_Stanley Thorn. By Henry Cockton, Esq., Author of “Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist,” etc., with Numerous Illustrations, designed by Cruikshank, Leech, etc., and engraved by Yeager. Lea and Blanchard: Philadelphia._ “Charles O’Malley,” “Harry Lorrequer,” “Valentine Vox,” “Stanley Thorn,” and some other effusions now “in course of publication,” are novels depending for effect upon what gave popularity to “Peregrine Pickle”—we mean _practiced joke_. To men whose animal spirits are high, whatever may be their mental ability, such works are always acceptable. To the uneducated, to those who read little, to the obtuse in intellect (and these three classes constitute the mass) these books are not only acceptable, but are the only ones which can be called so. We here make two divisions—that of the men who _can_ think but who dislike thinking; and that of the men who either have not been presented with the materials for thought, or who have no brains with which to “work up” the material. With these classes of people “Stanley Thorn” is a favorite. It not only demands no reflection, but repels it, or dissipates it—much as a silver rattle the wrath of a child. It is not in the least degree _suggestive_. Its readers arise from its perusal with the identical ideas in possession at sitting down. Yet, _during_ perusal, there has been a tingling physico-mental exhilaration, somewhat like that induced by a cold bath, or a flesh-brush, or a gallop on horseback—a very delightful and very healthful matter in its way. But these things are not _letters_. “Valentine Vox” and “Charles O’Malley” are no more “_literature_” than cat-gut is music. The visible and tangible tricks of a baboon belong not less to the _belles-lettres_ than does “Harry Lorrequer.” When this gentleman adorns his countenance with lamp-black, knocks over an apple-woman, or brings about a rent in his pantaloons, we laugh at him when bound up in a volume, just as we would laugh at his adventures if happening before our eyes in the street. But mere incidents, whether serious or comic, whether occurring or described—_mere incidents_ are not books. Neither are they the basis of books—of which the idiosyncrasy is _thought_ in contradistinction from _deed_. A book without action cannot be; but a book is only such, to the extent of its thought, independently of its deed. Thus of Algebra; which is, or should be, defined as “a mode of computing with symbols by means of signs.” With numbers, as Algebra, it has nothing to do; and although no algebraic computation can proceed without numbers, yet Algebra is only such to the extent of its analysis, independently of its Arithmetic.