We are not disposed to be hypercritical with Mr. Bulwer's writings; but we can no longer concede that which we have heretofore claimed for him, a purpose to hold up to the world the rewards of virtue and the consequences of vice. On the contrary, the tendency of his morality seems to be, that we are the victims of destiny, and that circumstances alone determine the phases of character, and prescribe the paths of virtue and vice. He attacks the sanctity of marriage with unholy zeal. In 'Ernest Maltravers' he inculcates the principle that illicit love may in certain cases be innocent, and that where true affection is, the bond of matrimony is unavailing. His morality has sometimes the coldness of moonlight, but seldom the radiance and the warmth of the sun; and it is owing to the separation of the affections from the understanding, the disunion of Love and Truth in his nature, that Mr. Bulwer delights in the hollow and unsatisfactory fascinations of his intellect, and is led astray by his self-hood to despise the religion of the heart. With all his genius, he is wide from the path of greatness. The deep well of German metaphysics, at which he has drunk so largely, may invigorate the mind and mystify the imagination; but the logical acumen which it imparts, does not direct to usefulness, nor lead to truth; and the discursive powers which range through its suggested labyrinths, come back at last to the goal they started from, weary and disgusted with unavailing efforts after good. It is a truth, inseparable from the relative condition of man, that he could not possibly have had an idea of God, unless it had been revealed to him. After a revelation, we find in nature concurrent proof of his existence; but by a law of mental action, we transfer the truth derived from the revelation to the evidence which is around us, and flatter ourselves that we reason _à priori_ from this source. Mr. Bulwer has a glimpse of this great truth, and only a glimpse; for in the work under notice, he inculcates the sophism that the idea of the Creator could not arise in an uneducated mind. He does not perceive, that under the divine dispensations manifested in the Word, a revelation has already taken place, which is reflected from the face of nature; and that it is impossible for one, in this advanced state of man, not to read the record of the divine creation--not to mention the extreme improbability, that a child of fifteen should never have heard the name of God, when it is oftener on the lips of the uneducated than on those of the refined, though abused and taken in vain.