its title implies, to assist the workman in discriminating between true friends and false. By true friends are meant those who would help him to cheap lands, improved dwellings, remunerative employment, schools, libraries, and churches; and by false, those who would teach him delusive theories of Political Economy, arouse his enmity against property-owners, and incite him to riot and socialism. Like the preceding work, this is essentially a treatise on Communism and Socialism. In the earlier chapters the author states a few economic principles bearing on the subject, defines labor, property, and capital, and shows the origin of property in land. He gives something of the history of land tenure, and explains the functions of money. Profundity would be a fault in such a discussion, in view of the object to be attained, while energy of style and amplitude of illustration, would be decided merits. The work is fortunate in avoiding the fault and possessing the merits. A keen-sighted socialist would probably claim that some of the arguments do not affect his theory; for instance, when it is proven that capital is a necessity, in order that production may go on, the socialist would, perhaps, allege that he does not propose to annihilate capital, that he recognizes its necessity, but prefers, for certain reasons, to see it owned by the state, instead of by individuals. On the other hand, the argument is valid as against the ravings against capital itself, which one sometimes finds in socialistic newspapers. The author admits the legality of trades unions, but vigorously assails that frequent accompaniment of the modern strike, the coercion of men outside the union, for the purpose of preventing them from working. A very effective chapter on "Legislation and Labor," denounces the disposition to surrender one's personal independence and beg support of the state, but indicates some things which a state may properly do for the benefit of workmen. A chapter on "Immigration," deprecates too much positive encouragement to foreigners to occupy our remaining vacant lands. The treatment of the subject of communism and socialism is, as one would expect who has read the author's letters from Berlin in the Christian Union, vigorous and somewhat denunciatory. Unlike President Woolsey, he has failed to clearly discriminate between the two things, and has spoken of communism as if it were merely an intensified socialism. His conception of it is indi cated by the device on the cover of the book, a sword, a dagger, a firebrand, and a thunder-cloud. When any social movement does, in fact, assume such a form, denunciation is quite in order. A number of pages are devoted to refuting the claim of socialists that their system would remove social inequality; but the argument here is not entirely convincing. The history of village communities is treated at greater length than in the preceding work, and it is demonstrated that communism has never proved practicable on a large scale. The last part of the discussion is decidedly the best. The removal of incentives to labor, the extinction of hope, and the reduction of mankind to a perpetual and monotonous level, which would be the results of a successful socialistic revolution, are exhibited in contrast with the considerable degree of prosperity which, as statistics show, a frugal workman may reasonably hope for under the present system. The workman is shown the value of religion, of which socialism would, in practice, deprive him, and the future condition of his class is pictured as hopeful and not discouraging, provided only that the ground of that hope be not removed by revolutionary violence. On the whole, the work is one of the best of its class, an effective, popular argument for the existing industrial system, as against the attacks of the socialistic schemers whom the author learned to know during his German residence, and from whose migration to this country he entertained serious apprehensions. LORD BEACONSFIELD.*-The author of this "Study" of the character and opinions of Lord Beaconsfield has adopted a method which is very ingenious, and which serves to throw an air of charming freshness around a subject which has already been treated in almost every imaginable way, by political writers in England, for more than a generation. Assuming that the distinguished statesman must have been constantly betrayed into expressing what were really his own ideas in the many novels which he has written, Mr. Brandes has sought in those works a clue to guide him in the psychological study which he has made of their author. Mr. Brandes says: "Each work by his [Lord Beaconsfield's] hand is an instrument which he has *Lord Beaconsfield. A Study. By GEORG BRANDES, authorized translation by Mrs. GEORGE STURGE. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1880. 12mo, 382 pp. New Haven: E. P. Judd. fabricated for us himself, wherewith we may penetrate into the work-shop of his ideas. Each book that he has written is a window through which we may look into his mind. Each train of thought which he has revealed to us, every character he has devised, every feeling that he has described, contains a series of confessions which he has consciously laid bare, and which must be carefully examined, as well as a series of involuntary confessions running parallel to them, which may be detected. If the critic be upon his guard, both as regards himself and the author, these literary productions will afford. him more than mere literary insight; for the ideas and sentiments expressed belong to the statesman, and not to him in his character of novelist alone; they are the outcome of his whole character as a man, which is the common source and deepest spring of his political and literary gifts." Applying this literary-critical method to the novels of Benjamin Disraeli, Mr. Brandes evolves his remarkable portrait of the present Prime Minister of England. Mr. Brandes is a German, and says he has no special source of information which is not open to all. He has never heard Lord Beaconsfield speak, and has never even seen him, but has relied in the preparation of his portrait entirely upon the study of his writings. In the first chapter