“who love a coral lip
     And a rosy cheek admire,”

and to those who

     “Interassured of the mind,
       Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss”;

for both likings will find satisfaction here.  The season of gifts comes round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to thread for the “inexpressive she” all the beads of Love’s rosary.  The volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding.  Of the plates we cannot speak so warmly.

The third book on our list deserves very great praise.  Bryant’s noble “Forest Hymn” winds like a river through edging and overhanging greenery.  Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be commended.  There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature.  The volume, we think, marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, and may challenge comparison with that of any other country.  Many of the drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the same time.

The Works of Lord Bacon, etc., etc.  Vols.  XI. and XII.  Boston:  Brown & Taggard. 1860.

We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon’s Works.  It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen of printing than the English.  A better edition could not be desired.  The two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the “Life of Henry VII.” and the “Essays”; and readers who are more familiar with these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and correction.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States.  Eaton sent her to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss.  “The flag of the United States,” he wrote, “has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate under my agency.”]

[Footnote 2:  The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:—­“The present moment is peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with all the rest of the world, and as the force employed would, if at home, be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners.”  Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in two lines:—­