ar 
Carey. ] 200 [Nov. 17, 
usually embraced in what is called Political Economy ; each separately 
bound and capable of classified arrangement. He regarded, and justly 
too, such smaller treatises as especially valuable for containing the best 
thoughts of the writers in the most condensed form, and likely thus to 
secure not only the greatest number but the most attentive readers. For 
the most part he put his own publications on social and economic sub- 
jects into this unpretending form, 
His judgment was too clear and too well poised to suffer the imposture 
of pretentious authorship. Knowing that book-makers are not always 
thinkers he gave his regards to those writers only who had something of 
their own to say, or knew how to give effective array to the valuable 
words of others. It would have been an excellent service to students, 
now abandoned to their own unformed judgment in the selection of 
works in this department, and thus condemned to promiscuous reading, 
if Mr. Colwell had in some effective way employed his eminent discern- 
ment in giving us an index expurgatorius of the books and treatises upon 
economic subjects which crowd our libraries, thus driving astake through 
the worthless and the false among them, numerous as the latter are. In 
his Essay Preliminary to List’s Political Economy, he has, indeed, shown 
his eminent capacity for estimating aright the economic authorities of 
their true value, confining himself, however, almost entirely to an ana- 
lysis and commendation of those works which are worthy of reliance. It 
was more consonant with his taste and tendencies to select the good, than 
to annoy himself with the study and exposure of that which was calcu- 
lated to be injurious. Often have I wondered at the patience, even more 
than at the diligence, great as it was, with which he conscientiously sur- 
rendered so large a portion of his months and years to library labors. His 
toil, however, was made for excellent uses, and the fruits of his literary 
industry exhibit themselves not only in the number but also in the value 
of his publications. Of that value but little can be traced to the thous- 
ands of volumes which had passed through his hands. Indeed, it is 
curiously significant that the best read man in economic literature stands 
now before us so little indebted to the books of his predecessors for the 
most valuable portions of his own productions. Never writing without 
having something worthy to be read, all that he did write was, as largely 
as can be affirmed of any other prolific author, in matter and manner his 
own. There was in him, however, nothing of arrogance, nothing of the 
scorner. In the whole course of his literary pursuits may be discovered 
a constant effort to promote and propagate important scientific truths 
bearing upon social welfare, under cover of such books as seemed to him 
to deserve extensive circulation. To the translation, annotation, and 
effective distribution of these he freely and devotedly gave his time, his 
labor, and his means. Among the leading instances of this kind, is the 
translation, by Mr. Matile, of List’s National System of Political Econo- 
my, with his own invaluable Preliminary Essay, above referred to, and 
with copious marginal notes upon the text, from his own pen. In like 
