article is a justly commendatory review of Mr. DUER'S 'Life of Lord STIRLING,' elsewhere noticed at large in these pages. The North-American' confirms our views of The New Timon.' It yields due credit, as we did, to what is commendable in that pretentious volume; but it considers the author a 'snob,' on the very grounds urged by this Magazine. He is an imitator of POPE, but lacks his crystal terseness and epigrammatic point. 'Our author,' says the reviewer, ' makes up his characters. His mind is not of that creative quality which holds the elements of different characters as it were in solution, allowing each to absorb only that which is congenial to itself, by a kind of elective affinity.' He is often exceedingly obscure; certain passages in the poem have defied our utmost capacity of penetration.' His metaphors are confused; and proofs are given that even his use of language is not always correct. Vivacity, rather than strength, rapidity of action rather than depth or originality, are the characteristics of his mind.' 'His notions of manliness,' adds the reviewer, are carried to an extreme which would be more offensive were it not altogether absurd.' The critic gives the line which we quoted in a notice of The New Timon,'

'Even in a love-song, men should write for men,'

with the remark: 'Imagine the author serenading Lord Stanley, who seems to be an object of his admiration, with Sleep, gentlemen, sleep!' Of course his female characters are mere shadows. J. BAYARD TAYLOR'S excellent work, Views Afoot in Europe' are cordially commended, a service which the book is well calculated to command, from its intrinsic merits. As a whole, the present number of the NorthAmerican' well sustains its honorable reputation.

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, by the three great European Powers, Spain, France and Great Britain, and the subsequent Occupation, Settlement and Extension of Civil Government by the United States, until the year 1846. By JoHN W. MONETTE, M. D. In two volumes. pp. 1062. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

IT has been estimated that the lands lying upon the Mississippi river and its tributaries are sufficient to support the whole human race. If this be true, and there seems little reason to doubt it, a work which gives a complete and comprehensive history of the rise and progress' of such a vast domain can hardly be too widely diffused. Indeed, the volumes before us supply an important desideratum, for they present a concise and comprehensive detail, a full yet condensed narrative of American colonization west of the Alleghanies. The author has connected the history of the French and Spanish colonies, which had an important agency in the destiny of the American republic with those of the Anglo-Americans in their advances upon the tributaries of the Ohio river. The plan of the work is simple, and grows out of the order in which the different colonies advanced in the occupation of the regions now comprised in the United States. It traces the gradual and steady advance of the European colonies and settlements by their various routes into the central part of NorthAmerica, and the progressive' extension of the Anglo-American population and republican government throughout the great valley of the Mississippi and the southwest; illustrates the progressive changes and the rapid advance of population and civil government, from the rude and half-civilized pioneer up to flourishing cities and powerful states, extending over regions which a few years previously had been savage

solitudes. Such a work could not fail to be replete with interest and large instruction.' It is extremely well printed, and illustrated by an excellent map of the French, English and Spanish possessions in North-America in 1745; an accessory which will be found to be of the greatest service to the reader who would acquire understandingly the several 'localities' mentioned in the work.

MESMER AND SWEDENBORG: or the Relation of the Developments of Mesmerism to the Doctrines and Disclosures of SWEDENBORG. BY GEORGE BUSH. Second Edition. New-York: JOHN ALLEN, 139 Nassau-street.

THE appearance of a second edition of this work, separated by the interval of a very few months from the first, affords evidence at least of a considerable interest somewhere in the marvels and mysticisms connected with the two names that stand forth in the title-page. The aim of the book is distinctly enough stated. It is to demonstrate the truth of SWEDENBORG's revelations by an appeal to Mesmeric Facts,' or the phenomena of Mesmerism. They had not been observed when SWEDENBORG wrote, and hence were not alluded to by him, among others, to confirm his teaching, but they have since been recorded by many thousands of persons throughout Europe and America. Professor BUSH does not regard them as miracles. He gives no countenance to the idea that mere miracles, as such, can furnish any rational confirmation of truths. He does not infer, because a man speaks a language he has never learned, that therefore what he utters is to be believed. The Professor's first chapter is on the state of SWEDENBORG himself, psychologically viewed. The argument, briefly stated, is this: SWEDENBORG asserts that every man possesses spiritual senses corresponding to his bodily senses, and also that if the bodily senses are put to sleep these spiritual senses will be opened. He claims, in his own case, that for important purposes his spiritual senses were opened by the LORD, so that for many years he had perceptible communication with both the spiritual and natural worlds at the same time. But the It had been world was profoundly ignorant even of the existence of interior senses. demonstrated by no observed phenomena. Men, with a few exceptions, were incredulous, and unwilling to receive the ipse dixit even of SWEDENBORG, when it seemed entirely to lack confirmation by facts. Human experience, in the view of many, was not yet large enough to test either the correctness or incorrectness of SWEDENBORG'S statements. But in the mean time new discoveries in Anthropology, as well as in other sciences, have been made, whereby doubtless truths, hitherto unrecognized, may be confirmed. Thus, among the phenomena of Mesmerism, persons, it is alleged, have had their bodily senses put to sleep, and in accordance with the assertion of SWEDENBORG, have still manifested sensations of a more interior kind; demonstrating the existence of such senses, and the possibility of their being opened during the life of the body. The argument in the chapter headed Transfer of Thought' is the same as before. SWEDENBORG asserts, as a law of spiritual life, that there is communication of the thoughts of one spirit to others who come to him, and this without the intervention of language or any arbitrary signs. This to the world was incredible, because no such communication of thought had ever been witnessed. At length, however, the bodily senses were laid asleep, and there appears in activity the law announced by SWEDENBORG. These, and other matters intimately connected therewith, are fully set forth in the volume itself, to which, for farther information,' we must refer the reader.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

