him at cards, and on his duty to break off a match with Amelia after her father has become bankrupt. But the finest character in the whole novel is Miss Rebecca Sharp, an original personage, worthy to be called the author's own, and as true to life as hypocrisy, ability, and cunning can make her. She is altogether the most important person in the work, being the very impersonation of talent, tact, and worldliness, and one who works her way with a graceful and effective impudence unparalleled among managing women.

Of all the novels on our list, Vanity Fair is the only one in which the author is content to represent actual life. His page swarms with personages whom we recognize at once as genuine. It is also noticeable, that Thackeray alone preserves himself from the illusions of misanthropy or sentimentality, and though dealing with a host of selfish and malicious characters, his book leaves no impression that the world is past praying for, or that the profligate have it. His novel, as a representation of life, is altogether more comprehensive and satisfying than either of the others. Each may excel him in some particular department of character and passion, but each is confined to a narrow space, and discolors or shuts out the other portions of existence. Thackeray looks at the world from no exclusive position, and his view accordingly includes a superficial, if not a substantial whole; and it is creditable to the healthiness of his mind, that he could make so wide a survey without contracting either of the opposite diseases of misanthropy or worldliness. His book is adorned, after a fashion which is common among the novelists of his class, with illustrations designed by the author himself; but so far as we can judge of these from the engraved copies of them in the American edition, they do him no honor as an artist. They are stiff and witless cari

catures.

ART. V. — 1. Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy. By JOHN STUART MILL. London: John W. Parker. 1848. Boston: Republished by Little & Brown. 2 vols. 8vo. 2. A Treatise on the Succession to Property Vacant by Death; including Inquiries into the Influence of Primogeniture, Entails, Compulsory Partition, Foundations, &c., over the Public Interests. By J. R. McCULLOCH, Esq., Member of the Institute of France. London: Longmans. 1848. 8vo. pp. 193,

MR. MILL needs no introduction to the readers of this Journal. Three years ago, we reviewed at some length his System of Logic, and the favorable opinion we then expressed of it seems to have been confirmed by the judgment of the whole class of readers not so numerous a one, in this country, as we could wish-who are either able or willing to peruse more than the title-page of a book on abstract science. Political Economy is not quite so thorny and unpromising a topic as Logic, and in this age, indeed, more perhaps than in any other, we might suppose that it would be a favorite subject of study. Unluckily, it treats of wealth only in the abstract, and while it lays bare many of the causes of national grandeur and decline, it affords to individuals very little aid in what is to them the most important of all enterprises, that of making their fortunes. It is the science, but not the art, of money-making; and, as frequently happens in the other sciences, its general principles often seem to conflict very seriously with the practical rules axiomata media, as Lord Bacon calls them - which common men draw immediately from their own experience in the counting-room and the stock-market. There is a common prejudice, therefore, against the reasoning and the conclusions of the political economists, a prejudice which is much increased by the dissensions and disputes which prevail among the economists themselves. Who shall decide when doctors disagree? is the question that is triumphantly asked, both by the booby merchant who has blundered into a fortune, and by the booby, if not dishonest legislator, who passes laws without any consideration of their ultimate effects on the material interests of the community, though he very

carefully estimates the bearing which they will have on his own popularity with his constituents. There is no subject pretending to the rank of a science, of which American legislators, merchants, and manufacturers are so profoundly and wilfully ignorant, as that of political economy; though there is none which it more concerns them to be acquainted with, whenever they would look beyond the present moment, either for their own interests, or for those of the public. We rejoice that they may now have the services of so competent a teacher as Mr. Mill, whose admirably pure and lucid style, correct method, copious illustrations, and stringent reasoning, carry light and conviction to some of the darkest problems and most vexed questions of the science, so as to remove the prejudices of the misinformed, and give understanding even to the simple.

