TWO FRIENDS' CONVERSATIONS ON TOPICS OF INTEREST. * IN plan and

objects these " Conversations" bear some resemblance to Friends in Council, and one or two other works of a similar kind. The "topics of interest" are not treated by the "two friends" who carry on the dialogues with equal depth, equal spirit, or perhaps equal knowledge and reflection. The Conversations on Topes of Interest wants the solid scholastic English style of Helps, founded on a study of the Elizabethan writers, but weeded of pedantic Latinity, and, by a thorough amalgamation with the living language of the day removed from imitation. They are also deficient in his fulness of practical matter deduced from a thoughtful observation of life, and that straightforward directness of march which derives closeness and weight from its very directness. In fact, though the conversations discuss subjects of importance or of passing interest,— as education in various aspects; literature and the press, with the influences of each upon the other ; married and single life, politics and politicians, youth and middle age ; together with some questions of a more critical kind, as "Histories of the French Revolution,"—yet there is a sense of slightness about the treatment as a whole. Sound opinions, a shrewd or even a deep thought, may occasionally be found ; but the bulk of the dialogues is mostly slight in substance, and the style not beyond the average in point of strength. Sometimes an entire dialogue scarcely rises above commonplace.

The interlocutors are two, Bingham, a man of five-and-forty, with a competent fortune ; and Apperly, a younger professional man. 'Bingham has lived much abroad ; and some of the freshest things in the dialogues relate to living in Paris, the advantages and disadvantages of foreign travel and residence, with remarks on the present state of France. The opening of the following passage on the appearances of wealth in Paris does not seem to be economically correct. If the transfer from mortgage to shares yields a higher rate of interest from genuine profit, it is a real addition to wealth ; but the probability is that the interest is paid out of capital, after Mr. Hudson's fashion of "making things pleasant," or the value of shares is unduly raised by an utterly

absurd hope of future profits: in either of which cases, the result is the same—the expenditure is not of income, but principal. "4. Look at the Champs Elysges on this 1st of dune ; it has quite a different physiognomy from that of a few years ago, 1846, for example, when I was last here.

"B. Yes, there are twice as many homes and carriages now, far more luxury in dress new and splendid houses, gigantic speculations, yet, perhaps, not more real wealth.

"A. How can that be?

"B. What was solid property ten years ago (investments on mortgage we trill suppose) is now thrown into the speculations of the day—mines, industrial companies, and the like. It is worth more at the present high pricrs, and yields large interest, because France is passing through a period ot great commercial activity, which even the late war could not materially cheek • but a commercial crisis would sweep away a great portion of this nominal capital.

"A. However, the immense extension of fixed capital, in splendid and useful buildings, which are springing up in this and other quarters of Paris, mutt be a permanent accession to national wealth. What fine solid structures of massive white stone ! they seem, along with all the gloss of newness, to _possess also a solidity that defies time. " B. Yes, they are worthy your encomiums, and the public works executed during his reign will remain the glory of the present Emperor. In contemporary Paris we may remark the great extension of the convenient : the street carriages, how much improved—a respectable equipage elm be had for two francs an hour ; a series of volumes is published by Levy at one franc each, neatly printed, and containing some sterling. literature. Look at the extension of iron-work in house architecture, the balustrades, and the comfortable grates which replace the dangerous hearths. Look at the lovely landscape gardening of the Bois de Boulogne, and the railway which takes the working man to this earthly paradise for four sous. "A. Surely all this must keep down the spirit of war and revolution, in the same way that occupation makes an individual peaceably disposed ; not even French workmen like anarchy and revolution for its own sake; but they engage in such schemes because they cannot get employment. But what do you think of the more immediate danger of over-speculation, and a subsequent smash ? "

Appended to the Conversations are "Papers by a Man of the World." Some of the opinions expressed are the same as in the dialogues ; where, if we understand the author rightly, they appear in a more "plastic form." We prefer the rough. Breaking down the ideas into dialogue and the expansion of the process have diluted them without any corresponding advantage ; for the author wants the faculty of discriminating the different characters of his persons so as to produce a dramatic interest. The most thoughtful parts of Gm book are on those topics which come directly home to individual experience, especially those on which the proverb says a man at forty is either a physician or something else. Among these will be found some good remarks on expenditure, self-management, and topics which bear upon the body and the mind. Here are some impressive remarks on what the author terms duration, but which is rather sustained energy : they are from the "Papers by a Man of the World."

