The "Messenger" ought to have contained an earlier notice of this fashionable and brilliant work. If our readers have not seen it, we would advise them by all means to send forthwith to the bookseller and purchase a copy. We are free to confess that it has raised Mr. Bulwer fifty per cent. at least in our estimation,--yet we do not think it by any means a faultless performance. Mr. Bulwer's pictures, in all his works that we have read, are too gaudy,--too highly wrought,--and therefore too much above nature,--and want the delightful repose and serene features which distinguish the great Scottish magician. He is, nevertheless, an author of vivid and powerful fancy, of extensive learning, and of high capacity to seize upon his readers and enchain them by fine imagery and impassioned eloquence. The work before us is one of undoubted merit. The subject is of great historical interest, and the author has contrived to reanimate the "city of the dead" with a group of actors who, with some exceptions, admirably sustain their respective parts, and contribute their due share to the continued interest and final catastrophe of the story. We shall not attempt any analysis of the book, for that would be to deprive such of our readers as have not seen it, of much of that exquisite pleasure which attends the progressive developement of the plot, and the gradual disentanglement of all the intricacies in a work of fiction. The tragical story of Pompeii is familiar to classical readers, and especially the graphic account of its doom by the younger Pliny, who was an eye witness to the calamity. Its discovery and partial restoration in latter times,--the laborious excavations which have brought back its temples, its theatres, its triumphal arches and spacious edifices, to the light of day;--its antique curiosities and fine paintings, rescued as it were from a dark interment of seventeen centuries, and now exhibited in their original form and freshness, are all circumstances of powerful interest,--but have been so frequently referred to by tourists, antiquarians and others, that they do not require any particular notice at our hands. We regard Mr. Bulwer as highly fortunate in the choice of his subject; and, as he enjoyed great advantages by his presence on the spot, he has contrived to embellish his story by a variety of interesting details derived from actual inspection. The minute account, for example, of the dwelling of Glaucus, in the third chapter,--of the complicated arrangement and splendid ornaments of the various apartments, is not the creation of fancy but a lively representation of a living model. By the way, since this same chapter contains a very curious account of a Pompeian supper, besides some other interesting matters, we are tempted to insert the whole in our columns, especially as many of our readers may have no opportunity of seeing the volumes from which it is extracted. The