MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 83 



Philanthropic Economy ; or, the Philosophy of Happiness, &c. 

 By Mrs. LOUDON. Churton, London. 



" To every human being on whom God has bestowed the gift of reason, 

 this earnest appeal to reason, to justice, and to honesty, to pure morality 

 enforced by sacred obligation to every noblest sympathy of humanity, 

 is with ardent feelings of good-will to all inscribed by the Author/' Such 

 is Mrs. London's dedication, and we believe her to be sincere. Again, 

 we quote the first lines of the preface : " The mottoes of the title-page 

 have been selected, because, from their consideration, taken connectedly, 

 the unavoidable inference follows, that if we would obey the command- 

 ment to 4 love one another/ we must not tax the necessaries of life." 

 These mottoes, by the bye, are the 34th verse of the 13th chapter of St. 

 John, and an extract from Adam Smith: the first, "A new command- 

 ment I give unto you, that ye love one another/' The second, '* Taxes 

 upon the necessaries of life have nearly the same effect upon the circum- 

 stances of the people, as a poor soil and a bad climate/' We shall not 

 stay to discuss whether Mrs. Loudon has or has not, in thus bringing 

 St. John and Adam Smith into juxta-position, and making the significa- 

 tion of one dependent upon that of the other, overstepped the line of 

 prudence and propriety. She has evidently entered heart and soul into 

 her subject ; and fearful, we presume, of being placed side by side with 

 Miss Martineau, a position from which we are sure she would shrink, 

 she discards the words ' political economy/ and calls her labours ' phi- 

 lanthropic economy.' 



It is obvious, however, on the slightest examination, that the Au- 

 thoress has entered upon a subject far beyond her grasp, and that she is 

 merely a relator ; and that, like Miss Martineau, she is in a great mea- 

 sure ignorant of the real condition of society, and of the agencies, whether 

 moral or political, fitted for its exigences. We say this without the 

 slightest harshness ; but Mrs. Loudon is not the first lady who has lost 

 herself in this thorny track ; and we should wish to see the female intel- 

 lect better employed than in making vain attempts to cope with subjects 

 which are, from their very nature, beyond female interference. We are 

 not amongst those who think that mind is the prerogative of man ; on the 

 contrary, we believe that woman has intellectual capacities fully as ex- 

 tended as ourselves ; but the bearings of these capacities are decidedly 

 different, and their proper developement is dependent on the passions 

 and the affections. Now the inquiries connected with political economy, 

 provided a work is to be produced on the subject entitled to confidence, 

 are unapproachable by a woman ; and hence a few bald facts, or specious 

 details are all that she can trust to ; and on these her imagination 

 operates till she writes a book. Such a book may be a clever, an 

 amusing, and even an instructive book : we say it may be so ; but it 

 cannot be either clever, instructive, or amusing as a book on political 

 economy. Thus Miss Martineau's Tales would do very well for children, 

 if their titles were changed, and some of their matter weeded out ; but it 

 is an absurdity too potent for patience to have them quoted as authorities 

 or even illustrations. Mrs. London's book, though free from many of 

 the objections to which Miss Martineau's works are open, and though 

 written in a much higher and purer tone, cannot be called an addition to 

 our political literature. Colonel Torrens, the " Spectator," various 

 Newspaper reports, Adam Smith, and one or two other writers, aided 

 by copious quotations from Scripture, form the basis of the Work, a 

 work honourable to Mrs. Loudoa's intelligence, but which neither ex- 

 tends our knowledge, nor opens new views of -policy. 



