e here; and it
is the highest praise we can award them to say that they are as charming
as ever, and will never lose their beauty.

Yet, the poet is too modest in his opening lay, for _all_ are beautiful:

'And some might say, 'Those ruder songs
Had freshness which the new have lost;
To spring the opening leaf belongs,
The chestnut burs await the frost.'

'When those I wrote my locks were brown;
When these I write--ah! well-a-day!
The autumn thistle's silvery down
Is not the purple bloom of May.'

We at least find no frost, no benumbing influence manifested anywhere.
We love the old favorites because they were favorites of old. The
younger reader, who has only of late months learned the 'Chambered
Nautilus,' 'The Deacon's Masterpiece,' or 'Parson Turrel's Legacy,'
will, thirty years hence, recall the sweet flavor of their first taste,
even as we recall the latter years of the blessed rosy decade of the
eighteen hundred and thirties, and, with them, how they were made leafy
and odorant and golden by 'The Katydid Song'--by 'The Dilemma'--by
'L'Imanuel;' or how they were be-merried by the 'Dorchester Giant'--'The
Oysterman'--the--but the book hath its table of contents!

We believe, honestly and earnestly, that the blue and gold, 'dorezure,'
volume before us is the most agreeable, readable, and spirited book of
poetry ever written by an American--it is not worth while to sail into
the cloudy regions of antique or Old World comparison--and that it would
be impossible to select anything in print of the same market value which
would be so acceptable as a gift to so great a number of persons. We
trust, by the way, that this hint will not be lost on all gentlemen or
ladies who play at philop[oe]na, or who are desirous of displaying
refined taste at no great expense on birthday and Christmas occasions.
And we would beg our reader, for his own sake, not to rely on the fact
that he has read many of these lyrics in bygone years, as an excuse for
not providing himself with the new edition. We assure him that he can
have no idea how much better and fresher and fairer they all seem in
company. Something, too, should be said of the excellent full-length,
admirably engraved portrait of Dr. HOLMES, pre-facing the title--the
best likeness of our poet extant, and one which, to use a familiar
though somewhat famished phrase, 'is alone well worth the price of the
volume.'

EDITOR'S TABLE.

T