The 'hero' of the work is a merchant, who, like many others after incurring bankruptcy, takes to Wall Street--to selling notes as an under-broker for a living. In describing his trials, the author has, with consummate skill and extraordinary knowledge of both causes and effects, pointed out the peculiarities, institutions, and good or bad workings of the American mercantile system, in such a manner as to have attracted from the soundest authority warm praise of his work, as embodying practical knowledge of a kind seldom found in 'novels.' From 'broking' to speculating--from that again to the old course--alternately buoyed up or cast down, through trials and troubles, the bankrupt, at last, in his darkest hour, lands on that 'luck' which in America comes sooner or later to every one. It is worth remarking that in all his characters, as in his scenes, the author is careful to maintain the balance of truth. He shows us that among the sharks and harpies of Wall Street there are phases of honor and generosity--that the arrogance or coldness of a bank-officer may have a rational foundation--that feelings as intense are awakened in common business pursuits as in the most dramatic and erratic lives. In this _just_ treatment of character,--this avoiding of the old saint and angel system of depicting men,--KIMBALL is truly pre-eminent, and under it even the casual SOL DOWNER strikes us with an individuality and a force not inferior to that of the hero himself. We can not take leave of this truly remarkable book without referring to the under-current of kindly, humane feelings with which it abounds. There is a delicate, tremulous sympathy for the sufferings and joys which he depicts, which reflects the highest credit on the author. There are, in this book, unaffected touches of pathos, founded on the most natural events in the world, which have never been surpassed by any novelist. We are glad that novelists are leaving romance and going to real life. One breaking into the harsh industry of the factory and market, another taking down the joys and sorrows of the humble weaver, another describing, as in this work, the strange hurrying life of the 'outside broker' to the sharpest-cut detail,--all giving us truth and observation in the place of vague imagination;--such are the best results of late literature; and prominent among these the future historian will place the Under-currents of Wall Street. MARGARET HOWTH. A Story of To-Day. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.