summer's day. We stopped but a moment to take in a passengerone of those indefinite looking men whom you meet everywhere, with nothing about them that you could possibly remember a minute -and, as Job was still 'sewed up,' as the western people elegantly say of the silent, I went back to my punch and my pillow, to take up the broken thread of my dream. The gentle influence needed no wooing, and I soon went through all the adventures of Telemachus. Job was my Mentor, and Dinah with her yellow waist ribbon, one of the zoned nymphs, and our beautiful friend grew a little taller, and her French slipper changed into Calypso's sandal, and the steam boat with its black column of smoke into the 'burning galley.' It was a magnificent dream. The remaining three hours tripped by to a merry measure,' and I was just asking Calypso to dance the Spanish dance, when the fellow shook me by the shoulder to pay for my punches and go ashore.

But my letter is getting too long; so for the present, my dear Tom, adieu. I shall write you from our next resting place. Ever yours,

HORACE.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

THE MAN OF Two LIVES. Written by himself. Boston, Wells and Lilly, 1829.

This is certainly one of the most singular books of the day. It professes to be the veritable history of a man who has been permitted to revisit the earth, and, in a vicarious existence, make amends for the misuse and excesses of his first life.

"I died," says he, "at the early age of forty-five, in the city of Frankfort on the Main. I distinctly remember the last expressions that I used, as life was ebbing fast away. After a rapid survey of mispent existence, I suddenly clasped my hands together, and exclaimed with convulsive energy—O, that I could return again into the womb of my mother, and spring once more into a world in which I have trifled with time, and abused the blessings of my condition! I have suffered much, and deserved to suffer; never having promoted the happiness of others, I of necessity poisoned my own. At that agonizing moment, did I fancy a voice of more than human sweetness, or did really some immortal spirit speak to my mind, rather than to an ear stiffening into clay, the words which follow?— UNHAPPY MIND, THY WISH IS GRANTED; THOU SHALT ONCE MORE ANIMATE A HUMAN FORM."

His next consciousness was that of an infant, whose sensations and impressions he gives at some length. Passing over the intervening time, he finds himself, "at the period when he might be called a thinking being," the only son of George Sydenham, Esq., an English gentleman of independent fortune. As he grows up, he is remarkable

for "abstraction of thought, which seemed excited by other than surrounding occurrences;" incoherent expressions would sometimes escape him, relative to places and persons unknown; he gave descriptions of a German university, and of a grand church where the name of "Frederick Werner," (his own formerly,) "was to be seen, cut into the centre beam of chestnut that binds as a girder the opposite walls of the building." In the course of his education he is taught to draw, and astonishes his master by the wonderful accuracy with which he sketches German scenery and architecture. His productions are shewn to West and Fuseli, and the introduction of these names gives the author an opportunity for digressive criticisms upon the arts, shewing him to be a man of accurate and cultivated taste. Our hero is sent to the university, where he becomes a diligent student. We pass over a long episode, which is not at all connected with the main interest of the book, and which takes the place of all description of his mental phenomena during his college life, and come to an incident which occurred while he was dining at a public house with his bosom friend Herman." They had proposed to go to the theatre, but a storm arises, and they relinquish the idea, and, ordering a second bottle, enter into a conversation on the mysterious subject which occupies their minds. In the midst of it, a gentleman rises from a table which had been concealed by a silk curtain, and begs to be permitted to join their circle. He is a man of singularly imposing presence, and, after a long metaphysical dialogue, he astonishes them by closing with the following words :

"I not only, gentlemen, believe in the transfer of the sentient principle from one being to another; but that, in some peculiar cases, the memory of the first existence returns upon the second. Berkeley has told us, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; and I assert, that there are, indeed must be, minds cognizant of such an extraordinary possession as that which I have named. And now, I fear I must strain to the utmost your benevolent construction of me, my understanding and my purposes, when I solemnly declare, that the person who now addresses you is himself gifted with the discernment of such natures. I add only, that I knew a man, whose mind has transmigrated to another frame, and to the native of even another land; that his name in Germany was Frederick Werner, and I have told him that I am acquainted with its present residence."

