884 Reviews of Books of them Mr. Bradby is fair. As we have said, some legends he picks up from his Saint Simon and other memoir-writers, that would not bear the test of rigid analysis, but they are not important. One minor peculiarity may be referred to. Mr. Bradby seems to have an extraordinary taste for death-bed details; to the closing scenes he gives a space which seems excessive. The people at Versailles died very much like those of less importance. To be sure, formality and pageantry did not cease even at the death-bed, and perhaps it is for this reason that our author describes in so much detail the farewell hours of kings and dauphins. It is possible that an equally vivid description of life at Versailles could have been given in somewhat less space and with somewhat less of detail. But condensation has its dangers. The advocate who speaks with fullness and reiteration is more apt to persuade his jury, than he who contents himself with a bare and condensed statement of facts. Mr. Bradby's book gives a fair account of phases of life and thought which are now as extinct, and seem almost as remote, as the ways and usages of the Pharaohs, and in the study of them one can find much interest and some profit. James Breck Perkins. La Revolution IndustricUc an XV III" Steele; Essai siir les Com- mencements de la Grande Industrie Moderne en Angleterre. Par Paul Mantoux. [Bibliotheque de la Fondation Thiers, IX.] (Paris: Societe Nonvelle de Librairie et d'fidition. 1906. Pp. 544-) The Industrial Revolution in England oft'ers a field for historical research still inadequately explored. Over two decades have elapsed since the fragmentary studies of Held and Toynbee. It has remained for a foreigner, after several years of investigation, to make from a wider range of sources than either of these a serious examination of this difficult subject, — difficult not only from the complication of the questions involved but from the comparative paucity of evidence avail- able for their resolution. M. Mantoux, with considerable thoroughness and critical discrimination, has used a large part of the printed con- temporary material, the Journals of the House of Commons as well as the statutes, the observations of foreign travellers as well as the asser- tions of native pamphleteers, some four or five local newspaper files besides the Annual Register and the Gentleman's Magazine. He has also of course consulted more recent books, general and local, biograph- ical and technical. But more than any of his forerunners he has utilized- documentary material, the Place and Webb collections in London, the Wedgewood papers in Liverpool, the Soho, Wyatt, Timmins and Clarke papers in Birmingham and the Owen papers in Manchester. The result is a well-written book which for the time being will stand as the best description we possess of this great turning-point in economic history.
