THE TOKEN AND ATLANTIC SOUVENIR: A Christmas and New Year's Present. Edited by S. G. GOODRICH. pp. 348. Boston: CHARLES BOWEN.

THE tenth volume of the Token, although in some respects better than its immediate predecessor, is by no means what it should be, considering its age, and the liberal patronage which has hitherto been extended to it. We allude now more particularly to its embellishments, and externals of printing, binding, etc. Taken as a whole, we think that in regard to these features, at least, this annual has certainly not improved. The publisher deserves credit, however, for setting the good example of introducing engravings only from original American pictures; but let him guard against the fault of issuing bad engravings, by incompetent or unskilful artists, under the impression that their being 'native here' will excuse the defects of bad and perhaps cheaply-purchased pictures. But let us glance briefly at the plates of the present volume.

Annette Delarbre,' engraved by ANDREWS, from a painting by WEST, is exceedingly well executed, and is a fine embodiment of the pathetic story by IRVING, whose title it bears. The composition is full; but throughout there is a calm, clear breadth of light and shade, and the cutting is delicate and soft. The vignette, painted by CHAPMAN, and engraved by GALLAUDET, is also well achieved by both artists. The bow, as a token of promise, resting over the sea and a romantic headland, is a happy conception. Katrina Schuyler,' engraved by ANDREWS from a painting by WEST, is another excellent picture. There is much good execution, and a great deal of spirit and expression, in 'The Lost Found,' painted by LESLIE, and engraved by J. CHENEY. 'The Whirlwind,' from the pencil of COLE, and the graver of GALLAUDET, we cannot admire, although we have no fault to find with the manner of its production. Like a picture of a water-fall, it cannot satisfy the mind. True, there are the twisted treethe prostrate forest the black and frowning sky; but we lack the 'rushing of a mighty wind' the motion of the storm-clouds- the all-pervading roar of the elements. The scene is beyond the blazon of the pencil. There is little of invention, and no especial merit in 'I went to gather Flowers.' The Mother' is well but coarsely cut. The infant' in her arms, however, has the appearance of a naked boy of five years, if one might judge from the countenance. The Indian Toilet' is a clever design, by CHAPMAN; it has, however, a serious blemish in the physiognomy of the Indian maid, who looks like a stout white girl, clad in the garb of a savage. The attitude of the figure in Pleasant Thoughts' is the only creditable feature about it. The less we say of the merits of the engraving, the kinder we shall be to the artist's reputation. There are sublimity and power in 'The Wrecked Mariner,' but the figures detract from the performance. If there be any thing like honor in precedence, the 'Aqueduct near Rome,' engraved by SMILLIE, from a painting by COLE, occupies a very undeserved position as the last plate in the book, There is not a finer or more elaborately-finished engraving in the volume,

verse.

The literary contents of the Token, with some few exceptions, are much above the average of annual literature. Taken together, the prose is far better than the Without essaying to do full justice to the reading department of the volume, we will briefly record our impressions of some of the more prominent articles. 'Katrina Schuyler,' by FAY, is a tale of early American times, and is marked by that flowing style and fine dramatic effect for which the writer is distinguished. 'Monsieur du Miroir,' although the veil chosen by the writer is somewhat of the thinnest, is ingeniously devised, and well sustained throughout. Commend us to the author of 'Sunday at Home!' Such writers are the salt of the literary earth. They are con

tent to describe Nature as they find her, without lugging in unnatural embellishments of their own. A few extracts will justify our encomiums:

"Every Sabbath morning, in the summer time, I thrust back the curtam, to watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple, which stands opposite my chamber window. First the weathercock begins to flash; then, a fainter lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower, and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold, as it points to the gilded figure of the hour. Now, the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower. The carved frame-work of the portal is marked strongly out. At length, the morning glory, in its descent from Heaven, comes down the stone steps, one by one: and there stands the steeple, glowing with fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks, though the same sun brightens it, every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the Sabbath."

