3azzini's Letters to an English Family, 1844-1854. Edited by E.
F. Richards. (J. Lane. 16s. net.)—These familiar letters to his friends the Ashursts—especially to Emily Ashurst, Signora Venturi, who devoted her life to the cause of " Young Italy "- show Mazzini in his happiest and also in his saddest moods. The stern patient could unbend, when he was writing to his devoted woman friend, and could jest about his game of hide-and-seek with the Continental police. He could also express his bitter despair when one movement after another failed, through sheer incompetence or treachery or lack of enthusiasm on the part of well-to-do Italians. The letters do not add much of importance to Mazzini's biography, but they help to show why he was beloved by his friends. It is interesting to find that James Stansfeld, who married Caroline Ashurst, deeply resented for a time Mazzini's disapproval of Socialism and of its French exponent, Louis Blanc. Mazzini's letters abound in sympathetic references to Poland ; he lamented Great Britain's reluctance to intervene in Italy. He would have been shocked had he lived to see British Labour leaders gloating over the suppression of Poland's new-found liberties by Russia. Tho editor has taken great pains with the introduction and the commentary to these interesting letters, which Signora Venturi had begun to annotate.
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