Text: N. P. Willis, Magnificent Holiday Present, Evening Mirror (New York), December 12, 1844, vol. 1, no. 58, p. 2, col. 6

[page 2, column 6, continued:]

MAGNIFICENT HOLIDAY PRESENT. — We have this day published, and have for sale at the office of the Evening Mirror, a complete edition of the “MIRROR LIBRARY,” with an engraved frontispiece. It is elegantly bound, and will be sold at the exceedingly low price of five dollars. The Mirror Library comprises the best contributions to the Literature of Europe and America ever collected in one volume. The choicest gems in Prose and Poetry, of some forty of the most brilliant and popular writers of the age — making in all about one thousand pages, in the most beautiful stereotype. This Library has received the highest praise of the literary press throughout the country — and, as a Gift Book for the approaching holidays, it is far more valuable and appropriate than most of the ephemeral works prepared for Christmas and New Year's presents. The following is a reviewal of the varied contents of this excellent volume:

The Sacred Poems of N. P. Willis. — The first progeny of our poetical youth — pure and prosperous.

Poems of Passion — by the same author. — The child of a more tempestuous period of manhood — wayward and energetic.

Lady Jane and humorous Poems — by the same. — a diary of travels and fats, fused into the flow of fiction.

The Songs and Ballads of George P. Morris. — Strains upon master chords — by the way they pay, passably popular.

The Little Frenchman and his water lots, and other hits at his times. — intended as ephemera; but collected into the volume in surprised obedience to the universal demand.

The Songs and Ballads of Barry Cornwell — A triple braid of genius, enthusiasm and affection.

Letters from under a Bridge; by N. P. Willis. — A daguerreotype of five year's granted prayers.

The Culprit Fay, by Drake — Lilian, by Praed, — and St. Agnes’ Eve, by Keats. — The three most “perfect and entire chrysolites” of mere imaginative poetry in the English language.

Pinkney's Poems. — A casket of diamond thoughts, not in a way to suit lovers and heroes.

The Loves of the Angels, by Thomas Moore. — Honey from the foot of Jacob's ladder.

Moore's Irish Melodies and Sacred Songs. — The essence of love, patriotism and reverence.

The Angel of the World, by Croly, and Rimini, by Leigh Hunt. — Two tales of temptation, wondrously well told.

The Songs and Ballads of Dibdin, the bard of poor Jack. — A gem worthy of being brought over “in two ships” — incomparably valuable to the sailor, and spirit-stirring to every reader who has a spirit to stir. Why, hurrah for Dibdin! Who ever swung with such a fling, the great pendulum of human song? “We pause for a reply.”

The Nautical Airs, Legendary Ballads and Miscellaneous Poems of Thomas Moore. — A careful pluck from the great little bard's choicest garden of flowering immortals.

Sands of Gold, sifted from the flood of Fugitive Literature. — From stories well worth plucking from the drift towards Lethe — each one a considered moral.