ROLLING BACK the Tide of TIME: EASTERN ANTIQUITIES. — We invite attention to the subjoined authentic paper upon one of the most interesting and wellestablished records of antiquity yet found in the world. Will the date of the inscriptions upon the Persian Tablets help us to conjecture how long a period must have elapsed after the first agriculturist sent his ploughshare through the soil yet 'soft with the deluge,' before the invention of man enabled him to transmit his ideas to his fellows in phonetic symbols? This may indeed be a discouraging inquiry, if those to whom we look for knowledge to direct us to this and similar points are no more faithful to fact than is HERODOTUS. Under the modest title of Some Remarks upon the Behistun Tablets,' a correspondent sends us the annexed sketch of the remarkable antiquities to which we have alluded:

The letters of Mr. LAYARD, upon the excavations at Nineveh, which appeared in the March number of the KNICKERBOCKER, have excited to the highest degree, the curiosity and expectations of the learned among our citizens. With your permission, Mr. EDITOR, I propose the exposition in your pages of a discovery of quite as much value, inasmuch as it brings with it something tangible and open to the comprehension of all who can obtain a view of the subject. I allude to the deciphering of the famous monument of Besitoon, or Behistun, which is to be found at the distance of some fifty or seventy-five miles to the south-west of Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana. The 'Tablets of Behistun' are sculptured on the side of a mountain-rock, which rises almost perpendicularly to the height of fifteen hundred feet, and it may be said that two pages of the book of History are inscribed upon this portion of the book of Nature; the one which first meets the eye containing, as is supposed, rude and imperfect reminiscenses of the time of Semiramis; the other, which is the subject of this memoir, exhibiting a perfect and beautiful memorial of the epoch of DARIUS, the son of HYSTASPES. It was a grand idea of the magnificent heroes of remote days, to imprint upon the everlasting hills the records of their pomp and valor; to leave upon the overhanging cliff or the seemingly inaccessible crag the traces of human power and indomitable human will. An insatiable desire to be glorified throughout all time, in the remembrance of their kind, seems ever to have been with them a motive principle; and they took the sure method of effecting their object by converting the most enduring of Earth's substance into imperishable archives of their fame; and thus, to change the metaphor, they bridged the Hellespont that lay between the future and the past.

Among the precious relics of olden time, this monument of the triumphs of DARIUS HYSTASPES, commonly called the fourth king of Persia, will henceforth stand conspicuous. The inscription upon it is trilingual, and contained in several columns

of cuneiform writing. The Persian characters, of which the Babylonian and Median are merely transcripts, were deciphered by that accomplished and indefatigable Oriental scholar, Major RAWLINSON, of the British army, after a ten years' study; which however was interrupted by his participation in the wars of Afghanistan; and in 1846, he published his translation, accompanied by an Essay on the Cuneiform writing in a number of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal.' The figures sculptured on the tablets are thus expounded in a book published in 1844: A modern traveller copied the above picture from a rock in Media, and supposes it refers to some incident in the Babylonish captivity. It may serve to show the degrading and painful nature of the captivity which the Jews suffered as a punishment for their sins.' Such an assertion may have been a very natural one for the writer of the paragraph to make, especially if he had some particular reason for making it; but surely even in that year enough was known concerning the various nations of antiquity, to induce him to reflect whether, finding this sculpture in the kingdom of Persia, the land of CYRUS, CAMBYSES, DARIUS, and XERXES, these captives might not represent Greeks, Scythians, Babylonians or even Egyptians as well as Hebrews. This however is only a passing remark; for the discoveries and investigation of things pertaining to ancient times, which, through the persevering energy of scientific men, are hourly advancing, have cleared away a mass of rubbish that for ages has encumbered not only the monuments of antiquity, but also the inductive processes of the human mind. And now that the 'star has risen in the East' we may hope that by the light of its steadily increasing beam, Truth, heretofore wandering amid the mazes of conjecture and false premises, will retrace her weary steps and find a resting-place as well as a fresh point of departure.

