A second part of the "Historical Collections of Louisiana," by B. F. French, has been published by Mr. Putnam. It contains some interesting papers, among which are translations of an original letter of Hernando de Soto, on the Conquest of Florida, of a brief account of de Soto's memorable expedition to Florida, from a recently discovered manuscript by a writer named Biedma, and Hackluyt's translation of the longer narrative "by a gentleman of Elvas." It is to be followed, we understand, by a second volume. * * * * * ELIHU BURRITT is one of those people who are filled with the comfortable assurance of their own greatness. He seems always to regard the mob of men as very diminutive creatures, while his introverted glances are through a lens which reveals a character of qualities and proportions the most extraordinary. This is unfortunate. It renders Mr. Elihu Burritt, _par excellence_, the bore of his generation. He is really a person of very small abilities; of very little information, considering the opportunities presented by his travels; and the "_learned_ blacksmith" has no learning at all. He had, indeed, an unusual facility in acquiring words, but he knows nothing of languages; not having in any a particle of scholarship; of the philosophy, even of his mother tongue, being as ignorant as the bellows-hand in his smithy at Worcester. But because of this not uncommon faculty of acquiring words--acquiring them as Zerah Colburn did a certain mastery of figures, without being able to comprehend any principle of mathematics--Mr. Everett, or some one else, advertised him as "learned," and ever since he has neglected his fit vocation to crowd himself into conspicuous places, all over Christendom; to blow continually his penny whistle in the ears of the little people called philanthropists; to speak and write in addresses and letters immense aggregations of ambitious platitudes, to pontiffs, emperors, kings, parliaments, etc., respecting their particular affairs, all of which addresses and letters are as cogent as the barkings sent by a lap-dog toward the moon, and receive from all sorts of people, except diminutives and impertinents whose profession is "philanthropy," just about as much consideration as Dian yields to the fast-yelping cur. It is all unfortunate, for poor Elihu Burritt will never be persuaded that he is a subject of derision only, instead of admiration; that men pause to regard him as a miracle of conceit and assurance rather than as a prophet; and that his commonplaces about "olive leaves," "calumets," "universal brotherhood," "fatherland," etc., have no more influence than the maudlin rigmarole of the madman whose preternatural force is lost in senility. It is time for Elihu Burritt to go back to his shop: the world wants a new fool. * * * * *