John Randolph is the best subject for a biography, that our political
experience has yet furnished. Who that remembers the long and slender
man of iron, with his scarcely human scorn of nearly all things
beyond his "old Dominion," and his withering wit, never restrained
by any pity, and his passion for destroying all fabrics of policy or
reputation of which he was not himself the architect, but will read
with anticipations of keen interest the announcement of a life of
the eccentric yet great Virginian! Such a work, by the Hon. Hugh
A. Garland, is in the press of the Appletons. We know little of Mr.
Garland's capacities in this way, but if his book prove not the most
attractive in the historical literature of the year, the fault will
not be in its subject.

* * * * *

The Scottish Booksellers have instituted a society for professional
objects under the title of the "Edinburgh Booksellers' Union." In
addition to business purposes, they propose to collect and preserve
books and pamphlets written by or relating to booksellers, printers,
engravers, or members of collateral professions,--rare editions of
other works--and generally articles connected with parties belonging
to the above professions, whether literary, professional, or personal.

* * * * *

D'Israeli abandons himself now-a-days entirely to politics. "The
forehead high, and gleaming eye, and lip awry, of Benjamin D'Israeli,"
sung once by _Fraser_ are no longer seen before the title-pages of
"Wondrous Tales," but only before the Speaker. It is much referred to,
that in the recent parliamentary commemoration of Sir Robert Peel,