ay you for such
generosity," why did Mr. Stuart respond, "shaking his sides with
laughter"? We do not wish to be too inquisitive, but few things are more
trying to a sensitive person than to see others overwhelmed with
merriment in which, from ignorance, he cannot share.

Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many
excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our
readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the
compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the
characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We
trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to
be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing
want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake.
They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to
industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward
to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit
them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the
honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the
highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their
worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The
one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to
political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would
hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when
such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead
who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters,
not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his
home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House?
Would he refuse, at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public
the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his
communion with his God?

As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but
admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations
is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure
nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which
will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their
evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine
henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, o