The simple truth is, that Mr. Downing never committed a greater mistake in his life than when he fancied himself a poet, even in the ninty-ninth degree. We doubt whether he could distinctly state the difference between an epic and an epigram. And it will not do for him to appeal from the critic to _common_ readers—because we assure him his book is a very _un_common book. We never saw any one so uncommonly bad—nor one about whose parturition so uncommon a fuss has been made, so little to the satisfaction of common sense. Your poem is a curiosity, Mr. Jack Downing; your “Metrical Romance” is not worth a single half sheet of the paste-board upon which it is printed. This is our humble and honest opinion; and, although honest opinions are not very plentiful just now, you can have ours at what it is worth. But we wish, before parting, to ask you one question. What _do_ you mean by that motto from sir Philip Sidney, upon the title-page? “He cometh to you with a tale that holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.” What do you mean by it, we say. Either you cannot intend to apply it to the “_tale_” of Powhatan, or else all the “old men” in your particular neighbourhood must be _very_ old men; and all the “little children” a set of dunder-headed little ignoramuses. * * * * * _Miscellanies of Literature. By the Author of Curiosities of Literature. 3 vols. J. & H. Langley, New York: 1841._ These volumes remind us of Coke upon Lyttleton, with which whilom we were wont to be delighted; for they are full of the same odd conceits, and present the same crude mass of undigested learning. Facts which no one else would ever have hunted up from the shelves of dusty libraries; theories which hitherto no man thought of substantiating by a reference to biography or history; ideas, which are oddities in themselves, and which are presented in the quaintest style; and illustrations of notions that no one else would ever have thought of, or which, if thought of, would not have been dressed up in so outlandish a manner, are all marshalled together here in disorderly array, pushing, jostling, and crowding each other until they remind one of Falstaff’s valorous regiment, or a militia training in a midland county. Seriously, however, these miscellanies embody a vast amount of out-of-the-way intelligence, interesting to the general, but absolutely necessary to the literary reader. No man but D’Israeli would ever have had the patience to compile such a work. His ideas on the literary character; his observations on men of genius; and his sketch of King James the first, embody a vast body of undigested facts that must have consumed years merely in their collection. Industry, however, is the only merit of these volumes: in arranging this vast mass of truths, D’Israeli has shown anything but a comprehensive mind. The work is got up in fine style, as what work is not, when issued by the Langleys?