* * * * * _The Money-King and Other Poems_. By JOHN G. SAXE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. We regret having overlooked this pleasant volume so long. In a previous collection of poems, which has run through fifteen editions, Mr. Saxe fully established his popularity; and the present volume, which is better than its predecessor, has in it all the elements of a similar success. The two longest poems, "The Money-King" and "The Press," have been put to the severe test of repeated delivery before lyceum audiences in different parts of the country; and a poet is sure to learn by such a method of publication, what he may not learn by an appearance in print, the real judgment of the miscellaneous public on his performance. He may doubt the justice of the praise or the censure of the professional critic; but it is hard for him to resist the fact of failure, when it comes to him palpably in the satire that scowls in an ominous stare and the irony that lurks in an audible yawn,--hard for him to question the reality of triumph, when teeth flash at every gleam of his wit and eyes moisten at every touch of his sentiment. Having tried each of these poems before more than a hundred audiences, Mr. Saxe has fairly earned the right to face critics fearlessly; and, indeed, the poems themselves so abound in sense, shrewdness, sagacity, and fancy, in sayings so pithy and wit so sparkling, are so lull of humor and good-humor, and flow on their rhythmic and rhyming way with so much of the easy abandonment of vivacious conversation, that few critics will desire to reverse the favorable decisions of the audiences they have enlivened. Among the miscellaneous poems, there are many which, in brilliancy, in keen, good-natured satire, in facility and variety of versification, in ingenious fancy, in joyousness of spirit and pure love of fun, excel the longer poems to which we have just referred. We have found the great majority of them exceedingly exhilarating reading, and, if our limits admitted an extended examination, we feel sure that the result of the analysis would be the eliciting of unexpected merits rather than the detection of hidden defects. * * * * * _Say and Seal_. By the Author of "Wide, Wide World," and the Author of "Dollars and Cents." In Two Volumes. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.