From the numerous pieces which compose the volume, we select the CULPRIT FAY, as best adapted to exhibit the true merits of our author. It is, to say the least, an elegant production--the purest specimen of ideality that we have ever met with, sustaining in each incident a most bewitching interest. Its very title is enough to kindle the imagination, and to send us wandering amid the bowers of elfin land, reviewing the traditions of our boyhood years. We recall to recollection many of those “old world stories,”--tales of brownies and the bogle burns of Scotland,--of the elves and sprites of merry England, or the mystic Wasser Nixen of the German fable. We trust ourselves with pleasure to that guidance which once more will introduce us to this region of enchantment. The poem opens with an elegant description of the spot our author has selected for his “spell-bound realm.” It lies beside the waters of the lordly Hudson--a river whose whole shore is rich in scenes of beauty, and many of whose deep receding bays and jutting headlands have derived a lasting interest from the pen of Irving. The time is midnight--we stand upon the summit of Cronest, gazing upon a cloudless sky--every thing around us is now lulled to sweet repose-- “The winds are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill, But the cricket’s chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did.” Suddenly the voice of the sentry-elf, awakened from his slumbers, (how he came to be asleep our author does not tell us,) breaks in upon the stillness, as he hastens to announce the dawning of the fairy day--and crowds of tiny Fays fly answering to his summons. “They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen; Some on the backs of beetles fly From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rocked about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest-- They had driven him out by elfin power, And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid; And some had opened the four-o’-clock, And stole within its purple shade. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above--below--on every side, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!”