We continue to receive a superabundance of original communications. Many of them have genuine merit, but must be long delayed.

While we return our thanks to correspondents for their favors, we must beg of them not to require their articles to be returned when not inserted. This demand would impose a somewhat troublesome task, and is contrary to the understood laws of the craft. Writers should keep copies of their articles if they value them enough to wish to preserve them.

In the introductory remarks on the "Chained Bible," the reader will notice a blunder; in the phrase, "probably actually appeared," the word probably" should be omitted.

Our article on Bryant placed Cummington in Connecticut; it is in Massachusetts.

We give in this number a very sensible article on Mesmerism, without indorsing, however, all its opinions. It presents, we think, a rational solution of the marvels of Biology, and is not without a lesson respecting the evil effects of its experiments. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, from which we copy this paper, is the best popular authority extant on scientific subjects; we have already given numerous articles from it, and shall continue to avail ourselves of its interesting and instructive pages.

The six numbers of the National, already issued, have been bound up in a substantial volume by our publishers. It can be found at 200 Mulberry-street, and our agencies generally.

The lecture season has thus far been a very flourishing one in our city. The Popular Lectures at the Tabernacle, opened by Holmes in his best humor, have been sustained by some of our most practiced lecturers, especially from the East. The Roman Catholic, and also the Hebrew series have reported well. Mrs. Oakes Smith has held forth with determined purpose and no little ability, in spite of her novel views, at Hope Chapel. Thackeray's course before the Mercantile Library Associaton has, however, been the crowning attraction of these entertainments. He has been entirely successful. His actual appearance and effectiveness on the platform require of us some qualification of the estimate we quoted lately from an English print. He is a stanch-bodied Englishman, with a really good personnel, an elocution befitting the lecture, (using that word in its etymological sense,) and a richness of thought and sentiment which render his discourse one of the highest of intellectual entertainments.

At the Tract House in this city are several interesting relics, among which is a chair of the "Dairyman's Daughter," and also of the "Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Recently another and most interesting addition has been made to the attractions of these rooms-the veritable London pulpit of George Whitefield.

It is the one which was used by him in the open air, and it is adapted to be moved from place to place. It is fastened together by hooks and hinges, and its frame, light but strong, is about six feet high. It is a humble but notable monument -a battery from which thundered more powerful eloquence, if we may judge from its effects, than ever Demosthenes "fulmined over Greece," from amid the assemblies of Athens. George C. Smith, Esq., of London, has presented it to the society.

The British Quarterly Review, in a critique on Margaret Fuller Ossoli's Memoirs, says some good things on the question of woman's rights, and concludes with the following original apologue. "The legend says, we will not be so impertinent to our learned readers, or so illbred to our unlearned readers, as to say in what ancient author it is, or is not, to be found-but the legend says, that once on a time Selene complained to Zeus of the gross partiality which had allotted to her orb a light so much fainter than that of the god of day, and even that faint splendor ceasing and waning according to her relation to him. This inequality was a relic of chaos and barbarism, unworthy of an enlightened age. She spoke so eloquently of lunar rights and solar usurpations, solar arrogance and lunar degradation, that Zeus at lengtholli subridens, as Maro hath it-with a lurking satire in his smile, nodded assent. The next day the new moon appeared, not as a timid, delicate crescent, but as a second sun, as bright, bold, and fiery as the god of day himself. When the first oddity of having two suns instead of one diminished, the difference was not much noticed; but as the month rolled on, and the cool summer nights were changed into burning summer days, by this novel development of moonshine, all the world was worked up to a pitch of wonderment. How astonishing! How wonderful! How delightful! said everybody. One or two ventured to add-How disagreeable! And, as the novelty wore off, it was disagreeable. Poets began to mourn for the loss of their ancient fountain of inspiration. Lovers no longer rambled together in the moonlight-they might as well walk out at noonday. Sailors mistook the tides, and shepherds lost count in their calendars, because it was always full moon. Philosophers grumbled at being disappointed of a predicted eclipse. Physicians and policemen thought these daylight nights a great improvement; but every one else soon voted them a bore. The plants began to wither under the unnatural excitement. The nightingale took to singing by day, and going to sleep at night, like other sensible birds. One or two temples were consecrated

To the New Luminary,' but the old temples of Selene were all deserted, and no offerings laid on her altars. It was a great relief when, at the month's end, the moon rose and set by day, and in the cool dark night men looked at the far-off stars and thought of what moonlight used to be. At length Selene saw her mistake, and acknowledged that in her short

they were in my apartment, I was in possession of my natural senses, and not only saw them, but the furniture in the room, by means of the illumination which their presence caused; and I also heard the clock strike, and carriages passing in the street."

