THE chief interest of the time is still political. Many

publica- tions are indeed before us, but none of sufficient mat k or merit to- call up before the reader an ideal world and transport him beyond' the anxious present. They, however, require notice ; and we com- mence with three fictions,—the Autobiography of' Jack Ketch, Young Hearts, and Mrs. S. C. HALL'S Tales of' Woman's Trials. Of these, all things considered, the most striking is

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JACK KETCH.

The reader, indeed, who forms his expectations from the title- page, will be disappointed. He will rarely have represented to him any of the striking circumstances with which the finisher of the law may or might be familiar. The endless varieties of cha- racters, criminals, and distresses which a prison contains; the scenes that take place as ithin its walls, and those of a court of justice; the bearing of men after the fatal sentence is pronounced, and when they come forth to die ; together with the nature of their crimes, the degree of their guilt, and the circumstances which led them to their fate ; these things, we suspect, are beyond the experience and above the powers of this writer. Jack Ketch is no Jack Ketch at all ; the volume merely closes with his appointment to the office; and although he succeeds his uncle, who throughout the book appears as the veritable finisher, yet little use is made of the fact. With the exception of one introduced story, which is gotten possession of in a professional way, nothing depends upon the hero's connexion with the Sheriff's deputy. All that takes place might occur to any other vagabond.

Passing over this titular trick, the work may be described as one of more power than probability, and better adapted for select than family perusal. The story—which hangs loosely together; and has no kind of keeping—traces a vagrant boy (whose parents are thieves), from his being turned out of a parish-school till the consummation already alluded to-- his appointment as public hangman. We have life, or what the author deems such, in a low attorney's office, in a low public-house, among thieves, and thieves' adventures ; with such episodes as may be supposed to spring out of them ; and a tale of woman's enduring affection, in Ketch's wife, touching, and true, at least in the patient submission to brutality, the labour to support a husband in idleness, and the death through ill-usage and sorrow.

Such is the skeleton: the material which lills it up is more genu- ine in itself than in its application. The writer appears to have seen much of what he describes ; but it did not take place as he describes it, under all the circumstances. The lawyer's clerk, Mr.

Wisp, is something like a quill-driver; but how came he suddenly to change into so accomplished a housebreaker ? The scenes at

"the Magpie and Punchbowl" are not very outré; but the Mag- pie and Punchbowl is not a thieves-house. A similar remark may be made as to the slang ; it is rather the universnl cant dialogue

than that which is peculiar to thieves; although it be introduced with such sort of effect as cant is capable of producing. After all, there are books of more pretension and much less effect than the

Autobiography of Jack Ketch: it has a sort of low interest about it which smacks of the Police-office and the moral bine-house combined.

A work of this nature seems to require extracts ; there is no other mode of conveying an exact idea of its quality to book-

buyers. We will take a few scraps, as we have noted them (ob- serving in parenthesis, that we have omitted to remark two points of the author—no mean powers of reflection ; and a sad disposition to wordiness, which he may think wit, and others have called satire. This disposition was more immediately displayed at starting, and may be defined as describing things not by their properties, or even accidents, but by their relations).

A LAST AIORNING AT HOME.

I awoke, but the morning was yet only half awake, and the old familiar fur- niture of the room indistinctly revealed itself to me. Every thing around that I bad so often seen appeared, now that I saw it for the last time, as though it knew and regretted my departure. Unmoved as ever, it still looked with a graver and a sadder stillness, and seemed as though it were conscious that after I was gone it should be degraded into unserviceable lumber. The old chair, one of whose legs had been broken and never amputated, leaned towards me with affec- tionate attachment. The portrait of Jonathan Wild gazed upon me with less malignity than usual, nay, wore almost a benignant expression. The patched and broken casement wished itself whole again for my sake; and the small truckle bed, as I arose from its sacking, creaked out an affectionate farewell. I descended the stairs, and entered the room below. The shutters were yet closed, and I heard nothing but the ticking of the venerable clock. I sat down, and could almost have wept to leave my misery behind ; it had almost become dear to me. But, with more wisdom and less sentiment, I arose and proceeded to black my shoes, and to make such other at rangements as my fitting appear- ance in a professional office required horn me.

A MURDERER'S CONDITION.

On the night preceding my marriage, I haul a dream—a dream that had visited me many, oh! how many times before, in which every horrible circumstance of the murder was acted over again. I awoke feverish aud uurefreshed; and

with that nervous sinking of the heart which sometimes stayed with me for months, and then 'partially left me till sonic cause—or no cause—recalled it to its victim. At these periods, my existence became intolerable to me ; every thing around me assumed a new aspect of horror, every step alarmed me, every glance covered me with confusion. Was there the slightest household duty to be performed, it became burdensome and oppressive to me: the diurnal customs of courtesy were converted into serious ordeals which must be gone through ; and I was utterly unable to sustain a conversation with even the most intimate relation or friend. This weakness at times so entirely overcame nie, that I dreaded the sight of all acquaintance. If it were indispensable that I should meet them on business, I studiously compressed beforehand the speech that I should be compelled to utter, lest their eyes should have time to rest upon me. In a word, I dreaded the eyes of men, and was weary—sick to death—of the world and of myself.

A QUILL-DMVF.R.

