The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Outlines of Political Economy. By George Henry
Smith (Longman and Co.)—An eighteen-penny
pamphlet-shaped introductory treatise upon one of
the most practically important of all the sciences—
a treatise designed chiefly for the use of schools and
of junior students, and accompanied by an avowed
hope, on the part of the compiler, that before long
this vitally important portion of our knowledge may
be taught at all our seminaries pari passu with the
science of History. An aspiration which is at once
enforced and explained by the motto so admirably
well selected by Mr. Smith for his title-page
from the " Harmonies Econorniques" of Frederic
Bastiat—where that illustrious and lamented
political economist has sententiously remarked
Tuttle mjsure legislative qui rend la vie ma-
terielle digicile nuit ii la vie des nations." An
utterance so profound and yet so perfectly obvious
in its wisdom that it might be emblazoned upon
the typical banner of Free Trade. Twenty chapters
form the subdivisions of this admirably lucid, in-
structive, and, let us even say, this entertaining trea-
tise, in the course of which the writer makes his
young reader acquainted with the full significance
of such perfectly distinct yet harmoniously in-
terwoven subjects as (among others) Labour, Ex-
change, Money, Property, Wages, Capital and in-
terest, Demand and Supply, Consumption and Pro-
duction, Banking and Credit, Poverty and Wealth,
the Moral of Man's Wants and the Mechanism of
Society. By way of a sort of Supplementary Reca-
pitulation of the entire series of these Thirty Chap-
ters, in the course of which the labyrinthine windings
of the whole of this intricate science of Political
Economy have been thridded, from the outermost
porch of the maze to its innermost centre, by the
learned author, in his capacity as instructor, fol-
lowed step after step by the reader as his faithful
attendant—we have Man considered byMr.Smith at
the conclusion of this profound yet popular treatise—
on the one hand as an Isolated being, and on the
other as a Social being—Man the Hermit and Man
the Gregarious and Cosmopolitan.

Texts from the Holy Bible. Explained by the Help
of the Ancient Monuments. Illustrated by Joseph
Bonomi. (Day and Son, limited).
Welcome at any time as this book could not fail
to be among earnest and reverential biblical students
of all ranks and classes, it is especially welcome
nowadays, when Essayists and Reviewers, when
Colensos and Renaus are striving to loosen the
foundatioas of popular belief in the holy and
august records of revealed religion. The work is
ifl no way whatever, that we can see, con-
troversial in its character. It is simply archeo-
logical, chronological, topographical, ethnolo-
gical, and historical by turns. It is a book that
might lie upon the table or stand upon the bookshelf,
side by side with the Douay Bible, with the Latin
Vulgate of St. Jerome, with the Sainte Bible of the
French Catholics, and the Holy Bible as it is cir-
culated among English Protestants. What Mr.
Sharpe's pen and Mr. Bonomi's pencil have here
to do with, in point of fact, is with facts—not with
Opinions, but with Facts ! and as indicative upon
the very face of it, of its strictly unsectarian cha-
racter—or we are very much mistaken, indeed, in
writing thus of the religious views of author and ar-
tist--the former (Samuel Sharpe) is as indubit-
ably a staunch Protestant, as the latter (Joseph
Bonomi) is, in his turn, a staunch Catholic. Never-
theless, dealing with facts—facts drawn from the
ancient monuments by pen and by pencil—the illus-
trator and .the commentator work harmoniously
together throughout the whole of this very curious
and profoundly interesting volume. A few plans
and views are interspersed among the two hundred
pages of letterpress or thereabouts. But, together
with these sparsely distributed Plans and Views,
there are here also no less than one hundred and sixty
drawings on wood from the hand of Mr. Bonomi—
drawings exquisitely elucidatory, may we venture to
say wonderfully corroborative? from the undestroyed
monuments of antiquity of the absolute authenticity,
of the complete and entire veracity of the records of
Holy Writ ! A more enthralling or more instructive
table-book for Sunday Reading we know not than
this goodly volume of Texts from the Holy Bible,
Explained by Help of the Ancient Monuments.

The Constitution and Management of the Royal Aca -
dent!, (Bell and Daldy) are considered very carefully
in all their bearings by Mr. John Partridge, in a
pamphlet of 31 pages octavo. A pamphlet emi-
nently well worthy of examination and admirably
well-timed in its appearance, coming forth as it
does just upon the eve of the Exodus of the
Royal Academy from the National Gallery, and
their removal, as soon as may be in any way
practicable to their new home at the back of Burling-
ton llouse in Piccadilly.

The Weather Guide for 1867. By Alfred J.
Pearce (Simpkin and Marshall)—appears again be-
times at the very opening of November. Those who
remember Mr. Pearce's Weather Guide Book will
eagerly welcome that able astro-metereologist's
Weather Guide for the coining Twelvemonth—
turning with especial curiosity to his explicit predic-
tions of the weather for the whole year (1867), as
well as to his equally distinct foreshadowings of the
probable storm periods.

The Farmers' Almanack, for 1867 (Ridgway) sus-
tains under the same able management as hereto-
fore, under the joint management, that is, of Mr•
Cuthbert Johnson and Mr. William Shaw, its high
and authoritative reputation.

A " Striking Design
.fi». the New Reform Club"---
is the title of a capital political skit just published
by Messrs. Day and Son, Limited•--presenting to
view in fact the picture of a bloodstained bludgeon`
or shilelagh with " Bright del." and " Beales,
sculpt." at the opposite corners : the date being
given parenthetically thus " (Hyde Park, 1866)"---
and the motto thus—" It is no more immoral for a
people to use Force in the last resort for the obtaining
and securing of Freedom than it is for a Govern;
ment by force to suppress and deny that freedom.
—Extract from Bright's Manchester Speech, Octo-
ber, 1866.

The Duke of Rutland has been entertaining a
shooting party at Cheveley Park, near Newmarket. The
company separated on Thursday after excellent Sport.