Now, if all albums could be of this character, their value would be intrinsic and superior, and they would be permanently interesting, because to them we could frequently recur with refreshing and peculiar enjoyment. I regret, however, to say, that the majority of albums are comparatively valueless: they are written with so much negligence; many of the pieces are of so light and frivolous a character; there is so much childish and mawkish sentimentality in numbers of the effusions poured forth; and there is so great a destitution of solid, original, and striking thought, that, in my unpretending, yet honest estimation, the majority of albums are worth comparatively nothing. A good album should contain pieces of genuine talent; should be marked by no frivolity or childishness; should be concise, pointed, and powerful in its contributions; and should embody valuable moral principle; and, to secure these excellencies, the possessor of an elegant album should not place it in the hand of any, accompanied with the request that a contribution be inserted, without ascertaining, in the first instance, that the person solicited is of genuine taste and talent, and real principle; because, if these qualifications be not developed, an album will be merely filled with trifling, crude, unconnected, and worthless pieces--marked by no beauty, exhibiting no taste, characterized by no originality, and inculcating no valuable sentiment. T. W. * * * * * POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. (_For the Mirror._) No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.--JOHNSON. The superstitions of nations must always be interesting, since they afford a criterion of the progress that knowledge and reason have made. To trace the origin of the belief that departed spirits revisit the earth, a belief apparently so repugnant to reason and revelation, must ever attract the attention of the curious. For it is a question of importance to religion, even although the existence of apparitions would not in the slightest degree invalidate those sacred writings on which the bases of religion are founded; on the contrary, if the reality of apparitions (that is of the existence of apparitions) could be ascertained, another proof would be added to an immense weight of testimony of the ability possessed by the Deity to arrest or alter what appears the ordinary course of nature.