We remember perusing this book soon after its first appearance. The shortness of the several sections into which it is divided, and the frequent change of topics, keeping the mind in a constant state of expectation, prevented us, we suppose, from feeling at that time a sense of weariness. In the perpetual anticipation of finding something new in the next paragraph or section, we forgot the disappointment which the last had so often occasioned. It is only thus we can explain the difference of feeling with which we have re-perused this third and late edition of the same work. The brevity of chapters, and interchange of topics, could not practise their kindly deception on us twice. Like those intertwisted walks in a confined shrubbery, which are designed to cheat the pedestrian into the idea of vast extent of space, the imposition succeeds but once. At the second perambulation we discover within what narrow boundaries we have been led up and down, and made our profitless circuit. We are compelled to say that an exceeding weariness came over us on the second perusal of these _Guesses at Truth_. Notwithstanding the modesty of the title, there are few books which wear so perpetually the air of superiority, of profound and subtle thought, with so very little to justify the pretension. There is a constant smile of self-complacency--but it plays over a very barren landscape. The soil is sterile on which this sunshine is resting. It is not uninstructive to notice how far an assumption of superiority, coupled with a form of composition indulgent to the reader's attention, and stimulating to his curiosity, may succeed in giving popularity and very respectable reputation to a work which, when examined closely, proves to be made up of materials of the slightest possible value.