We are glad to welcome a third- edition of Mrs.
JAMIESON'S charm- ing Characteristics of Women ; not only for the sake of the fair writer herself, but for the sake of the world of readers whom she has bene- fited and delighted.: We here behold SIIAKSPEARE'S women by the light of a woman's eyes. Mrs. JAMIESON seems to have an almost intuitive perception of the leading traits of their characters, un- folding the inmost recesses of their hearts with that true feminine delicacy which screens no truth and instinctively avoids all grossness. When she as it were anatomizes the nature of Lady Macbeth, it is but like a skilful botanist dissecting some baneful flower. As an inter- preter of SIIAKSPEARE, Mrs. JAMIESON should be read by her own sex, that they may see what actual, living, individual creatures his "poetical creations" are, and how imitable are those fine and rare qualities which are too often regarded as fictitious both in their existence and their influence ; and by men, that they may trace under the guidance of a woman those subtile distinctions of character which we are apt to overlook in ideal as well as real persons of the gentler sex. The new edition has the same graceful vignettes, whose very imper- fection makes us like them ; for they appear as if they had been traced by one who felt the beauty that unpractised skill has only partially suc- ceeded in delineating: the designs seem done for love of the sub- ject. The volumes are cased in creamy white, looking as delicate and chaste as the subject-matter; and seeming, like feminine purity, to repel the touch of pollution by the very daintiness that would appear to invite it.
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