The object of the author of “Saint Leger,” if we understand him aright, is to trace the career of an individual soul in search of a faith. The innumerable external trials, temptations and dangers through which the hero passes, forms one of the most interesting stories we have read for many a day. To this moving narrative another, and entirely original interest is superadded, by exhibiting to us, not only the immediate effects of surrounding events on the hero’s feelings and actions, but in tracing up their consequences, first, to the changes in his character and moral nature, and last, to the ultimate results produced on his religious faith. Our author appears to be a sturdy opponent of all forms of intellectual faith. The hero is accordingly taken through the whole round of modern metaphysics; and issues from them weary and dispirited, having learned only to doubt, not to believe. In the latter pages of the book, the instructive lesson of the whole is taught, viz., that faith is founded, not on the intellectual, but on the moral nature; that all strivings after faith, through the intellect, can but end in doubt and pain; that the elements for the formation of a perfect faith lie around us on every hand, as much within the reach of the illiterate as of the learned, which “——justifies the ways of God to man;” that faith is not to be encompassed in creeds, or laid down in philosophies, but is the simple language of the heart appealing to the will for support. These are bold thoughts, boldly spoken. The sectarian may base his faith upon other and far different grounds, or may think the opinions of other men sufficient foundation for his own belief; he cannot, however, arrive at a higher or a purer state of hopefulness than that reached by “Saint Leger” through his fiery martyrdom of thought and feeling. We will not forestall the reader’s interest, by attempting a sketch of our author’s plot. Let it be sufficient to state that the story appears to be evolved of necessity from the agency of the actors in it, the natural result of their characters and the actions to which such characters must lead; not a tissue of ingeniously contrived plots and counterplots, into which a certain amount of sham humanity has been thrust, to give the whole a life-like air. This is a dramatic excellence, rare since the Elizabethan era, which even the glorious creations of Scott do not possess. Whoever has read “Guy Mannering,” and afterward seen its miserable dramatized counterfeit, will be able to appreciate our meaning, and to understand how sadly the works of the greatest modern novelist stand the dramatic test. After witnessing such an experiment, there will be no difficulty in recognizing the immeasurable distance between Shakspeare and Scott.