of the most charming characters in the book. He has all the simplicity and calm intelligence of one whose faculties and energies are devoted to an exalting and edifying study. We respect and delight in the boy who is so curiously active, and lives in so much happy excitement among his butterflies, chrysalyses, and beetles. The industrious study of God's works and wonders, in the habits and forms of his minor creatures, preserves the delightful purity and integrity of his character to the end of the history. The heart aches for Clementine as the book closes, and the convent-gates shut over her sorrows and great mistakes in lifediscovered too late to be retrieved.

Madame C. Reyband excels especially in her descriptions of the landscapes of the tropics. Many of her best scenes are enacted in those glowing countries. She makes us sigh amid our fogs and frosts for the clear moonlight heavens, the luxuriant foliage, and the luscious fruits and gorgeous flowers of Southern America, Mexico, and the West Indian Isles. When we give ourselves up to the charm of her pages, the delightful odorous evening of the tropics seems stealing over the imagination; the exhalations of a thousand blossoms are breathing in the air; around the columns of the palm-trees, and through the rich verdure of the high wide boughs, fall the many-coloured cups and bells of the innumerable parasite plants which grow with the pompous luxuriance of savage vegetation, in a soil unturned by man. Similar scenes filled the heart of Heber with a glorious comprehension of the beautiful, while wan dering beneath the bamboo's arched bough"

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"Where gemming oft that sacred gloom
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom;
And winds our path thro' many a bower
Of fragrant tree and crimson flower.
The Ceiba's gaudy pomp displayed
O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade,
And dusk anana's prickly blade;
While o'er the brake so wild and fair
The betel waves his crest in air."

We follow her among the Negro population, and the supple, indolent, passionate creoles, into the company of those Spanish nobles who carried with them across the Atlantic, among their sugar-canes and bananas, the proud prejudices of Europe, and old Spain. These are illustrated in the pretty story

of "Mademoiselle de Chazeuil." She is the daughter of a distinguished French nobleman, who had married a beautiful half-caste. This secret was concealed from Esther. Family misfortune and her father's death compel her to seek an asylum in the West Indies, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Simon Baez, of whose station, habits, and extraction she is entirely ignorant, as also of her father's mesalliance. The old man, filled with kindly affection, hastens to meet his young descendant, and the daughter of one of the proud nobles of France finds herself embraced by a Mulatto. In Paris, in the days of her wealth and prosperity, she had been affianced to a creole of high birth, the Marquis de Palmarola. The lovers were devotedly attached to one another, though the gentleman found himself perplexed by a previous intrigue with his cousin, Louise de Villaverde, who had perseveringly pursued and finally entangled him in an illicit connection. To gain his love this lady committed dark and terrible deeds, for she had to remove two living obstacles ere she succeeded, namely, her fatherin-law and her husband. Though no actual proof of her crime existed, an undefined suspicion of her guilt embittered every hour the Marquis was in her presence. She was like himself, a creole, and Mademoiselle de Chazeuil discovers that Dona Carlota, the proud aunt of the Marquis, and his cousin, Louisa de Villaverde, who had returned to America, lived very near to her grandfather, whose extraction quite places him beyond the pale of their society. In Paris the young ladies had met as equals in South America how vast was the gulf between them! The unadulterated blood of the followers of the Cid flowed in her rivals' veins, while the nobility of her father, the Count de Chazeuil, could not make her more or less than the granddaughter of Simon Baez, the freed man. When the fair Parisian first discovered her descent from slaveancestors, and that her father had outraged the prejudices and opinions of his equals by his marriage with her beautiful mother, Esther's feelings are very melancholy:

"My poor Catherine,' said Simon Baëz to her, was sixteen years old, gentle and pretty, and nearly as fair too as thou art. The Count became attached to her, and she loved

him: then an event occurred which is, perhaps, without example in this country. The Count asked my child of me in marriage, and he wedded her. A month later they departed together; I did not attempt to detain them; they could not stay here.'

"Could not remain near you!--and for what reason?' said Esther.

"Because thy father had made a marriage which drew upon him the disapproval and scorn of his own people,' sadly replied Baëz. 'Here a white man cannot marry a woman of colour without incurring the contempt of his equals.'

"But have you not told me that my mother was as fair as I am,' interrupted Esther, in a troubled tone.

"But her origin was known; all the world knew,' said the old man, that she was of mixed race; besides, my child, there are signs by which persons accustomed to distinguish the difference of castes cannot be deceived. Even thou, fair as thou art, in thee thyself one can clearly see that thou hast in thy veins the blood of the Black.'

"Esther bowed her head; she saw the distance which prejudices, unacknowledged in Europe but all powerful there, placed between her and Palmarola."

The Marquis, however, seeks her out, renews his vows and protestations of attachment, while, with a fixed purpose, Madame de Villaverde endeavours to throw every obstacle in the way of the lovers, to separate and prevent them meeting. Heaven, however, favours them, and Mademoiselle de Chazeuil, reinstated in her fortune, sails from the Havannah with her good old bonne, Madam Abel, and her faithful lover, for a land where the daughter of the French noble will be no more despised as the grandchild of the good old slave. The heart of the reader will sicken over the despair of the deserted and guilty woman; from her quivering hands she drops the letter that announces, in the words of the innocent girl, her happy prospects and departure with her future husband. Louisa, then, had sinned and suffered in vain. "Her gaze was bent upon the ground; she seemed for a long time rapt in some mournful thought; then in a low voice she murmured, avenges the dead.'"

God

"Le Dernier Oblat" is a tale of great power and beauty. The sin of the mother, who had seen her lover lying murdered before her, is, through long years, sternly visited on the hapless offspring of her intrigue. The vengeance of the outraged husband is

There is some

steady and relentless. thing terrible in the obedience of the conscience-stricken mother; it is painful to trace the tale of the hapless and guileless victim of a woman's frailty, and a husband's revenge. The latter portions of the narrative are inferior to the commencement and earlier chapters, in the same manner that the first part of Mrs. Marsh's very beautiful novel, the "Previsions of the Lady Evelyn," greatly exceeds the merit of the lately-written conclusion. This lady and Madame Reybaud possess the same class and grade of talent, and each country may be proud of these most agreeable and highly-gifted female writers.

We recommend "Marie D'Enambuc," "Gabrielle," "Mezelie," and "Madame de Rieux;" and did time or space permit, we could linger longer among the many pleasant volumes of this prolific writer." Heléne," one of her latest productions, is, perhaps, less striking than other tales which we have named; but it possesses the authoress's refinement of feeling and beauty of style.

"Paul Pierre Rubens," by Berthoud, is an excellent novel. The prosperous artist-life of the great painter is placed most pleasantly before the reader, who is introduced to the eminent pupils of that great atelier. We are made acquainted with many of the eccentricities and adventures of the jovial and gifted band. The series of historical novels written by Brisset, blend much information with a good style, and he interests his readers strongly in the characters called up to figure on the stage. Catherine and Marie de Medicis; the bevy of fair maids of honour; the history of Poltrot and his victim; the subtle ambition of the Guises; and the fate of the Concini, have occupied his pen, in common with Mons. Dumas, who has dealt with largely, and handled less scrupulously, some of the same characters and portions of history. His works are, however, better known in England. To this class of novels belongs "Jacqueline de Bavière," an interesting historical tale, which reminds us of Mr. Grattan's manner and choice of subjects.

"Mademoiselle de Kerouare," by Sandeau, is the brief sad story of a young heart, cast away in vain; and his later volume "Un Heritage," contains much true humour, and several