The chief difficulty in the way of American literature, according to Mr. Griswold, is a want of patriotism, or an “intelligent and earnest effort to foster the good we possess and acquire the good we need;” and he thinks the defect mainly proceeds from the absence of a just law of copyright. In other words, there is no absence of intelligence in the United States, but the intelligence sufficient to write a good book can find a better remuneration by being devoted to other pursuits. Mr. Griswold expresses himself in very plain language regarding copyright. All arguments against copyright, he contends, “as universal and perpetual as the life of the book, are but insults to common sense.” He thinks that literary property is that to which a man’s right is most unquestionable and exclusive. “The feudal chief by rapine, or the speculator by cunning, wins an estate, and the law secures him and his heirs in its possession while there are days and nights. An author _creates_ a book, which, beside diffusing a general benefit, yields a revenue as great, perhaps, as that from the estate which has been acquired by force or fraud, and the law, without alleging any fault, seizes it, and bestows it on the mob.” The remarks, also, on the effect of our present law of copyright, in flooding the country with the monstrosities and immoralities of the French mind, are worthy of attention from every practical statesman. Indeed, it is for the interest of every person who has any stake in a country, that its literature should be high and pure. Demoralize the mind of a nation by bad books, and you undermine its social and political institutions. It is of some importance to know what Mr. Prettyman peruses in the parlor, but of more importance what Dick cons over at the plough, or what Sally reads in the kitchen. We have not space to follow Mr. Griswold in his rapid and interesting view of what has been done so far in the United States in the establishment of a sound national literature. He proves that in the face of all discouragements, we have done as much in “the fields of Investigation, Imagination, Reflection, and Taste, in the present century, as any other twelve million of people—about our average number for this period—in the world.” He supports the assertion by a long array of names and works in all departments of literature, and the aggregate impression which his catalogue leaves on the mind, is one of pride and hope. We commend Mr. Griswold’s book to everybody who wishes to think well of his country, in that which is the noblest boost of a nation—its literature. * * * * * _Songs of the Sea, and other Poems. By Epes Sargent. Boston: James Monroe & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._