He takes leave, and all efforts to discover who and what he is, are, for the time, unsuccessful. He, however, replies to a note addressed to him through the public prints by Sydenham, and admonishes him to go on with the object of his life, and "correct his errors." Our hero now resolves to visit Germany, and this should be the most interesting period of the history. The account of his reminiscences is very bare, however, and may all be given in a few words. The scenes are familiar to him of course, and it happens that he takes let

ters to a banker who occupies the house where he had lived, and who, on his arrival, lodges him in the very room which had formerly been his. The furniture is unchanged, and among other articles, is a cabinet, with a secret drawer, containing the last confession and other private papers of his former self, Frederick Werner. These supply some indefinite recollections and assist him in his work of repentance. He visits his tomb, and finds lingering about it, the lady whose virtuous love he relinquished for a guilty passion, but who cherishes his memory after an interval of forty years. He becomes again acquainted with her, and she is constantly startled by his voice and manner, and unaccountably transfers to him the chastened affection she had borne the dead. He also finds Leonora, the opera singer who had fascinated him, and who is now retired from the stage, and living in virtuous and respectable seclusion. She, also, takes a mysterious interest in the young Englishman, admits him to her confidence, and, for his sake, once more summons her energies, and, to a party of select friends, performs the part of "Medea," in which she had won the hearts of all Germany. There is a third person against whom Frederick Werner had offended, and to whom our hero, of course, was bound to make all the restitution in his power-his cousin, Constantine Werner. This person had awakened the enmity of his relative, by interfering, on account of his libertinism, between him and "Francina," the object of his early and virtuous passion. In the heat of his resentment, Frederick had stooped to dishonorable means to injure the credit and character of his kinsman, and had died unforgiven. The pardon of these three, Leonora, Francina, and Constantine, were now necessary to the complete expiation of his sins. With the aid of the papers, which testify to his dying repentance, he easily secures these testimonies, though the offended parties do not quite understand the connexion between Sydenham and Werner. Our hero now becomes attached to the banker's daughter, who is the intimate friend of the widowed Francina, and the book closes with his marriage, and a letter from the mysterious stranger who had disclosed to him a knowledge of his secret, and who turns out to be MESMER the inventor of animal magnetism. The part of his letter which explains the enigma of his information is as follows:

"Soon after I began the new practice of medicine in Germany, I was called in to a consultation on the extraordinary case of Frederick Werner. He was then in extremity. My enemies, Drs. Hehl and Ingelhousz, were in attendance upon him. They asked me my opinion of his disorder, and smiled in scorn when they heard me pronounce the word remorse. But I had been told something of their patient's history, and moreover knew, that, in certain natures, remorse might prove as deadly as the slow fever, which, when it comes on is only one of its symptoms. VOL. I.-NO. I.

9

"The case strongly interested me, but I shall not here exhibit the progress of the malady-I am merely to record its singular close. I was sitting by his bedside, when, in the agonies of death, with dreadful energy, he uttered the following ejaculation: O that I could return again into the womb, and spring once more into a world in which I have trifled with time and abused the blessings of my condition!' I looked earnestly in the face of Werner; the eyes had closed, the pulse was still, the chest ceased to heave, the sufferer was no more-but instead of features writhed with anguish, his countenance now expressed a heavenly composure, as if consolation had arrived at the very moment he expired. Scenes of death bed changes are familiar to the humane physician; his skill suffers no offence in the common dissolution of his kind. I know not that, much earlier in the malady, I could myself have saved poor Werner; but it would not have been by physic I should have attempted his cure.

"When, years after this event, I had succeeded among the scientific of the French nation, and established my theory by healing multitudes, I passed over into England, where I was told a fresh inquisition had been embodied to censure or stifle the new science. In London I found my early friend Fuseli, writing and even publishing in English, which we had studied together. He was using at the same time his magic pencil to display on canvass the poetic creations of your country, and the heroes of his own. Among the extraordinary occurrences of his life, he mentioned to me the unaccountable fact of a pupil of his, named Sydenham, who drew with the greatest accuracy and spirit, as if from nature present before him, German scenery and individuals of Germany, though he had never been out of England! My friend treated the subject as deeply mysterious. It excited my curiosity strongly. I asked the parentage and residence of the youth, and resolved, as I should find occasion, to observe this phenomenon. The dying wish of Werner now recurred to me, and it flashed into my mind suddenly that his prayer had been granted, and that an identity of mind might connect the two persons of Werner and Sydenham.

