The author is, as we judge, a young man and a young writer; and therefore it is that we have written so freely, for we are convinced that, if he will lay aside his besetting affectations, eschew pseudo sentimentalism, and write naturally about nature, he may yet take high place as a describer of the domestic and rural life of America. * * * * * _Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life. By Joseph T. Buckingham. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2 vols. 16mo._ The present volumes are the production of one of the veterans of the American press, connected for more than fifty years with many enterprises in the periodical department of literature, such as the Polyanthos, the New England Magazine, and the Boston Courier. He has known intimately most of the authors, artists, actors, poets, eminent merchants, politicians and statesmen, of his section of the country, and his work overflows with reminiscences of their personal and public character. Starting as a practical printer, he worked steadily up to editorial life and political position; and now enjoys a wide reputation in New England, not only for fearlessness and for ability, but for independence, incorruptible honor, unswerving honesty, and uncompromising consistency--qualities which have stood a little in the way of his interest in those emergencies when judicious apostacy is the road to wealth and consideration. To no one better than to him can be justly applied the words of Sidney Smith, in relation to Sir James Scarlett: “He has never sold the warm feelings and honorable motives of youth and manhood for an annual sum of money and an office. He has never touched the political Aceldama, nor signed the devil’s bond for cursing to-morrow what he has blessed to-day.” The introductory portion of these volumes, describing the condition of the author’s parents at the close of the revolutionary war, conveys a vivid idea of the injustice done to those soldiers and officers of the war, who had invested their whole means in the discredited continental currency. The tale of poverty which Mr. Buckingham tells, is one of the most pathetic we ever read. The description of the struggles of his mother, left after his father’s death with a large family, to support herself and her children, is more powerful than any thing of the kind we remember in romance. The trusting piety, which mingled with all her miseries and lightened their load, is touchingly delineated. Indeed, the first fifty pages of the book are worthy to be placed in the front rank of biographical literature. Mr. Buckingham’s style of composition is vigorous, condensed, and pure; and, more than all, bears the mark of his sturdy character and determined will. We trust his work will have a wide circulation. * * * * * _Sicily: a Pilgrimage. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 16mo._