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AUTHORS AND BOOKS.

The Literature of Supernaturalism was never more in request than since
the Seeresses of Rochester commenced their levees at Barnum's Hotel.
The journals have been filled with jesting and speculation upon the
subject,--mountebank tricksters and shrewd professors have plied their
keenest wits to discover the processes of the rappings--and Mrs. Fish
and the Foxes in spite of them all preserve their secret, or at least
are as successful as ever in persuading themselves and others that
they are admitted to communications with the spiritual world. For
ourselves, while we can suggest no explanation of these phenomena,
and while in every attempted explanation of them which we have seen,
we detect some such difficulty or absurdity as makes necessary its
rejection, we certainly could never for a moment be tempted to a
suspicion that there is anything supernatural in the matter. Such
an idea is simply ridiculous, and will be tolerated only by the
ignorant, the feeble-minded, or the insane. Still, 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