_A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: Ticknor, Read & Fields, 1 vol. 16mo._ Bayard Taylor’s peculiarities as a poet are the same which have won him so much popularity as a man, and refer to his character as well as his mind. Fine, however as is the impression conveyed by his numerous prose works, we think that no reader can carefully peruse the present volume without feeling that the best embodiment of the man is in these poems. They are thoroughly genuine, recording the thoughts and aspirations nearest and dearest to the author’s heart and brain, and o’erinformed with the life of a thoughtful, imaginative and genial nature. Some of them are darkened by a recent affliction, and to those friends who know how deep and acute that affliction was, they can hardly be read without tears. But the majority of the poems express the essential happiness of the author’s spirit, and communicate happiness to the reader. That descriptive power, which has made him one of the most fascinating of modern writers of travels, is of course active in the present volume in its most exquisite form. Indeed, as a poet, he does not so much describe as represent scenery, picturing it forth to the imagination in words and images which seem the mental counterparts of the objects before his eye. As a descriptive poet alone, he would rank high among contemporary authors, but he is also a close and subtle observer of the operations of thought and passion, as modified by individual character, and numerous pieces in this volume indicate intensity and concentration of thought, exercised on some of the most elusive and etherial laws and facts of the spiritual nature. In addition to all this, his style of expression is pure, energetic and picturesque, and varies readily with his themes. The best poem in the volume, and one which we think has good pretensions to be ranked with American classics, is “Man-da-Min, or the Romance of the Maize,” an Indian legend of great beauty, and, in Taylor’s version, exquisite in idea and masterly in execution. “Hylas,” “Taurus,” “The Summer Camp,” “The Odalisque,” “The Pine Forest of Monterey,” and “The Waves,” are likewise of great merit, and exhibit the variety as well as power of the author’s mind. Cordially do we wish success to this volume, and trust that Taylor will live to write, and we to welcome many like it. * * * * * _The Home Book of the Picturesque, or American Scenery, Art and Literature; with Thirteen Engravings on Steel, from Pictures by Eminent Artists, Engraved expressly for this Work. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. folio._