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Our Exchanges.

The American Art Printer is « A1. » Two beautiful supplements appear in No. 5 —a photo-electro portrait of a lady, in steel stipple, exquisitely executed from a pen drawing, by Ringler & Co.; and in some respects more remarkable still, an excellent outline profile of Dante, in brass-rule! The central composition is French, from Travaux Typographiques; the presswork and borders are done at the office of the Art Printer. This work must be seen to be appreciated. In every respect this valuable paper advances. It is now double the size of its first number, and promises us a « surprise for the new year. » Its literary matter is practical as usual, and we read with interest a brief biography of one of the best American printers, Mr A. V. Haight. We are sorry to see that the numbers of this grand magazine are each paged independently. We hope that this will be altered in volume ii. We intend giving our volumes a binding worthy of their contents; and all idea of unity in a bound book is lost unless it is consecutively paged.

Paper and Press (Philadelphia) is superbly printed as usual. The grand and dignified features of Mr Thomas MacKellar are well brought out out in the portrait on the first page. Another striking full-page plate is a wood-engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto —one of the finest representations of the famous picture that we have ever seen. Other fine engravings in various styles adorn this excellent monthly.

The Inland Printer is in itself a printers' library. The December issue contains 72 pages, not one of which we would care to miss. There are, as usual, some fine specimens of process blocks.

In the Superior Printer, the two proprietors each contribute valuable articles and hints on their particular specialties. Mr Earhardt shews a plate of six « art colors, » produced by combining respectively rose lake, lemon yellow, and bronze blue, with black, in definite proportions. Six more are to follow, compounded of three colors. All art-printers will appreciate the value of this sheet. All have found the difficulty of matching shades, and the waste of time and ink involved, and the further difficulty, when the result was secured, of determining, for future guidance, the proportions of each color. And it is the property of black so to disguise the colors mixed with it, that without considerable practice the pressman scarcely knows how to begin. In thus giving the trade the benefit of his own taste and long experience, Mr Earhardt is doing valuable work. He has his own theory of complementary colors, which is disputed by Mr A. V. Haight, and an interesting discussion between these two authorities is in progress. Mr Richardson shows some work adorned with curiously waved and twisted rule—a kind of display in which he excels. In addition to the plates there are 24 quarto pages in the present issue, all filled with practical matter.

Our admirable contemporary, the Paper World, has just entered upon its sixteenth half-yearly volume. We have bound files of this paper almost from the beginning, and prize it highly.

Salmon's Circular contains interesting letters, full of trade notes, from London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, and Birmingham. This useful quarterly claims to have the largest circulation of any trade paper in existence.

Conner's Typographic Messenger comes out in mourning for the late J. M. Conner, the head of the firm, whose death we noted last year, and contains a brief and appreciative biography. This number, like the last, is set up in the eye-torturing « Cosmopolitan » —a pretty enough letter for a line or two; but, as a body-fount, we would find German Tert pleasanter to read. The principal article, signed « James M. Conner, » deals with Mr Schraubstadter's article on electro-matrices, which is characterized as « misleading. » The greater part of the number is taken up with a good display of novelties, noted elsewhere.

The American Lithographer and Printer is always a welcome exchange. Some « art supplements » are promised, for which we shall look with interest. In the issue for 24th December is a long and important article by Carl August Mueller on the « Theory of Typo-Photography. » We should be inclined to copy the whole article, but for the difficulty of reproducing the illustrative diagrams. Why does not our contemporary study those readers who would like to bind their volumes? The sheets are pasted together almost close to the text on the inside, and the margin cropped off closer still on the outside. And the composition and proof-reading are often slovenly. Such slips as « brethern » and « perdict, » in one paragraph of about half-a-dozen lines, annoy the reader.

Press and Type is neatly printed as usual, and full of interesting matter.

Revista Tipografica, Madrid, is as usual principally occupied with Schelter & Giesecke's novelties, for which the publishers hold the Spanish agency. In the latest number there is an illustration of a new « lock-up, » and a page of new cuts, illustrative of bull-fighting, concerts, fêtes, &c.

The American Magazine is as profusely and beautifully illustrated as ever. The place of honor is occupied by an account of Cape Breton Island, the northen extremity of Nova Scotia. « Olivia Delaplaine » is a powerfully written serial, and increases in interest. The gem of the number is a poem by Joaquin Miller, entitled « Twilight at Nazareth. » It is not only the finest work by this eccentric and somewhat barbaric writer that we have yet seen, but it is one of the most perfect short poems any American writer has ever produced. It contains fourteen stanzas, and though to be appreciated, the poem requires to be read and studied as a whole, we cannot refrain from quoting two:

These flowers are God's own syllables;
They plead so lovingly, they lead
So gently upward to his hills.
If we might only learn to read!
If we might only learn to read and know
Christ's hook of eighteen hundred years ago!

I think we then should all rejoice,
Should know the beauteous mysteries,
Should joy with one wide common voice
As joy the great earth-circling seas.
Could we but read as Christ would have us read,
We then might know the living God indeed!

The engravings are as usual admirable in design and execution. We would, however, except the full-page illustration on p. 321— a horribly realistic picture of a corpse on the sea-shore—it is, we think, outside the true field of art, and more according to the French than the English standard. The pulpit, the household, and health topics, have each as before, their own departments.

We are in receipt of two numbers of the St. Paul Literary News, a neatly printed and readable review of current literature, freely illustrated with the best engravings from new books.