There seems to have been no upshot whatever from the first visit of these magi-looking characters, and no attempt is made to explain the wherefore of their meaningless intrusion. The second visit was, however, a notable one certainly. The electrical apparatus was a "feature" in it-a very interesting one. It is to be regretted that it was bored-it might have afforded some invaluable hints to our electricians —especially as it had one power unknown to our own apparatus, that of developing "different colors" in its currents. But it is a trick with these invisibles-a most vexatious one-that while making profuse offers, now for these two or three years, of important aids to us groping mortals, and leading us by the nose on the marvelous margin of their terra-incognita, they have not yet given us a single important suggestion, no new scientific idea whatever.

Other similar visits to the chamber of Mr. Fowler took place, and the manuscripts left were submitted to Dr. Bush. He says:"The first of these manuscripts was in Hebrew, containing a few verses from the last chapter of the Prophet Daniel. This was correctly written, with the exception of several apparently arbitrary omissions, and one rather violent transposition of a word from an upper to a lower line. The next was from the book of Joel, (chap. ii, 23-27,) and was very correctly written, with one or two trifling errors, of such a nature, however, as would be very unlikely to be made either by one who understood the language, or by one who should undertake to transcribe the passage mechanically from Hebrew. The other specimens were in the Hebrew, Arabic, and Bengalee languages, to which I may add a paragraph in French, written underneath the Bengalee, and apparently a translation of it. As this was from Joel ii, 28, 29, it could easily be verified by recurrence to a Bengalee version of the Scriptures in the Library of the American Bible Society. The sentences in the Arabic character were also ascertained to be mostly translations of a few verses from the Arabic portion of the Scriptures.

"One of them, however, I am informed, was alleged by the spirits to be a quotation or translation of some lines from Pope. But how this is to be understood I know not. The style of the manuscript is very peculiar. Whoever were the penmen, the act of writing seems to have been preceded by some preliminary flourishes of a very singular and zigzag appearance, commencing at or near the top of a page, and connecting with the first word of the script. In the case of one of the Arabic extracts, there were traces over the paper which indicated that the pen for some reason was not raised during the writing; besides which the lines run diagonally across the sheet, and were followed by an imperfect sentence in English, terminating in the Arabic word signifying end. Altogether the specimens are of an extraordinary

character, such as I cannot well convey by any verbal description."

Mr. Fowler declares that he knows nothing of these languages. Dr. Bush calls the whole matter "Pseudo-Spiritualism," "-but while he denies "the intrinsic verity or worth of its communications," he believes in their “spiritual origin or causation," and is "satisfied that every other solution is utterly inadequate."

What is our solution of the facts stated? Just nothing at all, except the submission of them to the common-sense of the reader. The indefiniteness, the vagueness, the crotchety character of the whole affair is too obvious to need remark. If what is here said was done, then there was ability to do it with a more satisfactory, a more intelligible, and a more complete result. We must further remark that the case is one which must be admitted to be decisive one way or the other. Mr. Fowler affirms that he witnessed-saw, heard-the apparitions, and received from them the writings, &c. Both his friends and his opponents must agree, that either they are what he affirms, or that there is sheer imposture in the pretension. There is no other alternative that we can perceive. Admitting the alleged facts, we can see no solution of them besides that given by Dr. Bush, and sustained by Isaac Taylor's view of the freaks in the Wesleyan parsonage at Epworth. Many of the marvels connected with the "rappings" can be referred to magnetic agency alone; this case certainly cannot.

These "spirit" pretensions have evidently reached a "crisis;" their late forms are becoming tiresome; something new or more startling is necessary to keep up "an interest," and they are compelled to take more imposing shapes, which will soon determine them.

Our article on Hawthorne will be found to contain some new facts and illustrations of that author. Mr. Hawthorne's position in our literature has become quite determinate, and will unquestionably be permanent. He has traits of originality and vigor which cannot fail to secure to him, in the future, the success he has already achieved. Occasional failures even can hereafter be no permanent detraction from the substantial merit of such a mind. They can be but incidental exceptions to its average power. With the prestige of his past decided success, the mature strength of life before him, and original and abundant resources within him, he stands forth the American author of his day. Such both foreign and domestic authorities pronounce him.

