26 AUGUST 1871, Page 22

The Alpha : a Revelation, put no Mystery. By Edward

N. Dennys. E'ourth Edition. (3. Burns.)—We commonly do nothing morn than record the appearance of "fourth editions." But the volumo before us must not be so treated. It contains an appondix of no common kind, nothing less than an addition, which the author has been good enough to make to his work since his death. A reviewer already overpowered by the multitude of living writors, views with something like horror the prospect which opens before him if the dead continuo to write, and also contrive to find publishers. He cannot but recall Do Quincey's weird notion of the whole multitude of the departed, the majority (o1 5rXdovEg, pheres), as the ancients called them, rising in revolt against the living. Still, it is his duty to examine what promises at all events some novel information. He is bound to confess to a great disappointment. That Mr. Dennys (we wonder whether gentlemen are still called "Mr." in the "summer-world 2") found himself in a circular room, having walls of what looked like alabaster, reclining on a couch formed to resemble a white lily" (about as comfortable a soat as a large tea•cup would be); that he saw "a porsou of most benevolent aspect " standing near him, "clothed in a long-flowing robe of emerald colour and bright as a diamond," that this benevolent person (Apoletha by name) prosed very much as if he had been alive,—all this is what we expected. Nor are we surprised to find our instructor from the spirit-world expressing himself in very doubtful language, as, for instance, here, "The two who were of the highest grade were appointed to bo (what you would call) body-guards to myself. The one next in degree was to render thorn any assistance they might require. Tho other accompanied the excursion, to enlarge and improve his mind ; " (whose mind ? the " excursion's "? or should we read "excursionist "?) Altogether, the account of the spirit- world is—as far as it makes any impression at all—dispiriting. It seems that public meetings, presidents, delegates, circles, and speechify- ing gonerally prevail there to a most dreadful extent, a stet° of things to which no amount of emerald-coloured robes, lily-shaped couches, and tiers of boxes of "a bright spiritual rod" can reconcile this present. writer.