulation of fine-spun fancies than its slender head will bear, she yet can so characterize a flower with a touch that any one of its lovers would know it without the name.  If she hints at “those slipshod little anemones that cannot stop to count their petals, but take one from their neighbor or leave another behind them,” it is because she knows how peculiarly this fantastic variableness belongs to the rue-leaved species, so unlike the staid precision of its cousin, the wind-flower, from which not one pedestrian in a hundred can yet distinguish it.  If she simply says, “great armfuls of blue lupines,” she has said enough, because this is almost the only wild-flower whose size, shape, and abundance naturally tempt one to gather it thus:  imagine her speaking of armfuls of violets or wild roses!  From this basis of accurate fact her fancy can safely unfold its utmost wings, as in her fancied illustrations for the Garden-Song in “Maud,” or in the wonderful descriptions of Azarian’s lonely nights on the water.  “He leaned over his boat-side, miles away from any shore, a star looked down from far above, a star looked up from far below, the glint passed as instantly, and left him the sole spirit between immense concaves of void and fulness, shut in like the flaw in a diamond.”  How the subscribers to the Circulating Library of the enterprising Mr. Loring must catch their breaths in amazement, when that courteous gentleman hands them for the last new novel—­sandwiched between “Pique” and “Woodburn”—­thoughts of such a compass as that!

There are sometimes fictitious writers who sweep across the land in a great wave of popularity and then pass away,—­as Frederika Bremer twenty years ago,—­and leave no visible impression behind.  But Harriet Prescott’s fame rests on a foundation of sure superiorities, so far as she possesses it; and no one has impaired or can impair it, except herself.  If it has not grown as was at first anticipated, it has been her own doing, and “Azarian” has come none too soon to give a better augury for the future.  There is no literary laurel too high for her to grasp, if her own will, and favoring circumstances, shall enable her to choose only noble and innocent themes, and to use canvas firm and pure enough for the rare colors she employs.

The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the African Race in the United States.  By Robert Dale Owen.  Philadelphia:  J.B.  Lippincott & Co. 12mo.