With these views of his merits and prospects, we cannot but regret some of his faults-faults which the personal partiality more perhaps than the critical opinions of our correspondent have inclined him to pass unnoticed. We have space here to notice but one of them, and that, to us, is the most serious one. We refer to the unhealthy tone of his works. They tend, as our critic asserts, to make the reader better, but they do so by a most ungenial process. Hawthorne shows a morbid propensity for morbid characters-bizarre anomalies of human nature. A strong predilection for this sort of writing seems to be developing itself in our national literature. Poe's best poems and his

prose tales are rife with it. Some of Miss Cheesebro's volumes are sad examples of it. "Pierre, or the Ambiguities," the late miserable abortion of Melville, is another. In the name of all that is good or beautiful, why should art of any kind be prostituted to such moral deformities? As well might the sculptor reproduce the horrors of Dupruytren's Pathological Museum. Dupruytren's specimens have their place and their uses unquestionably, but are fit only for the eyes of medical men. The morbid facts and characters of this kind of literature may be real, and have their appropriate place of record; but it is in the annals of crime, or, more frequently, in the annals of insanity, not in the productions of genius and beautiful letters-the common and health-giving food (as they should be) of the common mind. There are some exceptions, we admit, as in the higher tragedy; but the exceptions should be stringently limited. They cannot be allowed to characterize the whole genius of a man, and habitually reveal themselves through a whole school of literature. The ascetic, shadowy, gloomy spirit of Hawthorne's genius must be relieved by more frequent and healthy expressions of common, human geniality and joyousness, if ever he would wield its legitimate influence. "To us," says the Whig Review, in a late critique on his works," it does not seem as if the fresh wind of morning blew across his track; we do not feel the strong pulse of nature throbbing beneath the turf he treads upon. When an author sits down to make a book, he should not alone consult the inclinations of his own genius regarding its purpose or its construction. If he should happen to be imbued with strange, saturnine doctrines, or be haunted by a morbid suspicion of human nature, in God's name let him not write one word. Better that all the beautiful, wild thoughts, with which his brain is teeming, should molder for ever in neglect and darkness, than that one soul be overshadowed by stern, uncongenial dogmas." "Mr. Hawthorne discards all idea of successful human progress. All his characters seem so weighed down with their own evilness of nature, that they can scarcely keep their balance, much less take their places in the universal march. It is a pity that Mr. Hawthorne should not have been originally imbued with more universal tenderness. It is a pity that he displays nature to us so shrouded and secluded, and that he should be afflicted with such a melancholy craving for human curiosities. His men are either vicious, crazed, or misanthropical, and his women are either unwomanly, unearthly, or unhappy. His books have no sunny side to them. They are unripe to the very core."

The criticism is, perhaps, too strongly expressed, but it is mainly just. Literary works of art-under which convenient classification come all Mr. Hawthorne's productions, "save and except" one, which most of our readers will recall by the aid of their political reminiscences-literary works of art, like all other artistic productions, are valuable not so much for their ultimate lesson or "moral," as for the incidental influence of their attributes. The myth of the Apollo, with whatever of allegory or moral pertains to it, is not what gives

the statue of the Belvidere its value; the moral and artistic attributes of the workits embodiment of noble and beautiful thought give it its power and worth, and render it, as "a thing of beauty, a joy forever." The ultimate moral lessons of Hawthorne's writings are impressive and salutary, but the moral influence of the process through which the reader reaches them is anything but healthful-anything, therefore, but salutary. Let him come out into the sunlight more-let him catch the genial and even jovial moods of joyous nature and of healthy common humanitylet him write beneath the aurora or the midsun, and go to bed and snore, if he will, when the night is dreary and dripping-the better will it be infinitely for his own brightening reputation and the hearts and heads of his readers.

Mr. Hawthorne has received a hearty welcome from John Bull; no American writer has had in England a better reception. But the English critics, accustomed as they are to the multiform defects of some of their own fictionwriters, lament the fault we have mentioned, and deprecate its growth as a characteristic of American literature. The London Atlas says:"It is a melancholy sign for the prospects of rising American literature that some of its most hopeful professors should have, in recent works of fiction, been evidently laying themselves out for that species of subtile psychological romance, first introduced to the reading world by such authors as Balzac and Sand. Abandoning the hearty and wholesome tone which has almost always characterized English literature-giving up the painting of real human manners and human actionsMr. Nathaniel Hawthorne and some others of his countrymen have adopted the style of a bastard French school, and set themselves to the analysis and dissection of diseased mind and unhealthy and distorted sentiment. Anything more sad and foul than this change it would be impossible to imagine. Instead of conveying to us on this side of the Atlantic a true idea of American society-society in the great seaboard city or in the far West settlement-instead of presenting us with stories, racy of the soil and instinct with its vigorous and aggressive theories, the misguided party in question select some half-dozen morbid phases of mind, bring before us three or four intellectual cripples or moral monsters— personages resembling in their spiritual natures the calves with two heads or the cats with five legs exhibited at fairs-and then proceed with the dryest minuteness to describe the pathology of the morbid structure, to trace and dissect the anatomy of the monstrous moral and intellectual abortion, and, instead of laying before us a wholesome story of natural character and motive, to let us into the secret turnings and windings of unhealthy and abnormal mental power and promptings."

