bling it up as if no dignity was in him. We say nothing of the varieties of other kinds of prey for which certain human beings watch; because we do not wish to lower the character of the lion who lurks only out of necessity, and not from their love of cheating and gain. That the lion is idle, except when he is hungry, may be admitted; but what is the plea for human occupation in general, except that a man "must live;" that he must "get his bread;" and that if he is idle, he will have no butcher's meat. It is astonishing with what coolness we flesh-eating, fish-hooking, staghunting, war-making, boroughmongering, two-legged animals, sit in judg ment upon our fellow-creatures the quadrupeds; and abuse them for doing, out of sheer instinct and compulsion, what we perpetrate out of a deliberate self-indulgence! Let those among us who have really not been educated for nothing, and who have a decent quantity of humanity to go upon, do justice to the common instincts of lion and noblelord. As to his walking off before a multitude of men and dogs, with loaded muskets, and all sorts of advantages over him, it is what, in a Xenophon or a Frederick the Second, would have been called a retreat, not a skulking away. The lion refuses to risk his life, and that of others, to no purpose; and instead of praising him for it, we call him idle and skulking. It is surely enough that, before he makes up his mind to decline the battle, he can look calmly upon his enemies; nay, (as they acknowledge themselves,) with the most lofty and courageous aspect. If a dog or so happens to come too near him on that occasion, he makes a movement of his paw, invisible as one of Belcher's pieces of by-play, and smites the mongrel to death; which is just as if he had said, "Do not misinterpret me, and behave like a puppy. I am standing thus, not for fear of you, but like a proper general calculating his forces." When Homer speaks of a lion walking off, it is in compliment to his bravest warriors, and the reluctance with which they retire.

There is no one thing in the creation, which, deeply considered, is more mysterious than any other; but with that kindly permission to question her proceedings, in which Nature indulges us, we may be allowed, with all due reverence, to express our amazement at the existence of your wild beast. We can see "no exquisite reason for him." He seems, as if his uses had been anterior to the present system of the world, and that he is "going out" accordingly. Perhaps the lion was the lap-dog of the antediluvians, or hunted a superior order of mice in the reign of Gian Ben Gian. At present, (unless it be his office to keep down the population of the Cameleopard and the deer,) we see nothing in a lion or tiger, but a raging stomach, in the shape of a quadruped, impelled to fill itself at the cost of other stomachs; except, indeed, its existence involve some very exquisite sensations of health and comfort during its hours of repose; or be kept up in order to furnish our story books with a pleasing terror, and our poets with similes. Doubtless, there are corners of things of which human inquiry knows nothing; even in objects with which it concludes itself to be well acquainted. A lion has affections, and will take kindly to the company of a dog or a kid. He has also a lofty, and even thinking countenance in its way; and Heaven knows what may be his meditations during a bland interval of digestion, or what he or any other animal may know of us. He is also handsome after his kind. Marcus Aurelius, that most amiable of utilitarians, found beauty in the very gape of his jaws, that "chasm of teeth," (xaru odovтwv) as Anacreon calls it. Certainly the lion has a mane, the sole use of which seems to be to give a luxuriant grandeur to his aspect. Nature seems

to warrant a certain pride and glory, not only in the robes of kings and fine ladies, but in the decoration she has bestowed upon certain animals, as in the mane of the lion, the tail of the peacock, &c. An "article" might be written on these propensities in her, which, in human beings, would be thought weaknesses, or a superfluous love of ornament and display. She thus furnishes one of the best arguments we know of for the shews of state, and an ornamental condition of government; only, in impelling us to see beyond them, she leaves us to settle the question as we please. We, therefore, for our parts, avail ourselves of this license; and are for clipping the robes of kings, and reducing the establishment of all kinds of lions.

How came the Americans, when they set up a republic, to take an eagle for their symbol? Their eagle, it is true, is an American one, the "bald eagle;" but why a "bald" eagle, or any other eagle? Why any animal feræ naturæ, and of the old royal brute standard? It was as much as to say to royalty, "I am as powerful as you, and have as good claws." Well; what then? Such an answer might have been well enough at the moment; but why give it for ever? Why set up with an everlasting intention, an emblem of brute rivalry? It was done, probably, out of sheer want of thought. Or, perhaps, victory and military power had an eye in it to Washington and the Romans. Washington himself had a bit of the eagle in his countenance, as soldiers are apt to have,— and of the "bald" eagle too. Here was the beak and the decision; but no great indication of mind. Franklin objected to this royal, and imperial, and ravening symbol; and said, he should have preferred a "turkey." "At dinner, so would I," Washington might have replied; " and you, Doctor, are of the eating, rather than the fighting species." Franklin, it must be owned, was a little fatter than sage beseemed, and had something of the turkey in the cut of his figure.

A time will come, perhaps not long first, when nations will be ashamed of these representations in the shape of eagles and lions, and adopt symbols more consonant with the ideas of wisdom and justice. Wild animals may be, and undoubtedly are, fit emblems of such governors of the world as the world has hitherto consented to have," shearers, not shepherds of the people,”-war-making, devouring robbers,-blood-suckers of the public body. See in what brutal and prodigious shapes the monarchs of the world present themselves before us,-the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian despots, with their eagle heads; other sovereigns, in the guise of lions and leopards; others, of horses; and behind them come their feudal rout of lions rampant, and dragons, and griffins, and Herald knows how many other monsters, real and fabulous; all bent upon only one thing, -tearing us, and snatching the spoil. It is like the unseemly multitude in Ariosto:

Non fu veduta mai piu strana torma,
Piu mostruosi volti e peggio fatti.
Alcun', dal collo in giu, d' uomini an forma,
Col viso altri di scimie, altri di gatti:
Stampose alcun' co' pie' caprini l'orme,
Alcuni son centauri agili ed atti:
Son giovani impudenti e vecchi stolti,
Chi nudi, e chi di strane felli involti.

