A CHRISTMAS CAROL, IN PROSE: Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas. By CHARLES DICKENS. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS. If in every alternate work that Mr. DICKENS were to send to the London press he should find occasion to indulge in ridicule against alleged American peculiarities, or broad caricatures of our actual vanities, or other follies, we could with the utmost cheerfulness pass them by unnoted and uncondemned, if he would only now and then present us with an intellectual creation so touching and beautiful as the one before us. Indeed, we can with truth say, that in our deliberate judgment, the 'Christmas Carol' is the most striking, the most picturesque, the most truthful, of all the limnings which have proceeded from its author's pen. There is much mirth in the book, says a competent English critic, but more wisdom; wisdom of that kind which men possess who have gazed thoughtfully but kindly on human life, and have pierced deeper than their fellows into all the sunny nooks and dark recesses of the human breast. The barbarous notion has long been exploded, that comic writers were only to be esteemed for their jests, and useful for provoking laughter. CERVANTES, first among the moderns, sent it out of fashion, and blessed that union of wit, sense, and pathos, which so many renowned writers have since confirmed; until it has come to be acknowledged, that rich genuine humor is rarely an inmate of the mind, if there be not a corresponding depth of earnestness and feeling in the heart. Many of DICKENS' writings, it is justly claimed, exhibit this fine, healthy, benevolent spirit. 'His sympathy for human suffering is strong and pure, and he reserves it not for imaginary and fictitious distress, but for the real grinding sorrows of life.' And this sympathy is more finely displayed in the work under notice, than in any of his previous productions. The design is very fanciful, and there is crowded into it, brief as it is, a world of character and observation. It is truly a reflection of life in miniature. Before proceeding to a few illustrative extracts, we shall avail ourselves in part of a clear synopsis of the inception and progress of the story, from the pen of a London contemporary.