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Of older biographies, the most important is James Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. . This work is sketchy, full of irrelevant or unimportant matter, and uncritical; but for a half-century it was the repository from which historians and biographers chiefly drew in dealing with Jackson's epoch.

Not so, we trust, as to the belief expressed by Belle Brittan, in puffing "Jim Parton's, Fanny Fern's Jim's," Life of Burr, "more charming than a novel," because, as she implies, of the successful libertinism of its hero, when she says, speaking in the name of the maidens of America, "We all, I suppose, must fall, like our first parents, when the hour of our temptation comes"!

I know how deeply I am indebted to them, and as long as I live shall never cease to be grateful for Lady Parton's kindness to me. But I had received so much kindness that I shrank from seeming to wish to presume upon it further.

Sir Aubrey exclaimed sometimes that the boy was growing up a little Puritan, and had he taken more interest in his welfare would undoubtedly have withdrawn him from the healthy influences that were benefiting him so greatly; but, with the usual acuteness of children, Cyril soon learnt that any allusion to his studies or his life at Sir John Parton's was disagreeable to his father, and therefore seldom spoke of them.

In the long winter evenings they study to good purpose books as varied as Dante, Josephus, Macaulay, Longfellow, Parton's "Life of Jackson," and the Rollo stories to mention only volumes that have been especial favorites with my own cowboys and hunters. MS. diary of Benj. Hawkins, 1796. Preserved in Nash. Historical Soc.

There was yet another historian in Boston, whose acquaintance I made later than either Parkman's or Parton's, and whose very recent death leaves me with the grief of a friend. No ones indeed, could meet John Codman Ropes without wishing to be his friend, or without finding a friend in him. He had his likes and his dislikes, but he could have had no enmities except for evil and meanness.

"Another thing," she said, "it should be written like fiction." "Like fiction?" "Fact should be written like fiction, and fiction like fact. It's difficult to express what I mean. But this life of your father deserves to be widely known, and it should be entertainingly done, like Lockhart, or Parton's works " An envelope fell to the floor, spilling its contents.

As to the invention of filibustering, we are hardly disposed to rank Burr with Fulton and Morse for his valuable discovery; but perhaps the shades of Lopez and De Boulbon, and the living "gray-eyed man of destiny," will worship him as the founder of their order. It is impossible to define Mr. Parton's opinion of his hero. It is not very clear to himself.

Christie's monumental Life of Etienne Dolet, the Freethought martyr; and Mr. Parton's new Life of Voltaire; all of which demand and will amply requite our attention. Such are the influences which have conspired to shape the literary activities of the generation in which we live. Now Freethought, like a subtle essence, penetrates everywhere.