Altogether an admirable work.... Full of humor, boisterous, but delicate,--of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew,--of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of 'mountain-mirth,' mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful _pose_, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the 'highest heaven of invention.' ... We love a book so purely objective ... Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity.... In fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe.... We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently capable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American bards. * * * * * _From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom._ A volume in bad grammar and worse taste.... While the pieces here collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in the corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this public manner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits.... Contemptible slanders.... Vilest Billingsgate.... Has raked all the gutters of our language.... The most pure, upright, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant venom.... General Cushing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies.... The _Reverend_ Homer Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth.... * * * * * _From the World-Harmonic-Æolian-Attachment_.