These sculptures in fact represent a winged figure in the air, and a group of captives standing in presence of a royal personage and his attendants. The foot of the king tramples a prostrate figure which lies between him and the nine erect figures, whose hands are tied behind their backs, and who are bound together by a rope which passes around their necks. These, according to the inscriptions over each, are the usurpers of his authority, whom DARIUS vanquished after he obtained the crown of Persia, and the prostrate form is the Magian impostor whom he slew before he became king. These labels designate each 'rebel' by name; and the five interpreted columns of Persian characters contain information extremely important on many accounts. In truth, these tablets are destined to become the object of deep research and discussion, they will henceforth to be to Persia infinitely more than the Rosetta stone is to Egypt; for they contain within themselves not only the key to philological enigmas, but also the test of the genuineness of documents that have been handed down to us in the pages of history. Major RAWLINSON remarks, that while at Persepolis, the high place of Persian power, DARIUS aspired to elevate the moral feelings of his countrymen, and to secure their future dominancy in Asia, by ostentatiously displaying to them their superiority over the feudatory provinces of the empire; on the sacred rock at Baghistan he addressed himself, in the style of an historian, to collect the genealogical traditions of his race, to describe the extent and power of his kingdom, and to relate the leading incidents of his reign.' The record opens thus:

I AM DARIUS, the great King, the king of kings, the King of Persia, the king of (the dependent) provinces, the son of HYSTASPES, the grandson of ARSAMES, the Achæmenian.'

Says DARIUS the King: My father was HYSTASPES; of HYSTASPES the father was ARSAMES; of ARSAMES the father was ARIYARAMNES; of ARIYARAMNES the father was TEISPES; of TEISPES the father was ACHEMENES.

'Says DARIUS the King: On that account we have been called Achæmenians; from antiquity we have been unsubdued (or we have descended;) from antiquity those of our race have been kings. 'Says DARIUS the King: There are eight of my race who have been kings before me, I am the ninth; for a very long time we have been kings.'

It will thus be perceived, that from the very onset, the account DARIUS gives us of his right to the throne, is adverse to our received opinions on the subject, derived from HERODOTUS; who, it is true, calls HYSTASPES, 'the son of ARSAMES, of the family of the Achæmenians;' and also adds in another place, that the Persian monarchs were descended from the tribe of the Achæmenida. But he evidently did not consider HYSTASPES' son entitled by descent, to regal power; and we can only infer that, as he wrote his books after many of DARIUS's descendants had occupied the throne, and while one of them was the actual monarch, he regarded DARIUS as the founder of the reigning dynasty, and meant, in his enumeration of the different tribes, to designate particularly the one whence it sprang. It could not have been his intention to confer the honor of establishing that race in sovereignty upon CYRUS; for, by his own showing this, his first king of Persia was the son of a Median princess, and a Persian of the very meanest rank,' (B. 1; c. 91.) though of a 'respectable family.' (B. 1; c. 107.) Neither can he maintain, indisputably, that even CYRUS' son and successor, was of the Achæmenian family through CASSANDANE; for the Egyptians, whom he allows are of all mankind the best conversant with the Persian manners,' affirm that NITETIS, daughter of the Egyptian monarch APRIES, was CAMBYSES' mother. Be that as it may, CAMBYSES died without issue, and therefore his maternity in no manner affects our assertion.

It is also true that HERODOTUS So far coincides with the tablets, as to make XERXES declare that among the ancestors of DARIUS were reckoned ARINNES, TEISPEUS, CYRUS, CAMBYSES and Achæmenes; (b. 7; c. 11.) but in this solitary mention of these persons he does not style them sovereigns, nor does he ever, except by calling HYSTASPES an Achæmenian, give DARIUS a kingly origin. On the contrary, he says explicitly that during CAMBYSES' expedition into Egypt, DARIUS was in the king's guards and 'of no particular consideration; (в. 3; c. 139.) This ubiquity, by the way, is rather a remarkable affair, inasmuch as only a few pages back, we find DARIUS travelling from 'Persia to Susa,' to slay the usurper. Neither does he speak, except in the instance quoted above, of any consanguinity between CYRUS and DARIUS, which it might be expected he would do if he believed it to exist; particularly when after a dream, CYRUS, who at the time is in the country of the Massagetæ, summons HYSTASPES, and declares to him his belief that DARIUS intends to usurp the throne of Persia. The gods,' says CYRUS, whose favor I enjoy, disclose to me all those events which menace my security; and as HERODOTUS asserts that CYRUS usurped the throne of his grandfather ASTYAGES, CYRUS might very consistently accuse DARIUS of a similar attempt, provided the latter had any shadow of a claim to the crown. But HYSTASPES replies Far be it, oh King! from any man of Persian origin to form conspiracies against his sovereign: if such there be, let immediate death be his portion. You have raised the Persians from slavery to freedom; from subjects you have made them masters: if a vision has informed you that my son designs anything against you, to you and to

*IF to this statement it be objected that PREXASPES, at the massacre of the Maji, is said to have recounted the genealogy of CYRUS beginning with ACHEMENES; it need only be remarked that it is a pity HERODOTUS did not tell what PREXASPES said on the subject; and that this recital, as will be shown in the sequel, is without doubt as much a fabrication as his having slain CAMBYSES' brother. CYRUS was of the Achaemenidæ, it is true; for the tablets and also the inscription on the pilaster at Mourg-aub declare the fact, but HEREDOTUS can be no authority in the matter; indeed, it is only in this quotation that he ever alludes to the subject.