"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed. D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, tender, and simply great. There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, but the real makers. Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there _was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they represented. "Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing.