12 DECEMBER 1868, Page 18

We have received a new edition of Sir David Brewster's

Letters on Natural Magic (Tegg) ; to this edition Mr. J. A. Smith has prefixed some chapters on "The Being and Faculties of Man," and added a supplement describing some additional phenomena, the famous "Pepper's Ghost" among them. We do not attach any value to Mr. Smith's meta- physical and psychological speculations, but he has, at all events, the merit of leaving Sir D. Brewster's letters in their integrity. Mr. Buchan's very complete Handy-Book of Meteorology (Blackwood) has reached a second edition. We greet an old friend in the Percy Anecdotes (Warne); we are told that this is an exact reprint of the original edition. This was probably the best thing to do. But we hope that we may have some day a book of anecdotes, thoroughly sifted, all trite, all good, and all well told. The volume is one of the " Chandos Series," and seems admirably well printed, as good an equivalent for one's money, as far as form is concerned, as one could easily find.