but all seem liable to serious objections, and a direct assessment on property should, in my opinion, be left out of the question.' He then proceeds to detail his own plan, which consists of a proposed repeal of the 43d of Elizabeth and of all laws relative to settlements; substituting for the funds at present applicable to the poorrates a per-centage on labour employed, to be paid partly by the labourer but much more by the employer. The scale of proportion is given with great apparent precision in the succeeding pages, and the result would, in the General's opinion, afford an income of six millions sterling. We will not stay to explain the various objections to such a tax as a per-centage on labour, since our readers must at once perceive that an impost of this nature would tend to cause an aggravation of that which, nationally considered, is already our greatest misfortune; we mean the uncommonly high price of our labour, compared with that which is paid on the Continent. Though the third tract is much longer than the others, it is less general in its object, being confined to a series of reflections on money, prices, and exchange. The author goes over much of the same ground which was so fully trodden seven years ago, at the time of the Bullion-question; and he discovers no small extent of reading, with regard both to the various tracts which at that time issued from the press and to the more permanent works of previous writers in political economy. It would be endless to attempt to follow so rapid a reasoner in all the succession of his opinions, whether relative directly to the Bullion-controversy or to the more general questions of exchange and taxation. His great defect lies in want of arrangement; in allowing one argument to succeed another before its predecessor is entirely dispatched; and in attempting to take in a wide compass of discussion, without analyzing any of its specific departments to the bottom. What is the reader to think of an essay of more than 200 pages without a table of contents, index, or title to a section? Does not this omission justify the presumption that the writer has begun without a previous plan, and has proceeded from one step to another exactly as one train of ideas has followed the other? This irregularity we notice with the more regret because General C. is evidently possessed of great activity of mind, and would bid fair to cast light on certain intricate subjects of political economy if he could restrain the exuberance of his thinking (we might almost say his scheming) faculties, and could direct them with undeviating attention for a length of time to a specific and limited object. Art. 19. Cause and Cure; or Letters to the Government and to the People, by Incognitus. 8vo. pp. 164. 3s. 6d. Whitemore. 1817, The best part of this long pamphlet is the Appendix, in which we have a series of reports, memorials, and other papers relative to the relief of the public distress; the whole given in their original language, without any mixture of the quaint composition of Incognitus. These papers are very diversified, and consist of reports on the state of our fisheries; of the mode of occupation in our workhouses; of the advantage of giving cows to cottagers ; of the management of the poor among the Quakers; of the diffusion of vaccine inoculation, &c. The arrangement of these different tracts is very defective, for they begin with petitions for parliamentary reform, followed by a letter from Bernadotte to Bonaparte in 1812: but any collection, however miscellaneous, must be deemed a relief after the strange disorder of the first part of this pamphlet. In that part, the author goes back as far as the American war for the origin of our distresses; and, after having expatiated for a few pages on this and other topics, equally unconnected with the question before him, he fills up the rest of his paper with an endless succession of notes and quotations, containing sometimes a sound idea and marked throughout by good. intention, but wholly devoid of plan or condensation. At last (p. 94.) comes his scheme of relief, consisting of a proposition to let lands to the poor on long leases, never less than 35 years; the tenant to be supplied with the necessary implements, and, in certain cases, with cottages to be erected on the lands. He adds that the cultivation of these little tracts ought not to be the main object of the tenant but the occupation of his leisure-hours; the land to be wholly freed from taxes and parish-burdens during fourteen years from the date of the lease. Our great objection to this and other projects of the kind is that they suppose the expediency of taking up the culture of land on a small scale, and as a supplementary task; forgetting that the true way to succeed in agriculture, as in other pursuits, is to make it a separate business, and, above all, to extend the size of farms, which has been done in such highly cultivated counties as Northumberland, Norfolk, Berwickshire, and East Lothian. Art. 20. A Letter to D. Ricardo, Esq.; containing an Analysis of his Pamphlet on the Depreciation of Bank-notes, by the Rev. Alexander Crombie, LL.D. 8vo. pp. 143. Hunter. 