ble. The man who can most vividly set forth facts and
transfer nature to paper, seldom misses variety.

We rejoice that this work has met with such favorable reception from the
public, and are happy to state that the author will continue his
contributions to these columns. He has already, by a single effort,
established a wide-spread reputation, and we know that he has that in
him which will induce efforts of equal merit and a future which will be
honorably recorded in histories of the literature of the present day.

THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Volume IV. Aldine Edition. Edited by
EPES SARGENT. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K.
Loring. 1862.

No better paper, no better type, can be desired than what is lavished
upon these beautiful editions of Putnam's works. It is a pleasure to
touch their silky, Baskerville-feeling leaves, and think that one
possesses in the series one more work _de luxe_, which 'any one' might
be glad to own. The present consists of The Whims and Oddities, with
the--originally--two volumes of National Tales: the former piquant and
variously eccentric; the latter written in a quaint, old-fashioned
style, which the editor compares justly to that of BOCCACCIO,
yet which was really, till within some fifty years, so very common a
form of narration, having so much in common with Spanish and French
_nouvelettes_, that it is hardly worth while to suppose that
HOOD followed the great. Italian at all. The whole work is one
mass of entertainment, none the worse for having acquired somewhat of a
game-y flavor of age, and for gradually falling a little behind the
latest styles of humor. 'Mass! 'tis a merry book, and will make them
merry who read it!'

THE WORKS OF THOMAS HOOD. Edited by EPES SARGENT.
Vol. V. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1862.

The present volume of Hood's writings is composed of dramatic sketches,
odes, political satires, and miscellaneous pieces not generally
contained in former collections of his works. Among these is the long
and beautiful 'Lamia' in dramatic form; the 'Epping Hunt;' the poems of
sentiment; the inimitable Odes and Addresses to Great People, and some
scores of minor poems, mostly humorous, including, however, all of those
on which his reputation as a true poet of the highest rank is based.
Among these is the 'Lay of the Laborer,' a standing and bitter reproach
to England--the England of millions of pounds of capital--the England of
piety--the England of m