"Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and art, and _who shall take a rule over us_? There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race."--P. 276. Melancholy prospect for man! When the earth becomes a serener field of existence, then will a race appear to take rule over him. Might not he become serener too? Is it thus that are to be 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.