The writer spends a pleasant Sunday at home, behind the curtain of his window, near the church, whence he scrutinizes with the eye of a painter:

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"Though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to church, while many, whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats, have left their souls at home. But am there, even before my friend, the sexton. At length he comes a man of kindly, but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and hair of the same mixture- - he comes, and applies his key to the wide portal. Now, my thoughts may go in among the dusty pews, or ascend the pulpit without sacrilege, but soon come forth again, to enjoy the music of the bell. How glad, yet solemn too! All the steeples in town are talking together, aloft in the sunny air, and rejoicing among themselves, while their spires point heavenward. Meantime, here are the children assembling to the Sabbath-school, which is kept somewhere within the church. Often, while looking at the arched portal, I have been gladdened by the sight of a score of these little girls and boys, in pink, blue, yellow, and crimson frocks, bursting suddenly forth into the sunshine, like a swarm of gay butterflies that had been shut up in the solemn gloom. Or I might compare them to cherubs, haunting that holy place.

"About a quarter of an hour before the second ringing of the bell, individuals of the congregation begin to appear. The earliest is invariably an old woman in black, whose bent frame and rounded shoulders are evidently laden with some heavy affliction, which she is eager to rest upon the altar. Would that the Sabbath came twice as often, for the sake of that sorrowful old soul! There is an elderly man, also, who arrives in good season, and leans against the corner of the tower, just within the line of its shadow, looking downward with a darksome brow. I sometimes fancy that the old woman is the happier of the two. After these, others drop in singly, and by twos and threes, either disappearing through the door-way, or taking their stand in its vicinity. At last, and always with an unexpected sensation, the bell turns in the steeple overhead, and throws out an irregular clangor, jarring the tower to its foundation. As if there were magic in the sound, the sidewalks of the street both up and down along, are immediately thronged with two long lines of people, all converging hitherward, and streaming into the church. Perhaps the far-off roar of a coach draws nearer - a deeper thunder by its contrast with the surrounding stillness until it sets down the wealthy worshippers at the portal, among their humblest brethren. Beyond that entrance, in theory at least, there are no distinctions of earthly rank; nor, indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in the sun, would there seem to be such, on the hither side. Those pretty girls! Why will they disturb my pious meditations! Of all days in the week, they should strive to look least fascinating on the Sabbath, instead of heightening their mortal loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels, and keep our thoughts from heaven. Were I the minister himself, I must needs look. One girl is white muslin from the waist upward, black silk downward to her slippers; a second blushes from top-knot to shoetie, one universal scarlet; another shines of a pervading yellow, as if she had made a garment of the sunshine. The greater part, however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of hue. Their veils, especially when the wind raises them, give a lightness to the general effect, and make them appear like airy phantoms, as they flit up the steps, and vanish into the sombre door-way. Nearly all-though it is very strange that I should know it -wear white stockings, white as snow, and neat slippers, laced crosswise with black ribbon, pretty high above the ankles. A white stocking is infinitely more effective than a black one.'

The close of the afternoon service, and the dispersion of the congregation, is not less felicitously described:

Suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold me still behind my curtain, just before the close of the afternoon service. The hour-hand on the dial has passed beyond

four o'clock. The declining sun is hidden behind the steeple, and throws its shadow straight across the street, so that my chamber is darkened, as with a cloud. Around the church door, all is solitude, and an impenetrable obscurity beyond the threshhold. A commotion is heard. The seats are slammed down, and the pew doors thrown backa multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles and the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal. Foremost, scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and lastly, a crowd of females, with young children, and a few scattered husbands. This instantaneous outbreak of life into foneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been wrapt, as it were, in a sort of holy trance, by the fervor of their devotion. There is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief, and brush the seat of a tight pair of black silk pantaloons, which shine as if varnished. They must have been made of the stuff called 'everlasting,' or perhaps of the same piece as Christian's garments, in the Pilgrim's Progress, for he put them on two summers ago, and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm, and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away, after arranging sunset walks with their favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love. At length, the whole congregation is dispersed. No; here, with faces as glossy as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in their rear, the minister, who softens his severe visage, and bestows a kind word on each. Poor souls! To them, the most captivating picture of bliss in Heaven, is - 'There we shall be white!'"

