ss.: Samuel
Bowles & Co.

Since Mr. Greeley set the example, it has been the manifest destiny of
every enterprising journalist to take an occasional trip across the
continent, and personally inspect his subscribers. The latest overland
Odyssey of this kind--transacted by three silent editors and one very
public Speaker--is recorded in Mr. Bowles's new book; which proceeds, as
one may observe, from his own publishing office and bindery, and may
therefore almost claim, like the quaint little books presented by the
eccentric Quincy Tufts to Harvard College Library, to have been
"written, printed, and bound by the same hand."

Journalism is a good training, in some ways, for a trip like this. It
implies a quick eye for facts, a good memory for figures, a hearty faith
in the national bird, and a boundless appetite for new acquaintances.
Every Eastern editor, moreover, is sure to find old neighbors throughout
the West; and he who escorts a rising politician has all the world for a
friend.

The result is, in this case, a thoroughly American book,--American in
the sense of to-day, if not according to the point of view of the
millennium. It is American in its vast applications of arithmetic; in
the facility with which it brings the breadth of a continent within the
limits of a summer's ride; in the eloquence which rises to sublimity
over mining stock, and dwindles to the verge of commonplace before
unmarketable natural beauties. Of course, it is the best book on the
theme it handles, for it is the latest; it is lively, readable,
instructive; but no descriptions of those changing regions can last
much longer than an almanac, and this will retain its place only until
the coming of the next editorial pilgrim.

_Esperance._ By META LANDER, author of "Light on the Dark River,"
"Marion Graham," &c. New York: Sheldon & Co.

Can it be possible that any literature of the world now yields
sentimental novels so vague and immature as those which America brings
forth? Or is it that their Transatlantic compeers float away and
dissolve by their own feebleness before they reach our shores?

"Cry, Esperance! Percy! and set on." This Shakespearian motto might have
appeared upon the title-page of this volume; but there is nothing so
vivacious upon that page, nor indeed on any other. The name of the book
comes from that of the heroine, who was baptized Hope. But the friend of
her soul was wont to call her Esperance, "in her wooing moods,"