This splendid volume is illustrated with seven highly finished engravings, after designs by Weir, and in point of mechanical execution is very nearly equal to the same publishers’ exquisite edition of Halleck. “Amelia’s” poems have passed within a comparatively short period through seven editions, and they have therefore fairly earned their right to a handsome volume like the present. It is hardly possible to glance upon a page of Mrs. Welby’s book without having an affection for the authoress, and without sympathizing in her success. Envy and spite cannot touch her. The fine feminine tenderness, the graceful and affluent fancy, the mellowness and melody of diction, and the innocence and purity of sentiment, which are so characteristic of almost every poem in the volume, overcome the resistance equally of reader and critic. It may be generally said of her poetry that her nature is finer than her intellect. There is too much impassioned expansiveness in her pieces to produce those striking effects which come from stern, brief, tingling expression, in which imagination appears as a condensing as well as shaping power. * * * * * _Redburn: His first Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service. By Herman Melville, Author of Types, &c. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._ Mr. Melville has been called the “De Foe of the Ocean,” and we can hardly conceive of a compliment more flattering, and, on the whole, more appropriate. He has De Foe’s power of realizing the details of a scene to his own imagination, and of impressing them on the imaginations of others, but he has also a bit of deviltry in him which we do not observe in De Foe, however much raciness it may lend to Melville. The present work, though it hardly has the intellectual merit of “Mardi,” is less adventurous in style, and more interesting. It can be read through at one sitting, with continued delight, and we see no reason why it should not be one of the most popular of all the books relating to the romance of the sea. The fact that it narrates the adventures of a “green hand,” will make it invaluable to a large class of youthful sailors. The style sparkles with wit and fancy, but its great merit is a rapidity of movement, which bears the reader along, almost by main force from the commencement to the conclusion of the volume. * * * * * _Orations and Occasional Discourses. By George W. Bethune, D. D. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._