Without drawing too much on the tables of contents, we could not enumerate the many note-worthy pieces in these volumes; and it would much exceed our limits to give them even a passing word of comment. Among Mr. Stoddard's unmentioned poems, the "Hymn to Flora," an "Ode" of delicious melancholy, full of exquisite taste and finely-wrought fancies, "Spring," "Autumn," a "Hymn to the Beautiful," "The Broken Goblet," and "Triumphant Music," give the reader a clear insight into his peculiar characteristics, and open a vision of ideal beauty that no poet has exhibited in such Grecian perfection since the death of Keats. A poem, on page 115, is one that awakens peculiar emotions; it describes a state of half consciousness, when the senses are morbidly alive, and the perceptive faculties are fettered with dreams, or inspired by a strange memory that bears within it things not of this world, and hints at a previous and different existence. "The yellow moon looks slantly down, Through seaward mists, upon the town; And like a mist the moonshine falls Between the dim and shadowy walls. I see a crowd in every street, But cannot hear their falling feet; They float like clouds through shade and light, And seem a portion of the night. The ships have lain, for ages fled, Along the waters, dark and dead; The dying waters wash no more The long black line of spectral shore. There is no life on land or sea, Save in the quiet moon and me; Nor ours is true, but only seems, Within some dead old world of dreams!" _Stoddard_, _page_ 115. With this shadowy poem we close, begging our readers not to be terrified at the boldness with which we claim so high a place for the subjects of our review. They have that within them which will prove our commendations just, and establish them in the rank assigned by us, with a firmness that will need no critic's aid, and can be shaken by no critic's assault. We but add, let them remember that the fear of the world is the beginning of mischief. GEORGE H. BOKER. FOOTNOTES: [A] _A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs._ By BAYARD TAYLOR. Boston, Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 16mo. _Poems._ By RICHARD HENRY STODDARD Same publishers. 16mo. THE UNDERGROUND TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE MAMMOTH CAVE.]