of the book there is an interesting attempt made to find in Lord Beaconsfield the characteristics which he has inherited from his ancestors. "The sanguine, enterprising temperament of his grandfather, never ruffled by disappointment, his brain ever fertile in resources even when one disaster followed quickly upon another," reappears in the grandson. Then the literary studies and tastes of his father were also of great importance to him. Nothing tends more to easy and rapid acquisition of faculty in the use of language than a literary forerunner in the family." The father too was "a decided though quiet freethinker, destitute of a creed, both in the literary or intellectual sense of the word, and this negative quality was to show itself from the beginning in the son. Then, too, "not only the critical and negative, but also the positive romantic and Conservative tendencies of the son are derived from the father." The son has followed his father in all his sympathies. The book abounds throughout with passages fresh and interesting as the conception of the treatment of the subject is novel. THE LIFE OF MR. GLADSTONE.*-The result of the recent elections in England, secured in great measure by the personal efforts of Mr. Gladstone, invests his past career if possible with still greater interest than ever before. It is a happy circumstance that a carefully prepared memoir of the distinguished statesman has just been republished by Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. The book is of the nature of a biography, and the object of the author has been to place before the reader, in connection with the whole story of Mr. Gladstone's life, a detailed statement of his relations to the great movements of his time and an account of the writings and speeches which these events have called forth. The author does not conceal his full sympathy for one whom he styles "the most conspicuous figure, perhaps, in the public life of our times, and one who is universally esteemed for his talents, his eloquence, his high and pure feeling, and his personal worth." A recent writer speaking of Mr. Gladstone, says: "He cares even more than trades-unions for the welfare of the working men; more than the manufacturers for the interests of capital; more for the cause of retrenchment than the most jealous and avowed foes of government expenditure; more for the spread of education than the advocates of a compulsory national system; more for careful constitutional precedent than the Whigs; and more for the spiritual independence of the church than the highest Tories. He unites cotton with culture, Manchester with Oxford, the deep classical joy over the Italian resurrection and Greek independence, with the deep English interest on the amount of the duty on Zante raisins and Italian rags. The great railway boards and the Bishops are about equally interested in Mr. Gladstone. His mind mediates between the moral and material interests of the age, and rests in neither; he moralizes finance and commerce and (if we may be allowed the barbarism) institutionalizes ethics and faith." CAMP AND CABIN.f-Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal, has become somewhat widely known as the author of several charming stories. This new volume presents a number of studies of character and scenery from the mining regions of the Pacific coast, and the Far West, which *The Life of the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone, M.A., D.C.L. By GEORGE BARNETT SMITH. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. sale in New Haven by E. P. Judd. 596 pp. 8vo. For +Camp and Cabin. Sketches of Life and Travel in the West. By ROSSITER W. RAYMOND. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert. 1880. 243 pp. 16mo. will add still further to his reputation. There is an element of refinement in these sketches of frontier life which is not common among those who have gained a reputation for such descriptions. The book contains also an account of the "wonders of the Yellowstone;" the "ice caves of Washington;" and the "ascent of Gray's Peak." GREAT SINGERS.*-The author-Mr. G. T. Ferris-without pretending to any special originality, has furnished in this little book very readable sketches of several of the celebrities among the singers who have gained special renown. They are Faustina Bordoni; Catarina Gabrielli; Sophia Arnould; Elizabeth Billington; Angelica Catalini; Giudetta Pasta; and Henrietta Sontag. DR. BARTOL'S "PRINCIPLES AND PORTRAITS."-In this volume of essays by Dr. Bartol, are discussions of the following subjects: Art; Love; Life; Business; Beasts; Politics; Plays; Science; Deity; Education; Definition; and there are also added papers upon the "Personality of Shakespeare;" Channing; Bushnell; Weiss; Garrison; and Hunt the artist. NOTES ON RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.-This little volume on railway accidents by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., who has acquired so high a reputation as an acknowledged authority on all matters pertaining to railways, strange to say leaves the reader quite reassured with regard to the safety of all ordinary railroad travel. There is a full account given of all the principal accidents which have occurred on the railroads of this country and in Europe, and their causes are clearly and intelligently pointed out, while the various appliances-such as the Miller Platform and Westinghouse Brake and others-are described, which have been invented to meet what proved to be defective in the system of construction and management. The conclusion to which Mr. Adams comes is that at present "the very safest place into which a man can put himself is the inside of a first-class railroad carriage on a train in full motion." * Great Singers. Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag. Appleton's HandyVolume Series. By GEORGE T. FERRIS. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1880. 220 pp. 16mo. New Haven: E. P. Judd. Principles and Portraits. New Haven: E. P. Judd. By C. A. BARTOL. Boston: Roberts Brothers. New York: ‡ Notes on Railway Accidents. By CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1879. 12mo, 280 pp. New Haven: E. P. Judd. |