CURRENT LITERATURE.
A History of the Thirty Years' Peace, A.D. 1816-1846. By Harriet Martineau. In 4 vols. (George Bell and Sons.)—This a convenient reprint of a useful book, but we cannot understand why the intro- duction, written by Charles Knight, which included a summary of the first fifteen years of the century, is not republished with it. No doubt those fifteen years were years of war and not of peace, but they contain the key to much which happened after the peace ; and besides, they formed part of the original book, and by readers of that book were valued as one of the best parts of it. Miss Martineau's work was a difficult work, very respectably performed ; but as a book of reference it has many defects, and its chief use will always be as a book of refer- ence. It is unevenly done. Often it gives you the exact figures of the division in Parliament on a measure at one stage, and passes over the figures at the next stage, for no visible reason. Still it is a very useful book, and we are glad to have it in a convenient shape. But it was a serious mistake not to republish with it Charles Knight's introduction.
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