20 FEBRUARY 1886, Page 24

The World's Workers. (Cassell and Co.)—We have received several volumes

of a most useful aeries bearing this title. They are biographies of great men, great in literature, the arts, science,—in short, all the occupations of human life. They are modest in size, simply written, and the work of writers who know their business. There is plenty of room for such books. Biographical dictionaries have their use ; so have formal and complete biographies, in which many details that might otherwise be lost are permanently preserved ; but a short, readable sketch of a man's life and work is something different, and not undesirable. The volumes now before us are "David Livingstone," by Robert Smiles; "George and Robert Stephenson," by the same writer; "Sir Henry Havelock and Lord Clyde," by E. C. Phillips ; "Handel," by Eliza Clarke, a volume which we may specially recommend ; "Richard Cobden," by Richard Gowing ; "George Milner and Andrew Reed," by Mrs. E. R. Pitman ; and "Charles Dickens," by his eldest daughter.