Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), “Literary” (A), from the Evening Mirror (New York), February 7, 1845, vol. 1, no. 105, p. 2, cols. 1-2

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Literary.

THE AMERICAN REVIEW. — We have before us the second, or February number of this new Whig Magazine, edited by George H. Colton, Esq., the author of “Tecumseh,” and distinguished otherwise by a variety of literary labors. Rarely, if ever, have we perused any single number of a monthly journal with greater pleasure. No paper in the work is even indifferent. All are good — some admirable. We notice especially an article by a gentleman who never does otherwise than well (Mr. Duyckinck) on the “Literary Propsects” of the country for 1845. With the hand on the heart we thank Mr. D. for this essay, which, at the present crisis, is the one thing needed. It will do infinite service to the good cause — to the cause of truth, of free and hearty speaking and thinking, self-dependence, force and originality, in contradistinction from the supine and despicable imitativeness, namby-pamby-ism, and subserviency to foreign opinion which have so long and so disastrously kept our literature grovelling in the earth.

The paper on Post Office Reform is well-written and valuable. “Words” by E. P. Whipple, is also an excellent, vigorous essay. “Jack Long” is certainly one of the most happily conceived, and skilfully managed tales that have been seen in an American Magazine. The Critical Notices are brief but judicious, and there are several other items of the work which we should delight to discuss in detail would our limits permit us the pleasure.

The “American Review,” upon the whole, does great credit to the skill and judgment of its editor, and bears about it the unmistakable indication of long and profitable life.

HUNT’S MERCHANTS’ MAGAZINE. — The February number of this, perhaps the most truly valuable Monthly in the world, is even more than usually replete with good things. The articles are French Spoliations of American Commerce — Sixth Census of the United States — The Post Office Department — The Railroad Movement — Trade and Commerce of Brazil — and Resources of the Lackawana Valley. The paper on the P. O. Department, is by the Hon. F. O. I. Smith, and is at this moment [column 2:] especially valuable; and that on the resources of the Lackawana will deeply interest a numerous body of readers. To the “French Spoliations” our friends will remember that we were particularly indebted in our late editorial article on that important subject. Thirty pages of the number are devoted to commercial discussions, commercial statistics, regulations, mercantile miscellanies, and a monthly chronicle and review.

SCOTT’S REPRINT OF BLACKWOOD. — We are indebted to Leonard Scot & Co., 112 Fulton Street, for their reprint of the January Blackwood. This always able journal is particularly so in the opening of the year. The best papers are “Homer, Dante and Angelo” — “Red River Recollections” — “The Aesthetics of Dress” — and “Coleridge and Opium-Eating.”

Mr. J. S. Redfield, of this city, has in press and will soon publish, in one volume, the Poetical Writing of Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, (better known, perhaps, as Mrs. Seba Smith.) She is a woman of genius, with feeling and fancy. We shall do our duty on the appearance of the volume, which can hardly fail of success.