What few notices we have seen of this poem, speak of it as the production of _Mrs._ Seba Smith. To be sure, gentlemen may be behind the scenes, and know more about the matter than we do. They may have some private reason for understanding that black is white—some reason into which we, personally, are not initiated. But, to ordinary perception, “Powhatan” is the composition of Seba Smith, _Esquire_, of Jack Downing memory, and _not_ of his wife. _Seba Smith_ is the name upon the title-page; and the personal pronoun which supplies the place of this well-known prænomen and cognomen in the preface, is, we are constrained to say, of the masculine gender. “The author of Powhatan,”—thus, for example, runs a portion of the prolegomena—“does not presume to claim for _his_ production the merit of good and genuine poetry, nor does _he_ pretend to assign it a place in the classes or forms into which poetry is divided”—in all which, by the way, he is decidedly right. But can it be that no gentleman has _read_ even so far as the Preface of the book? Can it be that the critics have had no curiosity to creep into the _adyta_—into the inner mysteries of this temple? If so, they are decidedly right too. “Powhatan” is handsomely bound. Its printing is clear beyond comparison. Its paper is magnificent, and we undertake to say (for _we have_ read it through with the greatest attention) that there is not a single typographical error in it, from one end to the other. Further than this, in the way of commendation, no man with both brains and conscience should proceed. In truth, a more absurdly _flat_ affair—for flat is the only epithet which applies in this case—was never before paraded to the world, with so grotesque an air of bombast and assumption. To give some idea of the _tout ensemble_ of the book—we have first a Dedication to the “Young People of the United States,” in which Mr. Jack Downing lives, in “the hope that he may do some good in his day and generation, by adding something to the sources of rational enjoyment and _mental culture_.” Next, we have a Preface, occupying four pages, in which, quoting his publishers, the author tells us that poetry is a “very great bore, and won’t sell”—a thing which cannot be denied in certain cases, but which Mr. Downing denies in his own. “It may be true,” he says, “of endless masses of words, that are poured forth from the press, under the _name_ of poetry”—but it is not true “of _genuine_ poetry—of that which is worthy of the name”—in short, we presume he means to say it is not in the least little bit true of “Powhatan;” with regard to whose merits he wishes to be tried, not by the critics (we fear, in fact, that here it is the critics who will be tried), “but by the _common_ taste of _common_ readers”—all which ideas are common enough, to say no more.