It is a remarkable fact that the Americans have never produced a Quarterly worthy of the name, except the 'North American Review,' which is certainly below the intellectual level of the four or five English reviews which are reprinted in New York every quarter within a fortnight of their publication in England. It was said, in explanation of the fact that the French had never succeeded in maintaining a review on the plan of the English Quarterlies, that their opinions and parties change so often, and the nation was so volatile, that they could not wait a quarter of a year upon anybody. But this explanation will not apply to the Americans. The 'North American Review' has always had on its list of contributors the very best names in native literature, such as Longfellow, Everett, J. R. Lowell, Motley, Jared Sparks, Caleb Cushing, George Bancroft, and others. Yet its success has been very partial. Its literary position ought to have been far more decided. The 'Atlantic Monthly' holds a deservedly high place in American letters, with such authors as Emerson, Holmes, and Mrs. Stowe among its principal contributors; but its influence has always been thrown into the scale against Evangelical Christianity. 'Harper's Magazine,' published in New York, is an illustrated monthly for the fashionable world, with a circulation of 150,000 copies. 'Bonner's Ledger' has pushed its way into the front rank of weekly magazines, by its romances, its essays, and its poetry, from such writers as Parton, Beecher, Everett, Saxe, Bryant, and many others. The sporting world has its _Wilkes' Spirit of the Times_; the advocates of woman's rights have the _Revolution_, in the hands of Susan B. Anthony and E. C. Stanton; the grocers have a _Grocers' Journal_; the merchants a _Dry Goods Reporter_; the billiard-players, a _Billiard-cue_; and the dealers in tobacco, a _Tobacco Leaf_. The advocates of Spiritualism and Socialism have a large number of journals in their service. But, strange to relate, the Americans have not a single comic periodical like our 'Punch.' Mr. Maverick says that, in the course of a dozen years, many attempts have been made to establish such a print, but without success. 'Vanity Fair' was the best of the class, but its wit and its pictorial illustrations were equally poor and trivial. All the comic papers that flourished for a few years were only remarkable for the immense amount of bad wit they contained, for a wilderness of worthlessness, for an endless process of tickling and laughter; with only an occasional gleam of genuine humour and imagination. If the Americans have failed in producing such a periodical, it is not from the want of literary men possessed of the _vis comica_, for Oliver Wendell Holmes, James R. Lowell, Shelton, Butler, and Saxe are first-rate humourists. The English comic papers can command all the abounding talent of men like Douglas Jerrold, Albert Smith, W. M. Thackeray, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Thomas Hood, F.