world, what man was made for, what he struggles for,
what becomes of him, have been questions that excited the speculative of
all ages, taking various channels according to the circumstances of the
time. Considered from this point of view, as a life-like picture of the
heavings of the mass, and the mental fermentation going on among
individuals--of the _yeast_ of society--the book displays great ability,
and challenges careful attention. It is powerful, earnest, feeling, and
eloquent; the production of a man acquainted with society, who has
looked closely upon its various classes, and has the power of reading
the signs of the times. He has a truthful vigor of description, a
rhetorical rather than a dramatic power; or he sacrifices the latter to
his habit of expressing his opinions in dialogue, where the author talks
rather than the dramatis personae. There is a genial warmth of feeling in
the book, and wide human sympathies, but with a tendency to extremes in
statement and opinion--a disposition to deepen the shadows of English
life; for go where the author would, pictures quite as bad or worse may
be drawn of the condition of mankind, from the 'noble savage,' the beau
ideal of Rousseau, to the educated 'Prussian,' who was within a little
while the model man of a certain school of philosophers."

THE LITTLENESS OF A GREAT PEOPLE.

The future historians of this age will have to record no more mortifying
illustration of the difficulties which in a republic prevent the success
of great ideas than that which is presented in the case of Mr. Whitney,
who early in the last month sailed for England. We transcribe with
especial approval the following paragraphs respecting him and his
labors, from the _Tribune_:

"If we are not mistaken, it is now nearly ten years since Mr.
Whitney first devoted himself to his great project, and he has
pursued it with a force of purpose, an intelligent apprehension
of all its bearings and consequences upon the world, a nobility
of ambition, and a sustained, intellectual enthusiasm which
belongs to the rarest and most admirable characters. We do not
know in any country a man in whom great intellectual and
practical elements are more happily combined. It is not with
the warm partiality of private friendship that we thus speak of
Mr. Whitney, for, like all men of ideas, and all of nature
positive and deep enough to have a special missi