"In estimating the strength and weakness of limn, with reference both to his physical and moral nature, perhaps enough consideration has seldom been given to the element of duration. Here is the capital test of powEr. To make a great effort for a short time falls within the scope of many, and only proves that the individual has a strong will and nervous energy. But to endure, to put forth vigorous efforts year after year, which time may modify but cannot subdue—this is to he a strong man in the full sense of the term. Look at the counter-intluences which are always at work to diminish and blunt our energy. There is the lassitude of impaired health ; the languor of satiety ; and that apathy which seizes in middle life on many who have struggled so far even with comparative success. There are those moments of self-questioning, in which a man asks himself, at what aim am I reaching ? Is not life an ever-turning wheel, and somewhat of ease and pleasure the highest point in its gyration ? "How many drop off at these various turns and hills in the race of life! The few who persevere are the strong 111114.11 of the earth. Their efforts do not flag, and experience tells them at what point the great struggle must be made.

"In a lower sphere of ideas, duration is the great test of physical excellence. How many blooming girls and handsome youths arc distanced by time before the age of thirty ; whilst those in whose frames the element of strength abides come out with increased lustre in their full maturity. It was not then a vain phantasy, which, in the mythology of the ancients, peopled the celestial abodes with types of grace and beauty. These represented earthly perfection of form and feature, with the addition of duration in its highest expression—that is immortality. Eternal youth was opposed to age, and the indestructible to the decaying."

NEW NOVELS.* Mils. STEWARD'S novel of Marguerite's Legacy is a clever and skilful composition, a well-constructed and well-told tale. The interest may sometimes be of a melodramatic kind, as well as overlaid by complexity, with consequently rather too much of story. But there is the interest of genuine story-telling ; the scenes contribute to carry on the action if sometimes they manage it rather slowly ; and one is not continually inclined to ' pish " the accessories, but to regard them% part of the structure. The reader of the present generation' too, is presented with something like novelty in the matter. Although the scene of the actual narrative is laid in France during the decline of the Empire and the early period of the Restoration, the figure called retrospection carries back the story to the Revolution and the Emigration of the noblesse. Their necessities abroad are slightly touched upon ; the adventures of a noble family in Ireland reduced to start a school, and indoctrinate the " gintale " young ladies of Cork with French and the accomplishments, are painted in detail, with some caries 'Marguerite's Legacy : a NoceL By Mrs. T. F. Steward. Author of "The Prediction," &e. In three volumes. Published by Hurst and Blacken.

The Metaphysician.: being a Memoir of Franz Carrel, Brushmaker, written by himself ; and of Harold Fremdling, Esquire, written and now republished by Francis Brake, Esq. Published by Longman and Co.

1e Balance of Beauty ; or Me Lost Image Restored. By Jane Kennedy, Author of" Sketches of Character," &c. Published by Kent and Co. A Twine of Way-side Icy : three Tales from an Old Woman's Note-book. By Margaret Casson, Authoress of "Cross Purposes," mut "What Might have been." Published by Moson. tun perhaps. The individual interests are not sunk in history', but historical personages are connected ivith the dramatis permeate. Talleyrand during his exile accompanies his cousin Madame D'Estain,g to Cork, and assists her in starting the school. Years afterwards when her family have returned to France, he still acts the part of 'a friend and a protector, against Savary and his party,. some of whom are hunting the daughter of Madame D'Estaing to destruction.

