In this dilemma we are going to take advice.  Following the bent of our prejudices, and hoping to fortify these by new and strong arguments, we are going now to read the principal reviews which undertake to demolish the theory;—­with what result our readers shall be duly informed.

Meanwhile, we call attention to the fact, that the Appletons have just brought out a second and revised edition of Mr. Darwin’s book, with numerous corrections, important additions, and a preface, all prepared by the author for this edition, in advance of a new English edition.

VANITY (1).

(ON A PICTURE OF HERODIAS’S DAUGHTER BY LUINI.)

Alas, Salome!  Could’st thou know
    How great man is,—­how great thou art,—­
  What destined worlds of weal or woe
    Lurk in the shallowest human heart,—­

  From thee thy vanities would drop,
    Like lusts in noble anger spurned
  By one who finds, beyond all hope,
    The passion of his youth returned.

  Ah, sun-bright face, whose brittle smile
    Is cold as sunbeams flashed on ice! 
  Ah, lips how sweet, yet hard the while! 
    Ah, soul too barren even for vice!

  Mirror of Vanity!  Those eyes
    No beam the less around them shed,
  Albeit in that red scarf there lies
    The Dancer’s meed,—­the Prophet’s head.

  VANITY (2.)

  I.
  False and Fair!  Beware, beware! 
    There is a Tale that stabs at thee! 
  The Arab Seer! he stripped thee bare
    Long since!  He knew thee, Vanity! 
  By day a mincing foot is thine: 
  Thou runnest along the spider’s line:—­
  Ay, but heavy sounds thy tread
  By night, among the uncoffined dead!

  II. 
  Fair and Foul!  Thy mate, the Ghoul,
    Beats, bat-like, at thy golden gate! 
  Around the graves the night-winds howl: 
    “Arise!” they cry, “thy feast doth wait!”
  Dainty fingers thine, and nice,
  With thy bodkin picking rice!—­

  Ay, but when the night’s o’erhead,
  Limb from limb they rend the dead!

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Popular Astronomy.  A Concise Elementary Treatise on the Sun, Planets, Satellites, and Comets.  By O.M.  MITCHELL, Director of the Cincinnati and Dudley Observatories.  New York. 1860.

In this volume Professor Mitchell gives a very clear, and, in the general plan pursued, a very good account of the methods and results of investigation in modern astronomy.  He has explained with great fulness the laws of motion of the heavenly bodies, and has thus aimed at giving more than the collection of disconnected facts which frequently form the staple of elementary works on astronomy.

In doing this, however, he has fallen into errors so numerous, and occasionally so grave, that they are difficult to be accounted for, except on the supposition that some portions of the work were written in great haste.  Passing over a few mere oversights, such as a statement from which it would follow that a transit of Venus occurred every eight years, mistakes of dates, etc., we cite the following.