THOMAS H. SMYTH, of South
Carolina, of whose many and various contributions to religious and
historical literature we gave some account in an earlier number of _The
International_, is dangerously ill in Italy, where his family have
recently joined him. Dr. Smyth, our advices state, had twice been
stricken with paralysis, and had been compelled entirely to forego all
his literary occupations.

* * * * *

The new novels of the last month have been numerous. The Harpers have
published _Caleb Field_, by the author of Mrs. Margaret Maitland;
_Eastbury_, by Harriet Drury; _The Heir of Wast-Wayland_, by Harriet
Drury; _Yeast, a Problem_, by the author of Alton Locke; and some half
dozen others. From T. B. Peterson, of Philadelphia, we have _Ginevra, or
the History of a Portrait_, which we understand is by a daughter of the
late S. L. Fairfield: it is much praised in some of the journals. M.
Hart has given us another clever novelette, by Caroline Lee Hentz, under
the title of _Rena_. From Lippincott, Grambo & Co., we have _Lord and
Lady Harcourt_, one of the pleasantest books of the season.

* * * * *

MISS BREMER has passed the winter and spring in the south and west,
where she has been received with much hospitality, and detained with the
affection she seems every where to inspire. Within a few weeks she has
visited Florida, with a family of her friends from Charleston, and she
has given very careful attention, under the most favorable
circumstances, to the institutions of the southern states. She is now on
her way through Tennessee and Virginia to New-York, and will soon return
to Sweden, by way of London.

* * * * *

H. BALLIERE has just published _Vestiges of Civilization, or the
AEtiology of History, Religious, AEsthetical, Political and
Philosophical_. It appears to be written with much ability, but we are
by no means inclined to believe in the truth of the author's views. He
applies to civilization the processes which the author of the _Vestiges
of Creation_ applied to Natural History; and without attaining to the
fame of that work, the Vestiges of Civilization will probably share its
condemnation.

* * * * *

All our readers who were accustomed to read the journals twenty years
ago, will remember SHOCCO JONES, the immortal defender of the fame of
North Carolina. We had thought the mortal