By SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. No subject could have been better adapted to the lamented author of “Waverley” than “the history of that dark chapter of human nature” to which this volume is devoted. Sir Walter has given sufficient evidence in his novels and romances of his acquaintance with the superstitions of our own and remoter times. In this volume he has laid open the stores of his memory and reading, has condensed and elucidated the subject; in many cases explaining by natural causes occurrences supposed to be supernatural. LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. ADDRESSED TO SIR WALTER SCOTT. By SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K.G.H. _A New Edition, Illustrated with upwards of 80 Woodcuts._ The author of this volume passes under review “the principal phenomena of nature and the leading constructions of art which bear the impress of a supernatural character,” and more especially “those singular illusions of sense by which the most perfect organs either fail to perform their functions or perform them faithlessly, and where the efforts and the creations of the mind predominate over the direct perceptions of external nature.” These are themes full of interest and worthy of the labour bestowed upon them by the philosophic author. It is lamentable to think how many minds rest contented with the most unphilosophical apology for ignorance, by designating the acts they do not examine, wonders or mysteries,--while to the mass of men, such acts are inexplicable, except on some theory of superhuman agency, as absurd as it is erroneous. The Letters of Sir David Brewster will disabuse both classes. To the first, he furnishes philosophical data for explaining many hitherto puzzling appearances--to the last, he supplies the means of escape from absurdities calculated to retain them in mental slavery. The eye and the ear are of course the great organs of deception, and accordingly optical illusions occupy a considerable portion of the volume. The illusions depending on the ear succeed, and after these, we are treated with amusing descriptions of feats of strength, of mechanical automata, and of some of the more popular wonders of chemistry. Under each of these divisions, anecdotes of the most interesting kind illustrate the author’s explanations, and no subject, in itself grave and important, was ever on the whole treated in a more amusing manner. LIFE AND TIMES OF WASHINGTON. By CYRUS R. EDMONDS. 2 Vols.