The story, as we have said, is complicated in its ramifieationa; and not very simple in its leading outlines. One object is to establish the birth of Marguerite ,• who appears at first as the child of an Irishman transported for his connexion with the Re, hellion, and compelled to leave his little daughter in distress, which is removed by the kindness of Madame D'Estaing. The most prominent feature of the tale is the married career of Pauline D'Estaing. Ardently devoted to her husband M. D'Argenson, she is treated with coldness and neglect, partly becanse he married from interest, partly to revenge an insult offered to him before marriage, which rankles in his revengeful mind. By a fiendlike artifice, he fastens upon his wife the stigma of attempting to poison him ; and the trial which ensues occupies in itself and in its circumstances a good portion of the work. It is well and powerfully narrated ; but the mode in which the read truth is discovered is very unnatural ; the guilt of D'Argenson might have been found out in some more likely way.

The public position of M. D'Argenson throws a portion. of the story among the French fashionable society of the period, but tine greatest elaboration is bestowed upon Talleyraud. He is painted! much as he is impressed upon the general mind ; but his goodnature, which many thought simulated, is represented as real, and an inward feeling is ascribed to him which few imagine he • possessed. This is a sample of him on statecraft, addressed to Louis de Monci, the hero of the novel, who has become his soretary. " Turning to Louis, he fell instantaneously from the lofty to the ludicrous. Take it lesson, my young friend : never tilt with Fate—she Is sorry jilt, but her courtiers must bend to her caprices. Mirabeau thought he had parried her thrusts, had soared above her sphere of action, and had planted himself upon the aim. With a flourish of her foot she hurled bhit beneath the earth. Take a lesson, de Mond, kiss her, coax her., accept whatever she may proffer, or else—' Ile paused, and fixed on his young secretary a look of ironical significance—' or else, abandon public life.' " Prince, are you serious ? ' stammered Louis.

" Perfectly : the slave that writhes and sickens as the scourge cuts through the living flesh suffers anguish less acute, less intolerable, than On unwavering, therefore the tormented statesman.' "Louis half recoiled; Talleyrand resumed.

" The whiz of th insatiate nsatiate lash is for ever in his ear; his dreams pre,sent the downfall of his party. But yield to the freaks of Fortune ; boar with political reverses; let ate erect what foolery she pleases—Common 's-cult'', Convention, Consulate, Empire! servo the reigaing arbitrator zealously; but when you cannot serve him leave him. "Pis but a game nt

cards, continued Talleyrand, surveying do Monci's stupefaction, with brows whimsically arched. One may play with skill and caution ; but Fortune baffles both : the game is up; you lose it ; you change partners.' " But you would change from principle, not from party-spirit,' exclaimed Louis ; 'you would follow the right for its own sake, not for your individual advantage ? ' " What is right today may be wrong tomorrow,' observed Talleyrand. " But to follow every lead would be to sympathize in none,' said Louis; the statesman you describe must be—' "'An icicle, said Talleyrand, filling up the pause, 'an icicle impervious to the rays of ehnious sentiment. Again you aro mistaken. I !wow a statesman beneath whose frozen surface there is a current of impetuous feeling which, if not well banked in, would tear him up, destroy him.

"Louis bent forward. 'Is this portrait of the stern, unbending, yet Sensitive and generous statesman copied from M. d'Argenwm ? '

" `No,' replied Tulleyrand ; it is copied from myself.' "

