Professor Smyth found, when he assigned one of his _Lectures on Modern History_ (no. 27) to Law and his exploits, that he got at that time the best exposition for his system in English from Steuart’s _Political Economy_. The latest summarized statement in English will be found in Lalor’s _Cyclopædia of Political Science_, vol. ii. (1883), and a good one in Mackay’s _Popular Delusions_. The general historians of England, more particularly Stanhope, do not tell the story of the great imitatory pageant of the South Sea Scheme without more or less reference to Law. Those of the United States necessarily recount the train of events in Paris, of which Louisiana was the background. A few English monographs, like J. Murray’s _French Financiers under Louis XV._, and an anonymous book, _Law, the Financier, his Scheme and Times_ (London, 1856), cover specially the great projector’s career; while the best key to his fate at the hands of magazinists will be found in Poole’s _Index to Periodical Literature_ (pp. 728, 854), where a popular exposition by Irving is noted, which having appeared in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_ (vol. xv. pp. 305, 450), has since been included in the volume of his works called _Wolfert’s Roost, and other Papers_. In France the treatment of the great delusion has been frequent. The chief source of later writers has been perhaps Duhautchamp’s _Histoire du systéme des finances_ (à la Haye, 1739), which, with his account of the Visa, makes a full exposition of the rise and fall of the excitement by one who was in the midst of it. His fifth and sixth volumes contain the most complete body of the legislation attending the movement. Forbonnais’ _Recherches et considérations sur les finances de France à l’année 1721_ (Basle, 1758) is a work of great research, and free from prejudice. The _Encyclopédie méthodique_ (1783) in its essays on commerce and banking contributes valuable aid, and there is a critical review in Ch. Ganilh’s _Essai sur le revenu public_ (Paris, 1806). To these may be added Bailly’s _Histoire financière de la France_ (Paris, 1830); Eugène Daire’s “Notice historique sur Jean Law, ses écrits et les opérations du système,” in his _Économistes financiers du dix-huitième siècle_ (1843); Théodore Vial’s _Law, et le système du papier-monnaie de 1716_ (1849); A. Cochut’s _Law, son système et son époque_ (1853); J. B. H. R. Capefigue’s _Histoire des grandes opérations financières_ (Paris, 1855), vol. i. p. 116; J. P. Clément’s _Portraits historiques_ (1856); and le Baron Nervo’s _Les finances Françaises_ (Paris, 1863). L. A. Thiers’ encyclopedic article on Law was translated and annotated by Frank S. Fiske as _Memoir of the Mississippi Bubble_, and published in New York in 1859. This is perhaps the best single book for an English reader, who may find in an appendix to it the account of the Darien Expedition from the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, and one of the South Sea Scheme from Mackay’s _Popular Delusions_.