A sad and even detestable mischief is this in our recent literature. From men of fourthrate talent it might be expected as a ruse for the popular appetite; but a man of genuine talent should eschew it utterly. If his talents are successful they are so in spite of it, not by its aid. But more on this subject hereafter.

Putnam, New-York, has issued, in his Semimonthly Series, Hood's "Whims and Oddities," a volume full of humorous ebullitions, in the very best style of that capital merry-maker. The cuts are numerous, and, though roughly done, are noticeably characteristic. Leigh Hunt's second series of "the Book for a Corner," full of gems from the best old English writers, has also been added to the series. This Semimonthly Library is the cheapest series of really superior works yet attempted in this country.

We noticed, some time since, Woodbury's "New Method with the German Language." The publishers have since sent us his "Shorter Course," which is an abridgment of the larger work. It is admirably condensed, direct, and simple; in fine, Mr. Woodbury's text-books, presenting in an enhanced form all the advantages of Ollendorff's method, will tend to render the German a familiar study among us, by relieving it of its most formidable difficulties. We should mention that, in addition to his grammatical works, he has issued an "Eclectic German Reader," containing specimens of the best German writers, and references to his textbooks for idiomatic explanations.

We have received the first volume of " Critical and Exegetical Notes and Discourses on the Gospels," by Rev. A. Carroll. The style of the work is very direct and popular, and the author Besides pauses not for any elaborate ornament. theological students, he has designed to adapt himself to Bible-classes, families, &c. His notes are remarkable for their brevity, and a good deal so for their terse pertinence. They give the best thoughts of the best extant authorities. Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati.

"Philosophers and Actresses" is written in

the brilliant dashing style of Houssaye, and, with the exception of the poetical passages, preserves well in the version the qualities of the Frenchman. By its bad moral tone, however, and its perversion of facts into brilliant fiction and persiflage, it becomes a mere jeud'esprit. It has little biographic truthfulness, and is, to say the best of it, a worthless affair.

The venerable Dr. Nathan Bangs's Semi-Centennial Sermon before the New-York East Conference has been published by Carlton and Phillips, 200 Mulberry-st. It presents an outline of the growth of Methodism during the present century-brief sketches of some of its prominent men-views of the causes of its success, and remarks on the peculiarities of its economy. It will be valuable as an historical authority in the denomination, and we commend it to every Methodist as a most interesting appeal from one of the most excellent and most prominent men of the American Church.

New-York, have issued them in very neat style and abundantly illustrated.

Delia's Doctors; or, a Glance behind the Scenes, by Hannah G. Creamer. A rambling, but clever little volume is this-the experiences of a "ratherish unwellish" lady whom the doctors fail to cure, but who, by her common sense and the counsels of a female friend, betakes herself to "right courses" in respect to diet, exercise, &c., and renews thereby her constitution. There are some successful

sketches of character in the volume, some apt hits, much excellent advice, and some non(12mo., pp. 262. Fowlers and Wells.)

sense.

The Macrocosm and Microcosm is the title of an elaborate volume, embracing the first part of a new philosophy-the spiritual constitution of man in its relations to the material universe. It is one of those works which cannot well be indorsed by any cautious critic, for it would require days of hard study to appreciate critically its speculations; but this much we may say of it: it shows an earnest and manly spirit of inquiry, it abounds in the evidences of extensive learning, and its logic is close and keen. Having said thus much, we may remark that the central idea of the author-claimed by him as an original discovery-that the primordial degrees of creation correspond with those of the diatonic scale, appears to us as too hypothetical, if not whimsical, and that many of his collateral views are equally exceptionable. The work is a strong protest against the Pantheism and materialism of the times. (12mo.,

PP. 331. Taylor, New-York.)

The Beauty of Holiness and Sabbath Miscellany is the title of a new monthly, edited by preachers of the Pittsburgh Conference, and devoted to the discussion of subjects of personal re

ligion, particularly in relation to Christian sanctification. The first number is beautifully got up, and contains an interesting list of contents, among which are three or four able original papers. ($1 per annum. Weirick, Washington, Ohio.)

A very able Address on the Importance of Sunday Schools, by Prof. Wheeler of Indiana Asbury University, has been issued by the Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati. It elaborately discusses the great capacities of this institution, and makes out a comprehensive and powerful argument for it. Mr. Wheeler estimates that there are two hundred thousand teachers, nearly one million scholars, and two million volumes in Sunday-school libraries, in the United States.