Whether a novel is a proper form for instilling people with notions on metaphysics is very questionable. The question is. scarcely raised by 'The Metaphysicians; for there is little in it of metaphysics proper, and that little is of small amount. At the opening of "Franz Carve], Brushmaker," and disciple of Kant, we seem to be entering on a satirical novel, written to ridicule mental philosophy in general and German in particular. This soon ceases ; and it is as well that it does, for the author is unable to maintain his jocularity for long, and he becomes rather fiat in his pleasantly. The greater portion of the story consists of a. vision, the idea very like that of Goldsmith's runt to the Boar's Head in Easteheap. Franz Carrel enters the old Farthing Piehouse in the New Road, (near the Colosseum); and in a sort of vision or transmigration surveys the past, the present, and the future. The " Past " is a topographical description of London a century ago, the out-door population and some of the amusements. This s the best thing in the book. There is 'a good deal of actual knowledge ; the invented additions to endow the facts with life are appropriate and vivid. " Town " in 1756 is altogether well brought before the mind ; too literal, it may be, but with an actuality almost like Defoe's. The " Present " is brief; consisting of a comparative view in favour of Progress, the conclusion being that mankind are physically better—happier—for our material improvements, and on the whole better in their morals, though there is still great scope for advance in this direction. The " Future " exhibits the world as it may be towards the close of the next century—improved in its morals, its manners, its health, its diet ; andmankind, after a long life of happiness sinking peacefully into the arms of death, when their bodies will be burned in classical fashion, to prevent the evils of crowded graveyards. The mode in which all this good is effected is by cooperation and education. Except the pauper and criminal classes, whose gradual extinction is an prospect, the different grades of society reside in large " halls "; and food is made to bear its due proportion to population by means of "moral restraint." The "Future," though cleverly done, and exhibiting marks of attention to the questions that now agitate society, wants the reality of the Past. Here we have a picture North. of Oxford Street in 3.756. The road in formation at the opening paragraph is the present New Road, from which the Jew's Harp was distant some halfmile, st•,n,lieg in the fields. "I crossed into the field of the previous evening's adventure, and, keeping the footpath, soon found myself at the Jew's-harp House. Then turning to my left, I quickly came again among the workpeople employed on the New Road, and saw opposite to me the entrance into ITigh Street. This I knew, because there was, a little way down, the village church, that plain, conunen-looking brick building, now called the parish chapel. All such houses of the village as were not widely detached and scattered here formed the High Street, which, as a street, del not extend beyond what was lately called Riding House Lane, now named Upper Weymouth Street. Then in a line with the High Street, but very soon bending to the left, and still crooking itself as it went on, ran Marylebone Lane. How different, in walking down it, did I find it to be from the lane bearing the same name which was impressed on my mind ! Some few years earlier it must have been quite a country lane, separated from the fields it traversed by good green unbroken hedges. Now, however, it had all that ragged rubbishy appearance into which country roads are suffered to fall when there is an int,ention to convert them into streets, and when, meantime, a few mean tenements on short leases are permitted to be erected. Keeping onward toward the Oxford Road, or, as I found it more commonly called, Tybourn Road, I did not dare to look in the direction of my own house, now not a stone's throw from me, though, when I came to Henrietta Street, I turned to my left, in order to have a sight of Cavendish Square, then, as well as Hanover Square, on the other side of Tybourn Road, a boasted architectural improvement of the day. From this spot I reached the Oxford or Tyburn Road, which, as I looked Westward., had the suburban appearance' that buildings give when they are various in character, are detached at places, and are guarded in front by palings and gates. As to the road itself, it was all in ruts, except at the sides, which were flattened into footpaths. Turning to look Eastward, the impression left me of a suburban road : it was a street which, at some little distance, began its continuous buildings ; and some few a the houses still remain on the South side upon which I then gazed."

The second story, the Memoir of "Harold Fremdling, Esquire," appears to be founded on a tale neither very probable nor very delicate, published some time ago. The object, so far as it was intelligible, seemed to be to broach some theory of education or training in connexion with the development of the passions, and the subsequent licentiousness of the hero. We think there have been changes in the present fiction, that impart variety and perhaps more consistency to the original idea, besides introducing educational speculations : but the offensive features of the first scheme are still retained, more particularly the incident that causes the denouement.