'The Tiara' is interesting in incident, excellent in its moral, and in its style natural and pleasing. It is sufficient recommendation of 'The Man of Adamant' to state, that it is by the author of 'Sunday at Home.' 'Annette Delarbre' is a lame mutilation of a well-known story from the Sketch-Book, which the editor would have shown more taste and judgment in publishing entire. We confess ourselves charmed with All is not Gold that Glitters.' There is a home-bred feeling about it, which will find an echo in all true hearts. Withal, there is a correct appreciation of refined domestic comfort—some agreeable criticism, touching potables and edibles, and all the paraphernalia of a proper home - which we especially admire. That the writer describes what he has seen- and we may add, himself enjoys- we can very readily believe:

'He knows what all those comforts mean,
For he has got the same.'

'Full Thirty' is by Miss SEDGWICK. That it is good, we need not affirm. It is equal to the best fugitive efforts of the writer, and includes, among other incidents, a graphic description of the great fire in this city. We extract two or three paragraphs. The first is timely, and corrects a common error in relation to a body of men second to none in any commercial community in the old world or the new :

"Many persons suppose that a library is not a natural appurtenance for a merchant. This is a mistake. Our merchants constitute a cultivated class, and many among them indulge in the refined luxury of books to an extent that would be incredible to those who have formed their opinion of the body from some of the impotent members. We happen to know that one of our merchants has a fine library at his house, and another, for his leisure moments at his counting-house, where there are duplicates of books of reference - expensive editions of such works as Boyle's Dictionary. This is indeed the luxury of fortune — if that can be called luxury, which, as the political economists say, is reproduced by its consumption."

The others enforce what we have often, but less successfully, endeavored to set forth:

"Man has been justly called an imitative animal. Here we are, a young nation, set apart from the families of the old world, with every incitement to, and facility for making a new experiment in the economy of human life, and like the Chinese, who made the new shoes slip-shod, after the pattern, we copy the forms of European society, bad enough where they exist, but as ill adapted to our use as the slip-shod shoes to the wearer as fantastical for us as a fan for an Iceland belle.

"For example, in this working country, where the gentlemen must be at their of fices and counting-houses by nine o'clock where the domestic machine must stop, or the springs be set in motion by the mistress of the family before that hour-with the pressure of this necessity upon us, we assemble at our evening parties at ten and eleven, because forsooth the fainéants of Europe do so! And for the same sufficient reason, our young ladies must have their comings out!

"But what is to be done? How are their school-days and society compatible? The processes of nature are to be imitated. The dawn preludes the day: the bud slowly unfolds to the sun, gathering strength with every expanding leaf to bear its

rays.

"We are aware that there are no Quixottes more extravagant than those who preach revolutions in manners and customs; but where, as in our case, they are not the natural result of the condition of the people, may we not hope for modifications and ameliorations? for the dawn of a millennium on our social world, when the drawingroom shall no longer be an arena, where there is a short contest for a single prize, (what are the modes of that contest, and what the prize so obtained ?) but shall become the social ground where men and women shall be players, as well as spectators - where rational Christian people may meet without a sacrifice of health or duty; and where young people and children shall come for the formation of their social character, and where all may enjoy on equal terms the very highest pleasure of our gregarious natures? But we beg pardon! our tale is becoming a homily."

'The Old Farm House' has most of the beauties and some of the faults of its agreeable sketcher. Miss LESLIE is prone to the extra-minute in description, and to the over-chatty in colloquy - and yet she seldom comes short in her endeavors to provide good entertainment for a numerous band of admirers. There is a spirited tale by the author of The South-west, by a Yankee,' illustrating the plate of 'The Wrecked Mariner,' and several articles of good poetry. Those by Mrs. SIGOURNEY and Miss GOULD are the most to our taste. The following is by the latter, and must close our quotations:

A NAME IN THE SAND.