Orlando Furioso, Canto 5. v. 6.

Was never yet beheld uncouther train,
Faces more foul, or more unlawful shapes;
Some, from neck downwards, had the forms of men,
With brute protruding heads of cats or apes;
Some, with goats' feet, went, vexing the torn plain;
Some scoured away, like centaurs bent on rapes:
Naked and clothed were there, as whim might hold,
And impudent young men, and foolish old.

Dom Miguel and the Duke of Brunswick, to wit, and the Emperor Francis. It is not only the cup of luxury that has induced men to make beasts of themselves; the cup of power has had an equal enchant-ment. It is now understood, even by those who abused him by wholesale,

out of secret envy, that Bonaparte did a foolish thing when he looked back upon the ancient world and the Roman eagles, instead of directing his eyes forward with the advancement of knowledge. The consequence of making himself an eagle, was, that he got hunted down by his fellowbirds of prey, whose race he ought to have superseded by being a man. France has no longer an eagle to lead it. It has got Dr Franklin's turkey, fat and homely, and making ludicrous ostentation of its tale of Jemappes. But the individual degradation is a part of the general advancement. The French, for their present national symbol, we believe, have revived the old Gallic cock,—a foolish emblem founded on a pun. By and by they will have a better. If Bonaparte had not condescended to be an emperor, and if, instead of an eagle, he had taken for his device, a human being, or Justice with her scales, he would now have been sitting at the top of the world, distributing happiness, and receiving such homage as never was yet received by man. His gains were thought great but oh! how little they were compared with his loss! opportunity was never put into the hands of a conqueror, since the world began; but alas! he was educated a conqueror, and did not know his good luck. He was not aware, that the most frightful of all lost occasions began at the very moment he thought himself most fortunate, and identified himself with the old potencies.

Such an

What will be the symbol of England, when she has a new one? what her own coat of arms, if she chooses to keep up that anomaly? For her lion is but the crest of her old kings, worn to distinguish them in battle, as other knights wore their respective devices; and nobody wears coat-armour now. A new coat-of-arms at the Herald's office is as ridiculous as if the heralds were to give a man a licence to walk about in the dress of the twelfth century. England, as England,—as a country and a people, has in reality no device, unless the figure of Britannia be called one, which is rather a personification, and one in bad pedantic taste; a kind of Minerva with a bale of goods by her side, fit only for a broker's card, or the head of a merchant vessel. Pitt took away the best thing about this figure, when he exchanged the cap of liberty for a trident; an alteration which ought to have been resented, whatever may have been the abuse of liberty in France: for the abuses of others do not destroy one's own propriety. That apocryphal, according to Gibbon, scandalous, and bacon-selling personage, St. George, with his dragon, was no better. He suited Mr. Pitt's time far better than ours, especially if Gibbon's account of him be true, that he was a contractor. At any rate, he is nothing but an heraldic absurdity, and we ought to have done with him. And what has England, and especially existing England, to do with lions and unicorns, and other beasts never found upon its soil, and representing nothing but ravening power? However, these changes must take time. We only propose to give the first intimation of them, and to help the general inclination to question the old customs. If it be answered that they are "only customs," we must reply with the Greek philosopher, that we must not say "only," when speaking of a custom; we must inquire whether it is a fit habit of the acquiescence, and whether its tendency be to maintain good or evil.

A FEW WORDS ON THE EFFECTS OF ABOLITION AND COMMUTATION OF TITHES.

LET no reader start away from our paper in the fear that it will either be a long or an abstruse one :—we are tired of these scientific criticisms; and, in plain truth, they suit not our Magazine. And they who hold our sentiments, on the knotty question of our title to partake somewhat of paradox, will also, before concluding what is here written, find reason to acquit us of the dishonesty of hunting for arguments in favour of a predetermined opinion; of looking only at one side of the diverse-coloured object, and studiously suppressing any incommodious information which may come from its opposite surface. It is our purpose and desire to bring out the whole truth, in regard of what is rather an intricate point; and we may here give utterance to our firm expectation, that the following brief sketch will, in not a few respects, modify the opinions of those who have hitherto perceived nothing objectionable or difficult in the popular project of Commutation.

That the true incidence of Tithe, in a country whose whole land is so burdened, is upon the consumer, is a proposition admitting of the closest demonstration; and the reader who would understand why we say so, is referred to the criticism on Colonel Thompson's True Theory of Rent, in our ninth Number.

But this case does not involve the situation of Great Britain. One half of our land, Scotland being included, is tithe free; and it is from such a state that we are required to make the transition. Now, it is recognized by every one whose head contains the veriest elements of appropriate knowledge, as the natural as well as actual consequence of these circum.. stances, that the tithed land is far back in cultivation when compared with the tithe-free land; and this, further, is understood by the accurate observer, that the lowest soil in cultivation on tithed estates is more fertile just by one-tenth, than the lowest on untithed estates. Of two estates so situated, consisting of six different corresponding qualities of soil, the following Schedule may represent the actual position. The numbers are the supposed quarters of wheat obtainable from each soil, in return for the same outlay; and, of course, they represent the comparative fertilities:

Why soil No. 4. is the last cultivated on the tithed estate, while soil No. 6. is cultivated on the untithed one, must be plain to a child; it is, because the exaction of tithe renders them equally unfertile or only productive of 9 qrs. in so far as respects the farmer and the landlord. Now, the foregoing is an artificial state of things, and the tax keeps up the artificial inequality. If tithe had been non-existent, or utterly abolished, the culture of the estates had been uniform; and the country would