Text: A. B., “[Review of Burton's Magazine for March]”, Daily National Intelligencer (Washington D.C.), March 16, 1840

BURTON'S MAGAZINE. — We have received from Mr. Hampton, agent for the District, the March number of this cheap yet elegant monthly, which seems to be all original, and from the pens of the most talented writers of the day.

Mr. Burton's own capacity for interesting the Public, either in original composition, reviews of other men's productions, or upon the stage, it would be of little avail now to question. His already well-established reputation has suffered nothing in the present number. “Thaumaturgia,” part 2d; The Resurrectionists; also “The Brothers,” an incident connected with the battle of Waterloo, are from his pen, and will well compensate the trouble of reading. A beautiful steel engraving of “Undercliff,” the residence of George P. Morris, Esq. embellishes the number before us, which is otherwise well stored with interesting production. “Some further chapters of the Miami Valley,” by a Pioneer of Ohio; “Squire Parkins's Splorification,” by a Downeaster; “Florence Vane,” a poem, by P. P. Cook, of Winchester, Va.; The Journal of Julius Rodman, being an account of the first passage across the Rocky Mountains, are to be found among other matters of interest: then we have the poems of Mrs. M. St. Leon-Loud, Pa.; Miss Lambert, of the same State; of Frederick West, of New York; Judge Tremper, of the same State, &c. &c.

Mr. Poe, the co-editor of the Magazine, is well known as an indefatigable reviewer, if we might not say a severe critic. What is said in this number of the new work, by Willis, entitled “Romance of Travel, by the author of Pencillings by Way,” is pleasant and racy enough, until the conclusion is approached, when a severity, like Mr. Willis's own criticisms, is brought in requisition. To “measure corn in one's own bushel” is fair enough; but for the literary men so far to doubt each other's quantum of brain, or “everlasting brains,” as the writer calls those of Mr. Willis, is, we think, rather discreditable to the “profession of literature,” as a member of one of our lyceums said on a recent occasion. Whichever of the editors it may have been that labored in this part of the Magazine, seems to have acquitted himself with credit, without sparing such as have distinguished themselves “Paper Gladiators.”

A. B.