This course of lectures has been described as "a review of the humorists, by their master," but Mr. Thackeray is not a humorist--at least humor is not his distinguishing quality; he is a cold satirist, sneering at humanity, and in all his writings never exhibiting a spark of the genial fire which should commend an author to the affections of his readers. Gentlemen may be amused by him--he may be even punctilious and sincere in the observance of all honorable conduct--but judging him by his works, he is one of the last men living whom any person with the instincts of a gentleman would admit to his friendship. Some of his books are amazingly clever, but others, as the _Kickleburys on the Rhine_, are but unredeemable vulgarity. He has been taken up very much by the snobs--a class somewhat remarkable for misapprehensions of their real relations--and we find the snobs of this country as well as of England lauding the satirist as an enemy of their own peculiar caste. This is a mistake: Mr. Thackeray has painted to the life the sentimental snob, indeed, but he is himself a chief of a different and far less endurable class in this division of the race--_the snob cynical and supercilious_. ALRED. WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE, BY ELMINA WALDO CAREY. Do you remember, Alred dear, The peach-tree's cool and ample shade, Where first our hearts learned love and fear, And vows of constancy were made? The peach-tree stands there, now as then, Its shadow just as dim and mild, And over all the sacred glen The vines of strawberries run wild. Still all about the water's edge Beds of green flags in beauty lie, And, sloping towards the elder-hedge, Are fields of graceful waving rye. But, Alred dear, not by our feet Will the round clover-heads be pressed, For years must pass before we meet In that dear valley of the west. Sometimes my heart is filled with fear, Yet if not, Alred, in that land, 'Tis bliss to know, in some bright sphere You'll wait to take my trembling hand. CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM. The July number of _Blackwood's Magazine_ has a long paper under the title of _What is Mesmerism?_ in which the question is discussed with ingenuity, apparent candor, and occasional eloquence. The editor, however, does not altogether agree with his contributor, and adds to the article the following postscript. Undoubtedly a large proportion of the "professors of magnetism" are mere mountebanks, and the pretenders to clairvoyance may in all cases probably be set down as knaves, or as very ignorant or feeble-minded persons. Nevertheless, we cannot quite agree with Professor Wilson in all his propositions: WHAT IS MESMERISM?