The books which Samuel Smiles has put upon the market are eminently valuable to boys and men who are in trades. He has done much to dignify labor and to show how essential is brain and thrift and education to manual labor. In his late volume, “Men of Invention and Industry,”[AI] the material is particularly good. It is fresh, and the stories of successful men give a grip to the book which is very effective. The lack of literary finish of which some complain in Mr. Smiles’s work is but a minor matter when we think of the serious purpose, the earnest desire to show how handicrafts may be developed, and how great opportunities lie in the way of mechanics to benefit society and to attain distinction. Among his men of invention and industry are Phineas Pett, the English ship builder; John Harrison, the inventor of the marine chronometer, and Frederick Koenig, inventor of the steam printing machine. A digression from the main object of the book is the chapter on “Industry in Ireland,” but it is a pleasing digression. The abundant resources which Mr. Smiles shows to exist in Ireland, will be surprising to many readers. Her fisheries, her iron, coal and clay beds, her linen industries, and her ship building are well described. The development of these resources he justly concludes to be the solution of the “Irish trouble.” Mr. Harrison, in giving to the public the life and literary works[AJ] of the author of “Home Sweet Home,” has met a want that many persons have felt, to know something more of this author. No trouble has been spared in gathering the data for the biography, and much valuable information has been given to the world which, but for his efforts, might have been lost. He has, however, entered so fully into details as frequently to detract from the interest of the work. The circumstances under which “Home Sweet Home” was written, are given. FOOTNOTES [L] A Sketch of the Life and Times of the Rev. Sydney Smith. By Stuart J. Reid. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1885. [M] A History of Ancient Sculpture. By Lucy Mitchell. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Price, according to binding, $12.50, $18.00, or $25.00. [N] French Conversation. By J. D. Gaillard. New York: D. Appleton & Co. [O] The Heart of the White Mountains. By Samuel Adams Drake. Illustrated by W. Hamilton Gibson. New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square. [P] Women of the Day. A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Contemporaries. By Frances Hays. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1885. [Q] Outlines of Metaphysics. Dictated Portions of the Lectures of Hermann Lotze. Translated and edited by George T. Ladd. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1884. [R] Ramona. By Helen Jackson. (H. H.) Boston: Roberts Brothers. Price, $1.50. [S] Dorcas, the Daughter of Faustina. By Nathan C. Kouns. Author of “Arius the Libyan.” New York: Fords, Howard and Hurlbert. 1884. [T] Elements of English Speech. By Isaac Bassett Choate. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1884.