difficulty of obtaining a copy has always been great. Many who
were smitten with a love for it have been compelled to transcribe it
from the copy of a more fortunate collector. The Croaker Epistles have
been even more cunningly suppressed. Now we have both in a form which
will endure with the stereotype plates. They evince the most brilliant
characteristics of Halleck's genius, and continually suggest the
thought, that if the mind of the author be so powerful and various in
its almost extempore sport and play, it must have still greater
capacity in itself.

Fanny, and the Croaker Epistles swarm with local and personal
allusions which a New-Yorker alone can fully appreciate. Van Buren,
Webster, Clinton, the politicians and authors generally of the period
when the poems were written, are all touched with a light and graceful
pencil. Fanny is conceived and executed after the manner of Byron's
Beppo and Don Juan. It is full of brilliant rogueries, produced by
bringing sentiment and satire together with a shock. For instance,

Dear to the exile is his native land,
In memory's twilight beauty seen afar:
Dear to the broker is a note of hand
Collaterally secured--the polar star
Is dear at midnight to the sailor's eyes,
_And dear are Bristed's volumes at half price._

The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest;
The leaves of Autumn smile when fading fast;
The swan's last song is sweetest--and the best
Of Meigs's speeches, doubtless, was his last.

In a mocking attempt to prove that New York exceeded Greece in the
Fine Arts, we have the following convincing arguments:

In sculpture we've a grace the Grecian master,
Blushing, had owned his purest model lacks;
We've Mr. Bogart in the best of plaster,
The Witch of Endor in the best of wax,
Beside the head of Franklin on the roof
Of Mr. Lang, both jest and weather-proof.

* * * * *

In painting we have Trumbull's proud _chef d'oeuvre_, Blending in one
the funny and the fine;

His independence will endure forever--
And so will Mr. Allen's lottery sign;
And all that grace the Academy of Arts,
From Dr. Hosack's face to Bonaparte's.

In physic, we have Francis and McNeven,
Famed for long heads, short lectures, and long bills;
And Quackenboss, and others, who from heaven
_Were rained upon us in a shower of pills._

It would be impossible to