parts of the United States. The author has a keen sense of the
beauties of nature, is always at home in the forest or at the side of
the mountain stream, and tells all sorts of stories about trout, salmon,
beavers, maple-sugar, rattle-snakes, and barbecues, with a heart-felt
unction that is quite contagious. As a writer of simple narrative, his
imagination sometimes outstrips his discretion, but every one who reads
his book will admit that he is not often surpassed for the fresh and
racy character of his anecdotes.

_The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, published by Harper and Brothers, as
our readers may judge from the specimens given in a former number of
this Magazine, is one of the most charming works that have lately been
issued from the English press. Leigh Hunt so easily falls into the
egotistic and ridiculous, that it is a matter of wonder how he has
escaped from them to so great a degree in the present volumes. His
vanity seems to have been essentially softened by the experience of
life, the asperities of his nature greatly worn away, and his mind
brought under the influence of a kindly and genial humor. With his rare
mental agility, his susceptibility to many-sided impressions, and his
catholic sympathy with almost every phase of character and intellect, he
could not fail to have treasured up a rich store of reminiscences, and
his personal connection with the most-celebrated literary men of his
day, gives them a spirit and flavor, which could not have been obtained
by the mere records of his individual biography. The work abounds with
piquant anecdotes of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Lamb,
Hazlitt, and Moore--gives a detailed exposition of Hunt's connection
with the Examiner, and his imprisonment for libel--his residence in
Italy--his return to England--and his various literary projects--and
describes with the most childlike frankness the present state of his
opinions and feelings on the manifold questions which have given a
direction to his intellectual activity through life. Whatever
impressions it may leave as to the character of the author, there can be
but one opinion as to the fascination of his easy, sprightly, gossiping
style, and the interest which attaches to the literary circles, whose
folding-doors he not ungracefully throws open.

The _United States Railroad Guide and Steam-boat Journal_, by Holbrook
and Company, is one of the best manuals for the use of travelers now
issued by the