"In pursuance of my design, I now inquired after your habits, and found, as I expected, that you were much in foreign society. Our interview at the tavern on the night of the hurricane, you well remember, nor would I willingly forget it. I did not then wear the ordinary garb of physicians; there was nothing in common between us. I always trusted much to my exterior, by which I found all descriptions of men greatly impressed; and I knew so much of the secrets of nature, as to allow to time itself little power over my features. I joined your friend and you during a conversation exactly suited to my object, and I soon saw that I had surmised truly as to the identity between yourself and Werner. If I could have doubted my own science, your obvious alarm at the name of the deceased, carried conviction home to my reason. I anticipated, naturally, your growing anxiety to know more, or more positively, of the strange intruder, and the motives to his disclosure. As you intended it should, your ingenious advertisement one day caught my eye as I was indolently turning back the file of a public advertiser in Batson's coffee house. As an odd coincidence, the almost inseparable friends, Dr. Schomberg and the illustrious Garrick, were sitting in the next box to me. I wrote an answer to your question where I sat, and as I knew your address, sent it to your residence by a porter. I had reasoned upon your case, as you probably did yourself, and urged you, by foreign travel, to visit the proper scenes for beginning the atonement so essential to your peace.

"Our recontre at Canterbury, however, was on my part quite undesigned. I was then on a visit there to my learned friend the dean; and attended the cathedral service, as you probably did, from the complex feeling of religious duty and admiration of the strains in which music had harmonized our supplications. From one of the stalls in the choir, I easily recognized your person; but I judged that you were on your route, as I wished you to be, and I had really nothing to add of a nature so pressing, as to render it advisable to dissolve the little mystery between us, which I intended should be salutary. Since then, I know that every essential aid has been rendered to your progress. You have been led by an infallible wisdom to an infallible result. May the rest of your life be happy!

"In now taking leave of my young friend, a little may be said without vanity, as to myself. Objects of infinite importance to mankind claim ME wholly. In

addition to simplifying the healing art, I design to work a mighty revolution in philosophy. I am destined to unfold unknown principles to the world, leading all to profound and benevolent results. But prejudice assailed the grand discoveries of Newton, and purblind physicians dispute, or deny, the MAGNETIC POWER which I have detected.

"I have already said enough to reveal me to one of your endowments; but while I close this explanation, with the expression of most cordial esteem, I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of subjoining the name of

MESMER."

We think the main feeling in reading this book, is one of impatience that it is not better. The idea is original, and, without doubt, one of the most capable of interesting speculation which has ever been. started. The reader's feelings are constantly excited with the expectation of something more definite-more satisfactory. The author digresses so constantly and with so little apparent connexion, that you get to the end of the book, before you feel that he has entered fully upon the story. If we might speculate upon the author and the circumstances under which the book was written, we should say that he was a mere scholar, with an incidental knowledge of the fine arts, who had taken his scrap book, and, upon this imperfect web, woven all its miscellaneous contents. The story of Miss McEvoy is the most unprovoked intrusion upon a tale which we remember. It has no affinity, no likeness, no bearing upon the matter. It is very evident, too, that the writer has but little knowledge of society and its forms. The dialogues between the hero and his female friends read like a schoolboy's theme. Whenever he departs from philosophy and abstract discussion, he is out of his element, and makes a bow and a speech as awkwardly upon paper as he would (if we have not mistaken his character) in a drawing room. Still, it is worth while to read the book, not only because it contains some amusing and ingenious speculations, but because the author has exhausted the interest of the subject so imperfectly, that one's own fancy supplies the deficit, and finds ample room and material for agreeable reverie.

TALES OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. New York, J. & J. Harper. One of the most surprising literary phenomena of this age of bookmaking is the versatility of Mr. Croly. We do not know all that he has done, but we know that he is a clergyman, and of course somewhat of a theologian, that he wrote the "Angel of the World," one of the most exquisite Poems of its time, "Salathiel," a book of acknowledged and gorgeous power, a "New Interpretation of the Apocalypse" which has excited universal attention by its ingenuity and original views, some of the best descriptive and stirring martial poetry of the day, and, last, the delightful book whose