ulating-libraries, that they are emphatically _books to own_.

_Poems._ By FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN. Boston: Ticknor and
Fields.

These poems show by internal evidence that they are the productions of a
man of refined organization and delicate sensibility to beauty, who has
lived much in solitude and tasted of the cup of sorrow. Of decided
originality in intellectual construction it cannot be said that they
give emphatic proof: the poet, as Schiller has said, is the child of his
age, and Mr. Tuckerman's poetry not unfrequently shows that he has been
a diligent student of those masters in his art who have best caught and
reproduced the spirit of the times in which we dwell. It has one quality
to a high degree,--and that is, a minute knowledge of the peculiarities
of the natural world as it appears in New England. In his long woodland
walks, he has kept open an eye of observation as practised as that of
the naturalist. The trees, the shrubs, the flowers of New England are
known to him as they are to few. He is tempted to draw too largely upon
this source of interest: in other words, there is too much of
description in his volume. Life is hardly long enough for such elaborate
painting. We may admire the skill of the delineation, but we cannot
pause sufficiently before the canvas to do full justice to the painter.
Those poems in which Mr. Tuckerman expresses the emotions of bereavement
and sorrow are those which have the highest merit in point of thought
and expression. They are full of tenderness and sensibility; but the
poet should bear in mind that strings which vibrate such music should be
sparingly struck.

It may be somewhat paradoxical to say so, but it appears to us that the
poetry of Mr. Tuckerman would be improved, if it had more of prose in
it. It does not address itself to common emotions and every-day
sympathies. His flour is bolted too fine. One must almost be a poet
himself to enter into full communion with him. In intellectual
productions the refining process should not be carried too far: beyond a
certain point, what is gained in delicacy is lost in manliness and
power.

_Possibilities of Creation; or, What the World might have been._ A Book
of Fancies. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.

The author describes his work as a treatise of the Bridgewater class. We
should rather describe it as a _reductio ad absurdum_ in Natural
Philosophy. A great deal of humor, ingenuity, and information are
brought