This is one of the most striking novels of the season. It bears little resemblance in tone, spirit and object, to the other popular romances of the day. The author follows in the track of Fielding rather than Bulwer, and aims at representing the world as it is. Though his mind is not creative, it is eminently delineative, and he has succeeded in cramming into one volume a large variety of characters, each expressing one of the different forms of worldliness, and all belonging strictly to the world we live in. Though the novel thus relates exclusively to the world, and indicates a most remarkable knowledge of the selfish element in human nature, in the multitudinous modifications which that element receives from individual peculiarities, the general tone of the author himself is so far from being worldly, that it is distinguished by singular manliness, cheerfulness and generosity. There is nothing morbid, nothing of the hater or the sentimentalist in his representations. He trusts himself resolutely to the genuine emotions of the heart, but he guards himself against all superfine feelings and manufactured sentiment. His characters are so true that at first we are inclined to consider them commonplace. In their development, however, we soon find that the author is a master in his art, that without pretension and without exaggeration, he touches profound springs of thought and sentiment, and represents with a graceful decision, and in clear light, those evanescent and unconscious transpirations of character, in which a novelist's capacity is most truly exhibited.