Two considerations recommend the present treatise to the attention of a large number of persons who do not usually concern themselves much about the doctrines of Adam Smith and his followers. The first is, that it is written up, if we may so phrase it, to the present time, not only containing the latest improvements in the theory of the subject, but drawing many of its illustrations from recent events of great moment in the commercial world, such as the renewal of the Bank charter in 1844, and even the commercial crisis and the Irish famine of 1847. It is satisfactory to be able, even now, to contemplate these events in the light of general principles, and thus to escape in some measure from the perplexing influence of immediate but temporary results and recent excitement, while the facts are still fresh in the recollection of all. The second recommendation of the book is, that it treats not merely of the production of wealth, but of its distribution, considered as affecting the general welfare of the community; in our author's own phrase, he expounds the principles of the science "with some of their applications to social philosophy." In this respect he follows the example of Adam Smith, who, by his comprehensive treatment of the subject, embracing many questions of legislation, morals, and civil polity, which are inseparably connected with the doctrines of political economy strictly so called, gave so much popularity and influence to his great work on the Wealth of Nations. Later writers, wishing to treat of a distinct and independent science, and to mark its boundaries

with great exactness, have not attempted to follow him in this wide range of speculation, and have thus greatly diminished the importance and effectiveness of their labors. By looking only at the economical aspect of the questions which they discussed, they have come to be regarded as hardhearted and unsafe theorists, and by a large portion of the community their doctrines are viewed with suspicion and dislike. Mr. Mill, by going back to Adam Smith's example, has gained for himself the opportunity of considering the great social problems of the day, the practical solution of which is even now convulsing a great part of the civilized world. A most valuable portion of his book is the clear and decisive refutation that it affords of the theories of the Saint Simonians, the Fourierites, the Communists, and other halfinsane speculators, who have reduced France to her present degradation and misery, and have found too many proselytes even on this side of the Atlantic.

But our author is no blind conservative; in England, indeed, he must be considered as belonging to "the extreme left" among the writers on politics, economical science, and social philosophy. His doctrines respecting the ownership of land, the descent of property, the regulation of the currency, and other matters, go certainly to the verge, as most persons will think, of sweeping and hazardous innovation. He has a sort of hereditary right to be a bold speculator upon matters affecting the whole framework of society. His father was a prominent and far the ablest member of the little school which Jeremy Bentham collected around him, and all his opinions were deeply colored by the theories of that eccentric, but original and profound thinker. The early training of the son, we presume, was in the same school; but he has long since risen to independence in speculation, and now judges with great freedom and correctness the doctrines and character of his old teacher, the great patriarch of radical theorists. He is a far safer guide than Bentham, being singularly free from the pride of system, and from the inconsistencies into which one is betrayed by a disposition to censure all the existing institutions of society. Retaining his early predilection for examining the fundamental ideas upon which every received doctrine rests, attaching no weight to prescription in matters of opinion, and boldly following out his speculations to whatever result they may lead him, having

regard only to the correctness of his data and his deductions from them, he is an agreeable and instructive companion even when we cannot accept all his conclusions. On the whole,

both as a writer and a thinker, he must be considered as decidedly at the head of the English speculatists of the present day. No one shows a more entire mastery of abstract subjects, or greater power of recommending and enforcing his views and arguments by forcible and perspicuous language and pertinent illustrations.

A complete exposition of the principles of political economy, with their applications to recent events and to the most important problems of social philosophy, by a writer so admirably qualified for the task, is a highly interesting and valuable work. We rejoice that the enterprise of our liberal publishers in Boston, Messrs. Little & Brown, has so soon placed it within the reach of American readers, in a very neat and correct edition, hardly inferior to the English copy in elegance, and quite moderate in price. It is to be hoped that it will immediately be made the text-book in all our colleges where the science is taught, to the exclusion of the very imperfect manual by J. B. Say, a work of some merit in its day, but now quite behind the age. The bulk of this treatise is no valid objection to its use for this purpose; a judicious teacher will easily direct the attention of his pupils to such portions of it as are most important for present information, or most applicable to the circumstances of this country. Some chapters in it are abstruse, though made as clear as the nature of the subject will permit; but the greater part of it is within the comprehension of diligent, though youthful, students.

Political economy, as a science, is quite as much dependent as politics and ethics upon the principles of the human mind. It is, in truth, a generalization of the habits and dispositions of men in reference to labor and the acquisition of wealth. Its laws are the laws of human nature, expressed in terms which show their relation to the outward means of supporting man's life and satisfying all his wants and desires. Wealth is an aggregation of valuable things, which have become valuable because they are objects of desire, and are more or less difficult of attainment. The principles of political economy are founded on observation of the manner in which the independent members of any society compete with or aid NO. 141.

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