solved all our social
problems, all our discussions upon the perfectibility of man, all our
vague but obstinate prophecies of some more rational and happier scheme of
existence? This _homo_ is to survive, it seems, only to make railroads for
the future _angelus_.

On the authorship of this production we have no communication or
conjecture to make. The writer has been successful, as far as we know, in
preserving his incognito; and as the rumours that have reached our ear
have all been again contradicted, we think it wisest to abstain from
circulating any of then. We heard it pleasantly said that the author had
been followed down as far as Lancashire, and that then all further trace
of him had been lost. We think he might be traced further north than
Lancashire. The style in one or two places bears symptoms of a Scottish
origin. Occupied with the wild theory it promulgates, we have not said
much of the literary merits of the work. Nor is there much to say. It is
written in a clear, unpretending style, but somewhat careless and inexact.
The exposition in the first portions of the work, the astronomical and
geological, appeared to us particularly good. The author's knowledge of
science is such as is gleaned by that sort of student who is denominated,
in prefaces, the general reader; he is not, we should apprehend, a
labourer in any one of its departments, but thankfully receives whatever
is brought to his door of the results of science. With this
chance-gathered stock he has ventured to frame, or rather to defend, his
speculations. The sudden success of the work is not, we think, what any
one could have prognosticated. It is a success which its singularity has
gained for it, and which its superficiality will soon again forfeit.

We may mention that this notice was written after a perusal of the first
edition. In the third edition, we observe that some passages have been
slightly modified or omitted; but the hypothesis put forward is
substantially the same.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART XVI.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

The insurrection had broken out;