PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Novels, novels, nothing but novels ! They have been raining down upon us with portentous inclemency for the last three weeks, but there have been some welcome drops in the deluge. Foremost among those whicb could not fall to meet with a glad reception is TRANSFORMATION, OR THE ROMANCE OF MONTE Rani, a tale of modern Italy by the author of "The Scarlet Letter," who has been too long a wanderer from his natural habitat among the glooms and grandeurs of the land of Fiction. Mr. William Howitt's Max OF THE PEOPLE has also prescriptive claims to attention ; and a friend who has begun to read GRHYMORE, A STORY or Conyrny LIFE, speaks of it in terms calculated to prepossess us strongly in favour of the unknown, and apparently hitherto untried author. Hormir Horst, Mr. Whyte Melville's carefully-written tale

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of Old Northamptonshire n the time of the great Parliamentary War, has been reprinted from Fraser'a Magazine ; and Miss Mulch's story of A LIFE FOR A LIFE, sustained by her well-earned reputation in spite of the assaults of critics, ourselves included, has been placed among the immortals in Hurst and Blaekett's Standard Library, but not without material alterations in the story. Miss Muloch has had the courage and the candour to acknowledge the justice of one -of the chief objections urged against it as it stood at first :— " Namely, that my hero's crime was leas a crime than an accident, and not sufficient rationally to account for the agony of remorse which followed, nor for the morbid condition in which, after even twenty years, his mind still remained concerning it. This is most true. In the first conception, and, indeed, the find draught of A Life .firir a Life, I made Dr. Urquhart commit, not an accidental homicide, but absolute manslaughter—the slay- ing of a man. Without premeditation, it is true, but scarcely without in- tention; maddened for the time by that blind impulse of hatred which one sometimes hears expressed in the phrase—' I felt as if I could have killed him.' Many persons who read this book of mine, may have been, at least once in their lives, not ignorant of the sensation. They have cause to thank God that either the temptation was too momentary, or the opportu- nity too small; or they might have fallen even as my /fax fell ; whose words in this first copy were, I distinctly remember—' I killed him—I meant to kill him,' that IS, at the moment. "But when written down, the confession seemed too dreadful ; a weak fear arose, or was suggested to me, that the public would never bear it ; ' would never endure that a man-slayer should be represented as a hero, in- vested with all moral virtues, and finally be loved toy and married to his victim's own sister. I myself felt that, under the circumstances, such an ending was natural, right, and in a000rdance with the express principle and purpose of my book ; which I meant to be a companion to the former one; Jahn Halifax shoring what a good man's life could be, and Max Urquhart what the most sinful man's life could be made to be—through the one Christianity which was sent alike to both the righteous and the wicked.

Still this termination, though the only just and consistent one which the avowed moral of my- story allowed, was in many phases so extremely pain-

ful, that I was afraid. I am not afraid now Therefore, I now restore Life for a _Life to its original form. I make my hero guilty not merely of an accidental misfortune, but of an actual crime; believing that the re- sults would have been precisely what I have represented them to be."

We are informed in MIRANDA that "Homer is more than a great poet; he is Emanuel. Intending to come down under the form and name of a poet, he composed the substance of the Iliad and of the Odyssee in heaven." We are assured, moreover, that " Mutexne from beginning to end, is written under the dictation of God ; therefore, are all the say- ings of MIRANDA. truthful, salutary, and venerable. Of her sayings and doctrines, God has written an anticipated sanction and proof, first in the position of the heavenly bodies, secondly in the numbers of the Bible, and thirdly in the dates of the greatest events which have happened on earth since the earliest records of tradition and history, down to the present day !" We advise Ariel or Prince Ferdinand to use their influence with Miranda, and endeavour to convince the oracular lady of the wis- dom of Mr. Carlyle's dictum, "Speech is silver (not all speech) silence is golden."

A MANUAL ON INTEREST AND ANNUITIES furnishes for popular use information on principles which govern the terms for transfer of pro- perty, giving a series of logarithms ; tables of compound interest ; cal- culations as to the value of annuities, both perpetual and temporary; and many details which men of business cannot fail to find of essential utility. The mere attempts to explain the "science of numbers" ahould be encouraged, but we recommend to benefit and friendly societies es- pecially the careful guidance this little book offers for their important undertakings. Mr. Smyth, the author, is also to be numbered among the many " suggestors " for an improved Income-tax. "

BOOKS.

Transformation ; or the Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. In three volumes.

How could He Help It? or the Heart Triumphant. By A. S. Roe.

Nathan the Wise. A Dramatic Poem, in Five Acts. By Gotthold Ephraim Leasing. Translated from the German, with a Biography of Lessing, and a Critical Survey of his Position, Writings, &c. By Dr. Adolphus Reich.

The American Pastor in Europe. By the Rev. Joseph Cross, D.D. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by the Rev. John Cumming, D,D., F.R.S.E. The eracity of the Book of Genesis, with the Life and Character of the In- spired Historian. By the Reverend William H. Hoare, MA.

The Church in Babylon ;land other Poems. By A. M. M.

On Consumption, its True Nature and Successful Treatment. By Godwin Timms, M.D.

Contributions to the Hygienic Treatment of Paralysis and of Paralytic De- formities. Illustrated by numerous cases. With a short sketch of Rational Medical Gymnastics, or the Movement cure. With thirty-eight Engravings. By M. Roth, M.D.

The Engineer's Handbook. By Charles S. Lowndes, Engineer.

NEW EDITIONS AND REPRINTS.

A Life for a Life. By the Author of" John Halifax, Gentleman."

Holmby House : a Tale of old Northamptonshire. By G. J. Whyte Melville, In two volumes, originally published in Fraser's Magazine."

Which is Which ? or Miles Cassidy's Contract. A Picture Story. By Robert B. Brough. In two volumes.

The Water-Witek ; or the Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by F. 0. C. Harley.

Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Offspring. By Pye Henry Chavasse.

L'Echo de Paris ; a Selection of Familiar Phrases which a Person would daily

hear said around him, if he were living among Phrases, people with a Vocabu- lary of all the Words and Idioms used in the work. By Mons. Le Page. Thirty-first edition.