1817. In verification of the old proverb, Dr. Crombie deems it better to put on record an antidote to a pamphlet published some years ago than to leave it altogether unanswered. Mr. Ricardo has been well known to readers on subjects of finance ever since the Bullion-discussion of 1810; in which his publication was the first in point of time, and certainly not the last in point of merit. Though Dr. C. is better known as a philologist than as a politician, he has already been introduced to our readers (in our Number for July 1816) as the writer of some very good letters on the state of the agricultural interest. His object now is first to analyze and next to combat the doctrines of Mr. Ricardo and the Bullion-committee; who, he maintains, were altogether wrong in. asserting that Bank-notes were in a state of depreciation during the years 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, and 1813. It would exhaust the patience of our readers to enter on a topic already so amply discussed in our pages, and the interest of which is now in a manner destroyed, since no one will contend that at present Banknotes are depreciated. In reporting the Bullion-pamphlets so far back as our sixty-third and sixty-fourth volumes, we took occasion Y 3 to. to point out how far we conceived that many of the writers on the. side of the Committee had outstepped the proper limits of inference; while, on the other hand, we can by no means subscribe to Dr. C.'s opinion that Bank-notes at no time incurred depreciation. They were evidently of reduced value in all that regarded foreign purchases in the years just mentioned; and, as a consequence, the indirect effect of depreciation began to be very considerable among ourselves. This was strikingly exemplified in the case of the corn-trade: our crop was greatly deficient in 1809, and importation became necessary to the extent of not less than seven millions sterling: this sum was paid at a very unfavourable exchange, and tended, in course, to raise the price of our own corn more than if it had been brought into our ports at the lower rate at which the possession of coin would have enabled us to buy it. In 1811, corn fell in consequence of the preceding harvest being good: but in 1812 the enhancement was enormous, and was again aggravated by the same cause; since it is plain that, if foreign corn cost us 30 per cent. more than it would if our currency were sound, the extent of import must be smaller, and the competition with our own farmers must be less considerable. Now, whatever increases the price of corn tends, not immediately perhaps but certainly at no remote date, to raise the price of labour and of all commodities in which labour forms an important constituent; so that, without resorting to losses of another kind, such as subsidies, support of foreign garrisons, &c. &c. in consequence of the depreciation of our paper, it seems perfectly clear, in contradiction to Dr. Crombie, that the existence of depreciation among ourselves was direct and serious. When treating, as we did at great length in the years 1810 and 1811, of the causes of the depreciation of our Bank-paper, we ascribed it not to any doubt of the solidity of the Bank, and not in any considerable degree to over-issue, but to the unlucky circumstance of its non-convertibility into cash, and its consequent want of currency on the Continent. By a singular coincidence of mischances, also, this non-convertibility existed at the time when of all others our foreign expenditure was largest, both for the purchase of corn and for the support of the war in Spain, Russia, and Germany. We cannot avoid remarking that Dr. C. is deficient in this as he was in his former pamphlet with respect to the distribution of his materials, and never takes the trouble to divide his reasoning into sections, or to prefix titles to his paragraphs. His style, however, is clear; and, if he presses at times somewhat keenly on his antagonist, he apologizes for this liberty at the close by doing justice to Mr. R.'s candour, integrity, and love of truth. Art. 21. The Constitutional Primer, inscribed to the Memory of the Founders and Supporters of the British Constitution. 8vo. 6d. or Thirty-three Shillings per Hundred. Wilson. 1817. A short outline of the British Constitution, and of those laws on which our liberties were originally founded, in an address to the the people, calling on them not to give up their just claim to the inheritance of their ancestors. Art. 22. Louis XVIII. and a Husbandman of Gallardon, or a Narrative of the extraordinary Circumstances which have occurred respecting the Predictions of Thomas Ignatius Martin; his Examination before the Bishop of Versailles, and the Ministers of Police; and finally his Interview with the King. 12mo. pp. 90. 38. Printed by Schulze and Dean, London. 