Lieutenant Slidell's very excellent book, "A Year in Spain," was in some danger of being overlooked by his countrymen when a benignant star directed Murray's attention to its merits. Fate and Regent Street prevailed. Cockney octavos carried the day. A man is nothing if not hot-pressed; and the clever young writer who was cut dead in his Yankee-land habiliments, met with bows innumerable in the gala dress of a London _imprimatur_. The "Year in Spain" well deserved the popularity thus inauspiciously attained. It was the work of a man of genius; and passing through several editions, prepared the public attention for any subsequent production of its author. As regards "The American in England," we have not only read it with deep interest from beginning to end, but have been at the trouble of seeking out and perusing a great variety of critical _dicta_ concerning it. Nearly all of these are in its favor, and we are happy in being able to concur heartily with the popular voice--if indeed these _dicta_ be its echoes. We have somewhere said--or we should have somewhere said--that the old adage about "Truth in a well" (we mean the adage in its modern and improper--not in its antique and proper acceptation) should be swallowed _cum grano salis_ at times. To be profound is not always to be sensible. The depth of an argument is not, necessarily, its wisdom--this depth lying where Truth is sought more often than where she is found. As the touches of a painting which, to minute inspection, are 'confusion worse confounded' will not fail to start boldly out to the cursory glance of a connoisseur--or as a star may be seen more distinctly in a sidelong survey than in any direct gaze however penetrating and {193} intense--so there are, not unfrequently, times and methods, in which, and by means of which, a richer philosophy may be gathered on the surface of things than can be drawn up, even with great labor, _c profundis_. It appears to us that Mr. Slidell has written a wiser book than his neighbors merely by not disdaining to write a more superficial one. The work is dedicated to John Duer, Esq. The Preface is a very sensible and a sufficiently well-written performance, in which the Lieutenant while "begging, at the outset, to be acquitted of any injurious prejudices" still pleads guilty to "that ardent patriotism which is the common attribute of Americans, a feeling of nationality inherited with the laws, the language, and the manners of the country from which we derive our origin, and which is sanctioned not less by the comparison of the blessings we enjoy with those of other lands, than by the promptings of good feeling, and the dictates of good taste." It is in the body of the book, however, that we must seek, and where we shall most assuredly find, strong indications of a genius not the less rich, rare, and altogether estimable for the simplicity of its _modus operandi_.