_The Discarded Daughter_, by Mrs. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH. (Published by A. Hart.) The author of this novel possesses a singularly vivid imagination, and a rare command of picturesque expression. She evinces originality, depth and fervor of feeling, vigor of thought, and dramatic skill; but so blended with glaring faults, that the severest critic would be her best friend. In the construction of her plots, she has no regard for probability: nature is violated at every step; impossible people are brought into impossible situations; every thing is colored so highly that the eye is dazzled; there is no repose, no perspective, none of the healthy freshness of life; we are removed from the pure sunshine and the forest shade into an intolerable glare of gas-light; truth is sacrificed to melo-dramatic effect; and the denouement is produced by ghastly contrivances that vie in extravagance with Mrs. Radcliffe's most superfine horrors. With the constant effort to surprise, the language becomes inflated, and at the same time is often careless to a degree, which occasions the most ludicrous sense of incongruity. It is a pity to see so much power as this lady evidently is endowed with, so egregiously wasted. Let her curb her fiery Pegasus with unrelenting hand--let her consult the truthfulness of nature, rather than yield to a rage for effect--let her tame the genial impetuosity of her pen by a due reverence for classical taste and common sense--and she will yet attain a rank worthy of her fine faculties, from which she has hitherto been precluded by her outrages on the proprieties of fictitious composition.