In The Balance of Beauty we have an Anti-Papal and AntiTmetarian novel. One lively, flighty, impressible little heroine, bight Matilda, is confirmed in her levity, and made sly and artful by sojourn in a Protestant convent. A graver fate than eloping to Gretna Green with a young officer, as silly as herself, attends another and more dignified heroine, Antonia St. Maur. A young and fascinating baronet, though not over-gifted with strong coinmon sense) wins her heart and perverts her to Popery; when it turns out he was a tool of the Jesuits, and had, himself been induced to take priest's orders. The upshot in the death of Antonia, after seeing the errors of her ways and returning to a pure Scriptural religion. The incident of a lady converted to Popery through human love more than religious conviction, and finding her hypocritical lover a priest, was lately made use of in an Italian romance ; but it does not appear to be a. ease of plagiarism, though both writers may have taken the idea from some common source. As might be supposed, there is no lack of controversy in the book ; and, not content with her own resources in theology, and the exhibition of Papists and Tractarians as deceitful, selfish, cruel, awl indeed desperately wicked, by a onesided use of the arts of fiction, the fair novelist introduces free quotations from other writers. The precise meaning of "the Balance of Beauty" we do not gather—perhaps it is mystical. The story itself is agreeable away from its theological matter ; the characters, especially the feminine oharaoters, are nicely drawn, with a spirit of Itadividuality ; and there is feminine elegance in the narrative as well is in the reflections. Here are some remarks which, though not critically true perhaps, seeing that Solomon does not appear to allude to natural feelings, but to the productions of man or the incidents of his life, are true in another way. "It seems as if it scarcely needed the wisdom of Solomon to tell us there is 'no new thing under the sun.' 'The thing that bath been is that which shall be ; mad that which is done is that which shall be done.' And yet, how good is our heavenly Father to permit that each time the thing is done, the Boise of enjoyment should be as keen to the individual to whom it occurs, by whom it is done, as if it were the first time since the creation it had taken place. To know a matter in and for ourselves, is as sweet to each one of us as if the many thousands who are around us—the millions that inhabit the earth—were not as cognizant of the especial sensation. Take, for instance, the love that is so strong that it will induce us to go cheerfully through fire and water—will enable us to bear any persecution or opposition—will give us patience to wait for any length of time, courage to bid adieu cheerfully to father and mother, and all we have held dear till now, provided we at length may go away with the one dearer than life. Since Eve was given to Adam, and thus sweet companionship began, that love is as fresh as it was then. In the Indian wigwam, the Swiss cottage, the Irish cabin, the peasant's hut in Northern climes, or the tent of the Arab tribes —anywhere, everywhere—in the palace, in the merchant's comfortable home, in the tiny partionage—this love is as sweet as it was then. Or maternal love—can anything be compared to that? Is it not with each mother, amongst the myriads that have lived, that do live, will live in generedone yet to come—is it not with each, in the burning climes of the South, in the icy regions of Greenland, whether the children be white or Meek, small or robust, dull or sprightly—is it not with each individual mother as if no child had yet been born that could be compared to hers? I have known mothers hug their idiot 13011, or imprint a kiss on features that seemed all but shapeless, yet with such a wealth of love as if that poor child were dearer than all the world—more lovely, more loveable."

The contents of A Twine of Wayside Ivy consist of "three tales" of modern society; raised above its eonventionalisms in "The Haunted Well," by passion urging its victim to a superstitious practice that induces a sequence of diablerie. In the mere " tale " we do not look for the sustained story of involved. fortunes or the strength and development of character that should distinguish the gennine novel. A smaller and simpler incident suffices for the "tale." There should, however, be manners, and the kind of originality that is shown by consistency and probability reflecting the aetuaL In Margaret Cannon's other stories of " Evelyn Shirley's Two Balls" and " Consta Vere " the manners are sufficient; but the distress-producing incident in Evelyn Shirley arises from a mistaken report of a marriage, and the conduct of the lover Cecil' Harcourt towards Constance is neither likely in itself nor calculated to adapt him to fiction. The Twine of Wayside Ivy is pleasant reading, but the tales do not rise to first-rate.