good degree of gratification, and pronounce it, as the production of a young and inexperienced writer, highly creditable to her talents. Her descriptions of scenery and limnings of character are spirited and natural, and she has an eye for unforced dramatic effects, in the disposition of her incidents, which are mainly drawn from history and real life. We commend the little book, therefore, to our readers, for many positive as well as negative merits, and as better worth perusal than one half of the republications of trans-atlantic fictions, the labors of small minds, and written by the score for the London market.
New Journals, Magazines, etc.—A new daily journal, of the penny class, has recently appeared, under the editorial direction of Mr. H. Hastings Weld, entitled 'The Morning Dispatch.' It is a well-filled and beautifully printed sheet, worth at least four times its price, not less on account of the quality than the quantity of its original and selected matter. 'Colman's Monthly Miscellany' is the title of a periodical, which is announced to appear in June. Mr. Colman will be aided in the direction of the work, by Messrs. William Cutter and Grenville Mellen, both of Maine. Our readers will remember a pleasant poem by the first-named gentleman, entitled 'The Tell-tale Face,' which appeared a few months since in the Knickerbocker, and they will deem it sufficient assurance, that the writer lacks neither taste nor talent. Mr. Mellen has been long before the public as a writer, and his poetry is well known. The work will be vended, by the single number, at fifty cents each; yearly subscription, six dollars.
'The Western Tourist.—This is an excellent work in its kind, which has recently been issued by Mr. J. H. Colton, Broadway. Its title-page will indicate its merits to the reader: 'The Western Tourist and Emigrants' Guide, with a compendious Gazetteer of the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and the Territories of Wisconsin and Iowa, being an accurate and concise description of each state, territory, and county, and an alphabetical arrangement of every city, town, post-office, village, or hamlet; the county in which they are situated, their distance from the capital of the state, and from Washington city; describing, also, all the principal stage-routes, canals, rail-roads, and the distances between the towns. Accompanied with a correct map, showing the lines of the United States' surveys. By J. Calvin Smith.'
The American Joe Miller, is a collection of two hundred and nineteen pages of original American facetiæ, gleaned from the periodicals and journals of the day, and issued from the press of Messrs. Carey and Hart. There is a good degree of humor in the volume. We could not help observing, that the fragments of Philadelphia origin have due credit, while the sources of those from other regions are less generally indicated. Something less than a dozen are taken from this department of the Knickerbocker, and all without acknowledgment of any kind. There is credit given, indeed, in one instance, to an extract from another quarter, an anecdote of Ollapod's; but the interpolations and alterations which have been volunteered in it, make the exception an aggravation of the first-named offence.
The Poetic Wreath.—This neat volume deserves commendation, both in respect of its contents and its garb. It consists of select passages from the works of English poets, from Chaucer to Wordsworth, alphabetically arranged. The selections are made with taste, and evince feeling in the compiler, who has wisely shunned that vague, airy nothingness, which the men who write, perhaps, call poetry, but which has nothing of inspiration or of heart about it. The book is from the press of Lea and Blanchard, who have also just issued an English novel, in two volumes, entitled Horace Vernon, or Fashionable Life, which opens well, but which we have not perused as yet, for deliberate judgment.
