Articles bearing such a title as "London as a Literary
Centre" are generally to be shunned ; but we are bound to say that Mr. B. D. Bowker (an American, we presume), who treats of this subject in the new number of Harper's Magazine, does not err so grievously against good taste, by dealing in indiscriminate flattery, as so many writers who have preceded him in this field have done. It will be looked at, however, mainly for the sake of the numerous portraits it contains, and for the more or less good stories told of the subjects of these portraits. "The City of Denver" should be read for the fresh information it supplies on a little-known American hive of industry, and "Russian Convicts in the Salt-Mines of Iletek," for the corrective information it gives on a subject which is generally supposed to have only one side,— and that a dark one.
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