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[SI:rPTEMBE 28, 1861.


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THE PRrETTY HrOUSEBIEfA-KEEI!


 CRITICISMS AS PER ADVERTISEMENT..
 WE are happy to inform our readers that we have entered into an
agreement with two eminent reviewers, who have kindly consented, in
consideration of the payment of a weekly sum, to criticize the current
literature of the day. The gentlemen in question are singularly well
qualified for the task, one of them never having written a line of
original composition in his life, and the other having been the author
of about four failures per annum for the last thirty years. We sub-
join a short specimen of their abilities. (Publishers who intend using
our columns for the purpose of advertisement, are respectfully
requested to make known their intention at once, as in that case the
works reviewed would be more favourably noticed than if but of
course publishers understand all about that.)
 Great Expectations. BY CHARLES DICKENS.
 We have perused this work with feelings of intense disgust. Groat
were our expectations, and greatly have they been disappointed.
The book is one vast blunder from beginning to end. The Great
Expectations" both of the hero Pi' and of the heroine ESTELLA-the
former of fortune, and the latter of a rich marriage and a wreaking of
revenge upon mankind-bear no fruit. The character of JOE GARGERY,
the blacksmith, is heavy and uninteresting, and M3. WE[TMICK, the
Old Bailey lawyer, is the most unamusing personage we ever met.
 The author has taken great trouble to reproduce all the faults of
his previous obscure works. Great Expectations is as prosy as
Pic ick, as puerile as Olirer Twist, as dreary as Martin ChuzzleCwit,
and as tedious as Davrid Copperfield.
 The great element of success which MR. DICKENS lacks is humour.
IlIe is destitute of the slightest perception of character, nor will he
ever learn how to concoct a plot skilfully. His dramatic persona are
unnatural, and his dialogue as bold as his descriptions; but these
faults are trivial. Our great objection to his writings is their immoral
tendency. We should stroblgly advise this gentleman to seek some
other career than the one on which he has embarked, and in which-
we speak it advisedly-he never can succeed.


 New Song : The Great Sensation.
 This is one of the best lyrical productions of the day. At a time
when our desk groans beneath the weight of the metrical twaddle
nbw published as poetry, it is indeed a relief to find that there still
exists a genius that can create, express, and embellish.
 The writer-we are ignorant of his name-does not seek to startle
by paradox, or to puzzle by sophism. His meaning is as clear and
as translucent as his verse is flowing. We give some extracts :-
 The world is but a shifting stage,
 Men and women players; "
 So the gentle Shakspeare says,
 And the sturdy Sayers.
 The two first lines
 The world is ibt a shifting stage,
 Men and women players,
 are fraught with reflection. The allusion to our great master-poet is
 most graceful, and shows our author to be well read.
 So ri.: -. title Shakspcare says,
 Ai..li stnrdy Sayers,
 are nervous lines, and prove the greatness of those truths compre-
 hended at the same time by the highest of intellects and the best of
 boxers.
 Moving scenes our actions show,
 In this there is no crammer;
 Every stage produces now
 The new sensation drama.
 Chorus :-Roend about us everywhere,
 No matter what our station,
 Everybody's on the move
 To make a great sensation.
This is truth told in melody,-a thought that might have occurred to
the melancholy Jacques, as he wandered, meditative, in the forest of
Ardennes. We shall look forward with extreme anxiety to further
productions from this gifted writer. Let him still continue in this
plain and simple strain, eschewing the morbid and the mystic, and
we predict for him a position in the world of letters only second in
importance to those of the mightiest geniuses.