Lady Morgan gives the following process by which her "Book of the Boudoir" was manufactured: "While the fourth volume of the O'Briens," says her ladyship, "was going through the press, Mr. Colburn was sufficiently pleased with the subscription (as it is called in the trade) to the first edition, to desire a new work from the author. I was just setting off for Ireland, the horses _literally_ putting to, [how curious!] when Mr. Colburn arrived with his flattering proposition. [How _apropos_!] I could not enter into any future engagement; [how awkward!] and Mr. Colburn taking up a scrabby MS. volume which the servant was about to thrust into the pocket of the carriage, asked, 'What was that?' [How touchingly simple!] I said it was 'one of many volumes of odds and ends _de omnibus rebus_;' and I read him the last entry I had made the night before, on my return from the opera. [How very obliging, considering that the horses were _literally_ put to!] 'This is the very thing!' said the 'European publisher;' [how charming! and yet how droll!] and if the public is of the same opinion, I shall have nothing to regret in thus coming, though somewhat in _dishabille_, before its tribunal." _Blackwood's Magazine._ * * * * * APPARITIONS. Dr. Southey's opinion on apparitions deserves to be carried to the controversial account of this ever-interesting question:--"My serious belief amounts to this, that preternatural impressions are sometimes communicated to us for wise purposes; and that departed spirits are sometimes permitted to manifest themselves."--_Colloquies_. * * * * * THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.