Ile was of a spare form, or, as it is called, habit of body ; tall, but with a stoop in the shoulders and a contraction of the chest. Through his lantern-jaws a light beamed, as of consumption; and the eager expression of his eyes might have been mistaken for acute intelligence, if it did not too plainly indicate acute hunger. His head was surmounted-by a plentiful quantity of dusty hair, appa- rently seldom teased by the comb or confined by a night-cap ; for it stuck out in all the fanciful directions which the quaint vagaries of slumber pleased to point out for it. This capillary coronal, being of a hue resembling mud, or brick-dust, or rather a mixture of the two, was not ill-matched by his brown coat, which, buttoned close up to his chin, came only half as far down as a metal- buttoned waistcoat of evanescent yellow, and possessed sleeves which were far too aristocratic to descend low enough to cover -his wrist-bones. There was an anxious folding of the dirty check neck-cloth also, which disclosed too plainly that in whatever sum he might be indebted to his washerwoman, the debt had not been contracted recently. This scrutiny being completed, I was becoming impatient for the appearance of my new master, and had begun to play with my 'heels in the manner usual upon such occasions, when the young man descended from his desk and placed himself by the fire-place.

PRISON DISCOURSE.

a Well, I congratulate you on your escape, at all events."

" Oh ! it makes very little odds to me," said he, carelessly ; "do you think Jack Grimes car es two pins whether lie swings or no? Not he, d— me ! After tossing about three days and nights on a tar-barrel, its not likely that he should Snivel when he comes to be tucked lip; besides, I've seen the rolls drawn too often for that. There's the Sheriff with his gold chain and chalky gills ; Ordinary looking as though he couldn't help it, with white wig, and black book ; Ketch, your worthy uncle, curious concerning the raiment; mob— gibbet — noose — eight o'clock ; on goes the cap, in goes the head, on goes the parson, down goes the platform, off goes the swell, gentle squeeze, slight caper — all's over !"

" No tremor cord's, Grimes, when the drop falls—no awkward feeling just here, eh ? " and I pointed to the place where the heart, like Goldsmith's venison Tasty, was—not. " None in the least, my Jacky : we leave those agreeable sensations to the suddenly converted—the eleventh hour coves. Oh, no! we just lean our heads a little on the left side, and take it easy." " But what's to become of poor Betsy," said 1, "when you're gone ? " " Why, what is to become of poor Betsy I don't know," answered he, pick- ing his teeth with a straw ; "and what's more, Jack, what is become of poor Betsy I don't know ; and what's most, what does become of poor Betsy, I don't care."

"How is that ? Where did you leave her, then?" I inquired. " She left me, Jack, when I was in Yorkshire. Toddled with a chap before we had been married six months: a little bandy-legged rascal, with two pieces of round wool stuck on his shoulders, a lobster-salad coat on, and a plaguy long stride -of his own. You know the sort of thing I mean—a drummer. Yes," continued he, "Betsy went off with the drummer ;" and he whistled a military air with much satisfaction : "queer start, wasn't it, eh?" But we were always at it ; cat and dog work, hammer and tongs. Oh! Betsy was a spirited young hussy ; and so let the drummer repair his drum with her skin, and make drum-sticks with her elbows—eh ? " here he burst into a violent fit of laughter. "She'll make noise enough then, at all events, ha! ha! ha ! d— me." The officer in attendance now approached Grimes, and remonstrated with him touching his exuberant vociferation. " Oh! I say, Clank, you're just the boy I wanted to see," and Grimes capered towards him after the manner of a seaman ; "any orders from the Home Office this morning ? when are we to leave this ugly shop of your's ? " "I don't know," answered Clank, and walked sullenly away.

" Queer devil that," observed Grimes, turning to me ; "a good heart, they say, but devilish bad manners."

By this time I deemed it high time to take my leave, and informed Grimes of say intention.

YOUNG HEARTS,

Prefaced by JANE PORTER, is the reverse of Jack Ketch: more respectable, but more improbable; though the scene is laid in a country village, and the characters are of those ranks in life which we daily meet with. Morally speaking, it is a good book, but very so-so if one talks critically. We see the implied authorship of Miss PORTER has been doubted. It is not a matter to fight about; but, from internal evidence, we assigned the novel to her, or at least to a contempo- rary of her triumphant time. The perusal called to mind the pro- duction which delighted the world in our younger days. There was the same artful involution of' plot, that defied the penetration of the most accustomed novel-rer.der, creating a pleasing suspense, sufficient to titillate curiosity, but not so stimulant as to excite the reader to turn to the end. We had the same moral impossibilities in regard to events, the same caricatures of vulgar people suddenly left with large fortunes, the same old stories of vile seducers, trust- ing ones educated beyond their sphere, harsh stewards, and severe fathers, with a paternal scheme to marry a daughter to a ward ; the pattern people were all "wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;' the bad, as bad as bad can be; the servants and adhe- rents were as faithful and as familiar as those of the olden time ; the dialogue, however broken down, in reality a monologue spoken by the writer. Here and there we had a bit of landscape, touched from nature ; now and then a truthful sentiment; with these ex- ceptions, the work reflected nothing save the notions of the author.

TALES OF WOMAN'S TRIALS.

This volume contains nine stories ; some of which we had seen before, others (so far as we remember) may be original. Their ob- ject is pretty well conveyed by the title: it is to exhibit the suffer- ings to which woman in all coi?ditions of life is exposed, and if we read rightly, how she triumphs over them. They are pleasant and clever; lady-like in point of tone, slight as regards texture; but being short, they do not weary, and may be read right on, or, as Falstaff advised Prince Hal to repent, "at idle times as thou mayst." The tales of humble life seem to us to have most interest, those of middle life most truth. In the stories about lords and ladies, the events do not seem altogether probable, nor the workings of the inmost feelings very natural—at all events, in "The Mother." It may look like a truism to say, that Mrs. S. C. HALL is most successful in painting that which she knows best : thus, her Irish pictures have more verisimilitude than her Scotch. The collection, however, is a very pleasing collection, and one that may be safely recommended as a very superior budget of Annual stories.