darker colors. Appearing as a serial in the Continental, it has no doubt already been widely read, and is deserving of a more extended circulation.

HON. ALFRED ELY'S JOURNAL.* The circumstances of the capture of Hon. Alfred Ely, member of Congress from Rochester, by the Confederate forces at Bull Run, are well known. The journal of his confinement in the Tobacco Factory at Richmond for five months, until he was exchanged for Mr. Charles J. Faulkner, form a most interesting volume, throwing important light on the conduct of the war. He saw almost nothing of Richmond, and does not discuss the condition of affairs at the South, but in a sprightly style, full of details, he tells whatever occurred under his own eye during his dreary confinement in the confederate prison. As a member of Congress, he was a man of decided mark among all the captives, and at times was almost overwhelmed with calls from prominent Southerners, Governor Letcher, John C. Breckinridge, Minister Faulkner, and many more. He gives a statement of their conversation. He also relates the various contrivances of the prisoners of war to overcome the tedious monotony of their life. This volume makes no pretensions to literary elegance, but

a political and historical narrative, it is of high value. The perusal has keenly impressed us with the privation, anxiety and distress which so many of our brave countrymen have been subjected to, and with deeper convictions than ever that the monstrous enemy of our country must be thoroughly put down.

UPRISINGS OF A GREAT PEOPLE.-Mr. Scribner has issued a revised edition of Count Gasparin's admirable volume on the origin of the present war in this country. We have before heartily commended this work as the best exhibition of the "Uprising of a Great People." The revised edition contains a translation of Count Gasparin's comments on the Trent affair, entitled, "A Word of Peace."

* Journal of Alfred Ely, a Prisoner of War in Richmond. Edited by Chas. Lanman. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1862. 12mo.

+ Uprisings of a Great People. By Count A. DE GASPARIN. Second Revised Edition. N. G. C. Scribner. 1862. Price $2.

MISCELLANY.

LESSONS IN LIFE.*-The indefatigable Timothy Titcomb does not easily tire in offering to the public his pleasant and instructive moralizings. That the public does not tire in reading these moralizings is evident from the circumstance that this, his latest production, has already reached its tenth edition. Whatever our cheerful, humane and hopeful author writes, is marked by the same general characteristics of style, thought and feeling; characteristics which have justly made him one of the most popular of American essayists. And yet he does not repeat himself, but each of his works is marked by distinctive peculiarities in accordance with the demands of his varying themes. It would be an interesting subject for the critical essayist to compare the peculiarities of the Country Parson and Timothy Titcomb. Each in his excellencies and defects is peculiarly English and American.

BROWN ON HEALTH.t-This is a delightful little book, written in a natural, sprightly style, and fitted to be interesting to many who do not belong to "the working classes." Three out of the five sermons were delivered at a missionary station in Edinburgh, and we are sure that the hearers must have been benefited by this clear and simple statement of the rules of health. The sermons are remarkable for their plain common sense, the writer being impressed with the idea that it is necessary to speak plainly to working people. And then without the slightest cant or pretension, he manages in a most adroit way to lead his hearers to a consideration of their spiritual well-being. The duties which they owe to their physician leads him most naturally to speak of their obligations to the Divine Healer of souls-the kindness and patience of their physician reminds him of the patience and longsuffering of their Heavenly Friend. The volume is characterized by the same quiet humor which has charmed so many readers in the "Leisure Hours" of the author.

*Lessons in Life. A series of Familiar Essays. By TIMOTHY TITCOMB, author of "Letters to the Young," "Gold-foil." Tenth edition. New York: Charles Scribner. 1862. 12mo. pp. 344.

*Health. Five lay sermons to working people. By JOHN BROWN, M. D. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1862. 16mo.

WORKMEN AND THEIR DIFFICULTIES.*-This is another of the admirable works which have been written in England within a few years past in the interest of the lower and working classes of Great Britain. It is addressed particularly to workmen, and aims to benefit them by sympathy, instruction, and Christian counsel, and by enlisting the sympathy and coöperation of the classes more highly favored. It takes a sound and Christian view of the relationship between the employer and the employed, points out the difficulties of both classes, and the errors into which they are apt to fall in their attempts to remedy them, and suggests the remedies of patient forbearance, a clear understanding of each other's interests, and especially the elevation of the suffering classes, in mental and moral culture. It deprecates the prevalent hostility between capital and labor, and points out the ruinous folly of" strikes," as well as of all violent forms of remedy for real or imagined grievances. Those who have read "Ragged Homes, and How to Mend them," by the same author, will be likely to be attracted by the volume before us. The author shows a thorough understanding of her subject, and a hearty sympathy with the class for whose benefit she writes.

ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.-This annual has been so often noticed in these pages, and is so widely and favorably known, that we need not stop to remark now on its general character or merits. The volume for 1862 sketches the progress of science during the past year, and presents a record of the leading discoveries and inventions pertaining to its several branches; as, for example, in Mechanics and the useful Arts, the various improve

* Workmen and their Difficulties. By Mrs. BAYLY, author of "Ragged Homes, and How to Mend them." New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 530 Broadway. 1861. pp. 235.

Annual of Scientific Discovery: or, year-book of Facts in Science and Art for 1862. Exhibiting the most important discoveries and improvements in Mechanics, useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Geography, Antiquities, etc. Together with Notes on the progress of Science, during the year 1861; a list of recent Scientific publications; Obituaries of eminent Scientific men, etc. Edited by DAVID A. WELLS, A. M., author of Principles of Natural Philosophy, Principles of Chemistry, Science of Common Things, etc. Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 59 Washington street. New York: Sheldon & Co. Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard. London: Trubner & Co. 1862. pp. 415.

ments in ordnance, projectiles, naval architecture, and the other appliances of warfare. Such a record and reference book is indispensable to every one who would know something of the rapid advances which science is making at the present day, yet has neither opportunity nor leisure to consult the numerous volumes and periodicals among which the facts lie scattered. A single illustrative cut is given under gunnery. A sprinkling of such illustrations throughout the volume would add greatly to its value. Fronting the title-page is a fine portrait of John A. Dahlgren, Commandant of the U. S. Navy Yard, at Washington.

PHYSICAL TECHNICS.*-Many a teacher of Physical Science has felt the want of just such a manual as this. His institution is poor. It has no apparatus, or but little. He himself is zealous and enterprising-perhaps can handle tools-or at least, has artisans at hand, whom he can call to his aid; but he lacks a knowledge of simpler and cheaper forms of apparatus than the usual articles of the shops, and it may be, has neither time nor ingenuity to devise substitutes. Dr. Frick's book is exactly what he needs. It tells him how to construct in the simplest forms and of the cheapest materials, and how to use in experimenting, a great variety of apparatus adapted to illustrate the leading principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, Optics, Magnetism, Electricity, and Heat. It is thus a guide-book, not only in the construction of apparatus, but in the methods of successful experimentation, and will be appreciated, not only by the lecturer and teacher but also by the amateur and the self-taught student.

The work is a translation from the German edition of 1856, is clear in style, up to the times in science, illustrated by nearly 800 engravings, and has that indispensable appendage of any book worth owning, an index.

* Physical Technics; or Practical Instructions for making Experiments in Physics, and the construction of Physical Apparatus with the most limited means. By Dr. J. FRICK, Director of the High School in Freiburg, and Professor of Physics in the Lyceum. Translated by JoHN D. EASTER, Ph. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the University of Georgia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1862. pp. 467.

THE

NEW ENGLANDER.

No. LXXXI.

OCTOBER, 1862.

ARTICLE I. THE LAWS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, IN THEIR MORAL RELATIONS.

A HASTY observation of natural laws seems to reveal a partial conflict. Vigorous thought is excluded by vigorous digestion: the fabric which life has built up is rapidly dissolved under the free chemical action of its constituents; and gravity is ever ready to dash into fragments the organic structure which falls into its power. Yet the laws of mechanical, chemical, vital, and nervous action are the parts of one plan. In the harmony of purpose, they run parallel with each other, and resign and resume their power at the beck of an overruling thought. They may be said to lie below each other as distinct platforms of law, and to suffer no absolute chaos. Material, which is not under the action of the higher series of coördinate forces, is not thereby unruled, but only sinks to an inferior stratum of law. We may readily conceive the same particles of matter falling through all gradations from the highest to the lowest range of law, yet never able to escape the last phase of government. The brain of man, the subject of the most subtle and recondite of physical laws, may become the food of an ani