red by the publication
of his last two volumes on democracy in America; and it is to the first
two that the philosophic student most frequently recurs for light on the
practical working of the popular system.

Perhaps, too, there is another, and a still more cogent, reason why the
reputation of this philosopher has not continued so general as it at
first was. This is his _impartiality_. Both the great parties which
divide the world turned to his work on its first appearance with
avidity, in the hope of discovering something favourable to their
respective views. Neither were disappointed. Both found numerous facts
and observations of the very highest importance, and having a material
bearing on the points at issue between them. Enchanted with the
discovery, each raised an _Io Paean_; and in the midst of a chorus of
praise from liberals and conservatives, M. De Tocqueville took his place
as the first political philosopher of the age. But in process of time,
both discovered something in his opinions which they would rather had
been omitted. The popular party were displeased at seeing it proved that
the great and virtuous middle classes of society could establish a
despotism as complete, and more irresistible, than any sultaun of Asia:
the aristocratic, at finding the opinion of the author not disguised
that the tendency to democracy was irresistible, and that, for good or
for evil, it had irrevocably set in upon human affairs. But present
celebrity is seldom a test of future fame; in matters of thought and
reflection, scarcely ever so. What makes a didactic author popular at
the moment is, the coincidence of his opinions with those of his
readers, in the main, and the tracing them out to some consequences as
yet new to them. What gives him fame with futurity is, his having boldly
resisted general delusions, and violently, and to the great vexation of
his contemporaries, first demonstrated the erroneous nature of many of
their opinions, which subsequent experience has shewn to be false.
"Present and future time," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals; he who
pays court to the one, must lay his account with being discountenanced
by the other." We augur the more favourably for M. De Tocqueville's
lasting fame, from his being no longer quoted by party writers on either
side of the questions which divide society.

M. de Tocqueville calls the history he has recently published, and which
forms the subject of this article,--"A _P