_The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. Complete in one Volume. Collected and Arranged, with Illustrative Notes. Illustrated by Elegant Steel Engravings. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo._ This edition of Byron might bear the palm from all other American editions, in respect to its combination of cheapness with elegance, if it were not the most valuable in point of completeness and illustrative notes. It is a reprint of Murray's Library edition, and while executed in a similar style of typography, excells it, if we are not mistaken, in the number of its embellishments. It contains an admirable portrait of Byron, a view of Newstead Abbey, and also six fine steel engravings, executed with great beauty and finish. It is uniform with the same publisher's library edition of Southey and Moore, contains eight hundred pages of closely printed matter, and includes every thing that Byron wrote in verse. It does honor to the enterprise and taste of the publishers, and will doubtless have a circulation commensurate with its merits. As long as our American booksellers evince a disposition to publish classical works in so beautiful a form, it is a pleasant duty of the press to commend their editions. We cordially wish success to all speculations which imply a confidence in the public taste. It would be needless here to express any opinion of the intellectual or moral character of Byron's poems. Everybody's mind is made up on those points. The present edition is admirably adapted to convey to the reader Byron's idea of himself, the opinions formed of him by his contemporaries, and the effect of his several works on the public mind as they appeared. It contains an immense number of notes by Moore, Scott, Jeffrey, Campbell, Wilson, Rogers, Heber, Milman, Gifford, Ellis, Bridges, and others, which will be found extremely useful and entertaining. Extracts are taken from Byron's own diary, and from the recorders of his conversations, giving an accurate impression of each poem, as regards its time and manner of composition, the feelings from which it sprung, and the opinion he entertained of its reception by the public. Profuse quotations are made from the first draught of each poem, showing how some of the most striking ideas were originally written, and the improvements introduced in their expression by the author's "sober second thoughts." The opinions expressed of the various poems by the leading reviews of the time, including the criticisms of Scott, Jeffrey, Gifford, Heber, and others, are largely quoted. Added to these are numerous notes, explaining allusions, or illustrating images which the common reader might be supposed not to understand. Taken altogether, the edition will enable almost any person to obtain a clear understanding of Byron and his works, without any trouble or inconvenience. There is no other edition which can compare with it in this respect.