Our author is not one of those who at once, and without a question, reject all schemes for the amelioration of society; nor has he sat down to write the history of these social reformers for the mere purpose of throwing on them his contempt or irony. He has even been accused, it seems, by some of his critics, of manifesting too much sympathy with the enthusiasts he has undertaken to describe. He tells us, in the preface to his second edition, that he has encountered the contradictory accusations of being too severe, and too indulgent, towards them; from which he concludes, that he cannot have widely departed from the tone which truth and impartiality would prescribe. This is a conclusion which authors are very apt to draw; they very conveniently dispatch their several critics by opposing them to each other. But this conclusion may be drawn too hastily. Two contradictory accusations do not always destroy each other, even when they are made by judges equally competent. The inconsistency may be in the author himself, who may, in different portions of his work, have given foundation for very opposite censures. In the present case, although we have already intimated that M. Reybaud writes with a spirit of fairness and candour, we cannot admit him to the full benefit of the conclusion he draws in his own favour, from the opponent criticisms he has met with. There are individual passages in his work which it would be difficult to reconcile with each other, and which invite very different criticisms. On some occasions he appears to attribute a certain value to these tentatives at social reform, and intimates that they may probably be the precursors, or may contain the germ, of some substantial improvement; whilst at other times, he scourges them without pity or compunction, as a species of moral pestilence. He seems not to have been able, at all moments, to defend himself from the _vertige_ which possesses the personages of whom he is writing; like a certain historian of witchcraft, whom we have somewhere read of, who had so industriously studied his subject that a faith in the black art imperceptibly gained upon him. The narrative goes on to say, that the unfortunate historian of witchcraft attempted to practise the knowledge he had obtained, and was burned for a wizard. But there the analogy will certainly fail. M. Reybaud soon recovers from the visionary mood, and wakes himself thoroughly by inflicting the lash with renewed vigour upon all the other dreamers around him.