Alone I walked the ocean strand:
A pearly shell was in my baud;
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name, the year, the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast;
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.

And so, methought, 't will shortly be
With every mark on earth from me!
A wave of dark oblivion's sea

Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been to be no more;
Of me, my name, the name I bore,
To leave no track nor trace.

And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in his hands,

I know a lasting record stands

Inscribed against my name,

Of all this mortal part has wrought,

Of all this thinking soul has thought,

And from these fleeting moments caught,
For glory, or for shame.

We commend the Token to our readers - despite the blemishes we have indicated for numerous merits. The publisher and editor deserve encouragement for American spirit which they would extend and foster, and for the many edifying inthe tellectual dishes which they have served up at their annual feast.

THE MERCHANT'S CLERK, AND OTHER TALES. By SAMUEL WARREN, LL. D., author of 'Passages from the Diary of a London Physician.' In one volume. pp. 366. NewYork: HARPER AND BROthers.

WHATEVER faults of style may be laid at the door of the author of the 'Passages from the Diary of a London Physician,' it cannot be denied that his productions are all calculated to awaken and sustain intense interest. He may transgress, at times, the bounds of probability, in his desire for effect, but he never fails to carry the hearts of his readers along with him in his masterly delineations of human passion and human suffering. The cloud under which he walks, to use the simile of Democritus, has generally been fruitful of moisture- of drops of awakened sympathy for those whose varied history of trial and sorrow he depicts. In the form of narrative which he has adopted, he may be said to have expanded numerous pictures upon one large canvass; and if sometimes the coloring may seem too high, and the minor adjuncts too numerous, the effect of each separate group will satisfy all observers. His defects, in our judgment, are but the rich superfluities of genius.

The contents of the present volume- especially the story of The Merchant's Clerk' are fully equal to any writings of the same author which have hitherto been given to the public. The conclusion of this tale- now publishing in Blackwood's Magazine was received by the publishers direct from the writer, through the agency of a friend in Europe. The Wagoner,' 'Monkwynd, a Legendary Fragment,' 'The Bracelets,' and 'Blucher, or the Adventures of a Newfoundland Dog,' are the titles of the remaining stories, which it is here stated Dr. Warren has acknowledged to be from his pen a fact that must be sufficiently obvious to the most casual reader.

TALES OF FASHION AND REALITY. BY CAROLINE FREDERICA BEAUCLERK AND HENRIETTA MARY BEAUCLERK. In one volume. pp. 198. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.

THIS volume is scarcely subject to criticism. The writers do littie honor to 'Her Grace the Duchess of St. Albans'- a distant relative, to whom the book is dedicated—and still less to themselves. In looking at the pretension and tone of the work in contrast with its real character, one is forcibly reminded of the Frenchman's description of a storm at sea, wherein there was but little wind, but what there was, was very high! There is but a small amount of originality in these stories, but then that little is very original — there being nothing like it in heaven above or in earth beneath. If the young ladies of fashion in British society use such language as is here attributed to them, Goldsmith's Lady Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs would be an intellectual paragon among them: for 'By the living jingo! I'm all in a muck of sweat!' is a dainty phrase in comparison with many which-in close juxtaposition with scraps of French, dragged in untastefully and per force-might be indicated in the twattle of some of the dramatis persona of these 'tales of fashion.' To be brief: poverty of invention, baldness and inanity — solemn palavers about trifles-composite jokes, as old as the hills, and numerous names of the 'Saint Aubyn de Mowbray Fitz-Eustaceville' school - form the prominent characteristics of this first series of tales of fashionable life. The hopeful 'scions of a noble house' who have perpetrated the trash before us, had better let the second series slumber in manuscript; since, like the first, it will be sure to sleep in print upon the shelves of the victimized publisher.