1817. This idle story would form a fit accompaniment to the prophecies of Johanna Southcote. Whether the propagator of it was the dupe of a diseased imagination, or the tool of other people, is of little importance: but many persons will think that he was tutored, because the supernatural advice given to him was in the system of the Angouleme party, and consequently of the clergy. The story created little sensation even in France, and in this country we recommend its perusal only to those who are fond of the marvellous. TRAVELS. Art. 23. The formidable price of Mr. Hills's volume arises from the unusual proportion of plates contained in it; which, with the circumstance of the author being by profession an artist, shews that the form of a book has been adopted chiefly for the purpose of giving additional interest to the engravings. Mr. H. makes no pretensions to skill in literary composition; and we must in critical justice pronounce that, whatever may be his merits with the pencil, he cannot boast of vigour or originality as a writer. His tour, which began at Ostend, included Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Waterloo, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Haarlem, the Hague, and some other places of inferior note. The reader must not expect any political or statistical information in these pages, but must be satisfied with an account of the aspect of the country, the style of building, the implements of agriculture, and other plain matters which fix the eye and engage the attention of a travelling artist; together with an amusing journal of this writer's adventures. Directing our attention to the plates, we are disposed to class them in three leading groupes: 1. Flemish views, including churches, vessels, parks, streets, carriages, and dresses. 2. Waterloo-scenery, viz. the village of Waterloo; the field of battle; the adjacent farm-houses and cottages; and other matters more or less connected with this memorable engagement. 3 Views in Holland, canals, steeples, churches, and national dresses. In all these various subjects, the fidelity of Mr. H.'s pencil will be at once recognized by any person who has lived among the people whom it delineates. Nothing can more fully exemplify this fact than the amusing exhibitions in plate 35 of Dutchmen and their cara sposas, habited in the grotesque fashions of Friesland and other provinces. The great drawback on the landscapes is the level nature of the scenery; in which respect Mr. H. could not have chosen a less interesting part of Europe. Another unlucky circumstance was that, at the time of his tour, (the autumn of 1815,) the Flemings had not yet recovered their beautiful paintings from Paris, so that several of their churches were comparatively bare. With regard to Waterloo, he has perhaps been. too minute, if indeed it be possible to exceed in that way on a subject which still interests so strongly the public curiosity. The modesty of Mr. H.'s preface, and the unassuming tone of his narrative, are calculated to arrest any severity of judgment, and to prevent us from expatiating in animadversions on his composition. We cannot, however, avoid remarking that the style is feeble, that many of the topics are trivial, and that the interest of the work is confined in a great measure to those who take a particular pleasure in graphic delineation. MEDICINE, &c. Art. 24. Oracular Communications, addressed to Students of the Medical Profession, by Esculapius. 12mo. 3s. 6d. Boards. Cox and Son. 1816. Although we think it was scarcely necessary to call up the antient God to deliver these oracles, and that they do not contain any thing which is beyond the power of human intellect to conceive and promulgate, we allow that the sentiments which are uttered are generally sensible, and perhaps in no case absolutely objectionable. A train of useful remarks embraces the directions that are most necessary for regulating the moral and professional conduct of the young student; and they are delivered in a tone of easy familiarity, which is not ill-calculated to give them their due effect. We shall not minutely criticize the different parts of the performance, but enable our readers to estimate its merits, and to judge whether our character be correct, by giving two quotations. The first is on the subject of taking notes at lectures. This is a practice from which much good or harm will arise, accordingly as it is employed. I have known pupils regularly attend the lectures, take very full notes, and enter them copiously in their note-books, and yet never retain a single idea. At first sight this may seem to involve a palpable contradiction, but it is nevertheless simply true. Their notes were entered very fully, but they were incomprehensible to themselves or others; and it is evident, that they wrote, as quickly as they could, what proceeded from the lecturer's lips, without attending to the subject, and without receiving any accession to their scanty stock of information, except that which consisted simply in the accumulation of words. A cumbrous load truly, difficult to be borne, and not worth the trouble. |