secure the ends of justice; and he often dwells upon the habitual regard of the majesty of Law evinced by our people in great emergencies, such as at the first election and at the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, when the whole nation stood breathless, as it were, and reverentially waited for that _vox populi_, which is theoretically _vox Dei_ in a republic, but which, alas! does not always prove so. If all parts of the Republic were intelligently educated, it would doubtless be so without fail; but demagogues will always flourish and rule where there is ignorance and superstition, and the schoolmaster has not been abroad yet in the whole length and breadth of our land. Sarmiento never loses an opportunity of dwelling with power and eloquence, when addressing his countrymen, as he has often done upon this subject, on the advantages of a diffused knowledge among the people. Indeed, if all that he has written and said--even that portion of it which is recorded in the Buenos Ayres Common School Annals--could be collected, it would make a noble volume for all Spanish lands,--except, indeed, Old Spain, where there is not light enough to read it by. _Richard Cobden, the Apostle of Free Trade: his Political Career and Public Services._ A Biography. By JOHN MCGILCHRIST, Author of "The Life of Lord Dundonald." etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. This unassuming volume, of small size and plain covers, is strictly what it pretends to be, a simple biography, and therefore, apart from its subject, it is a book to be commended. We do not see the author on every page, we are not forced to stop and listen to his reflections, nor to long digressions into history, too commonly the fault in contemporaneous biography of political men. The writer kindly remembers that the reader's ignorance or knowledge does not rest upon his conscience. Therefore we find in the little book what we wish, the story of Richard Cobden, "the international man"; and it is a noble life-history, of which no American should be ignorant. His success in business, remarkable as it was, is a greater source of wonder and admiration in England than in America, where the rapid accumulation of a fortune and the creation of a large mercantile house have hitherto been matters of less rare occurrence than in older countries; but the result and use of Richard Cobden's financial success are as unprecedented and surprising at one end of the money-making and money-spending world as the other. Soon after the establishment of his business house in Manchester, Mr. Cobden interested himself in the public welfare of that city. His labors in behalf of the people attracted John Bright to his side, and at the early age of thirty years he had made a "decided local mark."