, the "knockings"
are sufficiently mysterious, and if unexposed, sufficiently fruitful
of evil, to be legitimate subjects of investigation, and he who under
such circumstances is so careful of his dignity as to disregard the
subject altogether, is as much mistaken as the gravest buffoon of
the circus. We reviewed a week or two ago "The Phantom World," just
republished by Mr. Hart; the Appletons have recently printed an
original work which we believe has considerable merit, entitled
"Credulity and Superstition;" and Mr. Redfield has in press and nearly
ready, an edition of "The Night Side of Nature," by Miss Crowe, author
of "Susan Hopley." This we believe is the cleverest performance upon
ghosts and ghost-seers that has appeared in English since the days
of Richard Glanvill; and with the others, it will be of service in
checking the progress of the pitiable superstition which has been
readily accepted by a large class of people, so peculiarly constituted
that they could not help rejecting the Christian religion for its
"unreasonableness and incredibility!"

* * * * *

"Some Honest Opinions upon Authors, Books, and other subjects," is
the title of a new volume by the late Edgar A. Poe, which Mr. Redfield
will publish during the Fall. It will embrace besides several of the
author's most elaborate aesthetical essays, those caustic personalities
and criticisms from his pen which, during several years, attracted so
much attention in our literary world. Among his subjects are Bryant,
Cooper, Pauldings, Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, Verplanck, Bush,
Anthon, Hoffman, Cornelius Mathews, Henry B. Hirst, Mrs. Oakes Smith,
Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Lewis, Margaret Fuller, Miss Sedgwick, and many
more of this country, beside Macaulay, Bulwer, Dickens, Horne, Miss
Barrett, and some dozen others of England.

* * * * *

Mr. Dudley Bean occupies the first two sheets of the last
_Knickerbocker_ with a very erudite and picturesque description of
the attack upon Ticonderoga by the grand army under Lords Amherst and
Howe, in "the old French War." Mr. Bean is an accomplished merchant,
of literary abilities and a taste for antiquarian research, and he is
probably better informed than any other person living upon the history
and topography of all the country for many miles about Lake George,
which is the most classical region of the United States. He has
treated the chief points of th