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every body and every thing into his new system. The epistle set forth, with the well-mimicked dignity of a savant, as follows: That a traveller recently arrived from a distant voyage, and hearing of the uncommon care and attention bestowed by the Countess of E upon her valuable menagerie, requests the honour of her acceptance of a remarkable animal brought from one of the remotest islands in the South Seas, and which the first naturalists of the day have pronounced to be the most curious and wonderful of any yet discovered. It is not pretended that the animal is partcularly rare; on the contrary, it has been found in most of the habitable parts of the globe; but, what is very remarkable, its valuable properties have been imperfectly known even in the most highly civilized countries, and entirely overlooked in others. Though born in a more helpless condition than almost any other species, yet, properly trained, it surpasses all others in power, and is inferior to none in beauty. To the constructiveness and industry of the beaver and the bee, it unites the sagacity and the docility of the elephant; and when acting in concert, according to its nature, it possesses a power superior to the united force of the most ferocious animals in the world. There have been endless discussions as to the best mode of treating this animal, but still much ignorance on the subject prevails. Some maintain that kind treatment renders it less docile; others that kindness should be admi nistered with judgment, in order to produce a good effect. Certain it is that the animal possesses most extraordinary faculties, and approaches very near to the reasoning powers of the human species. Some naturalists have gone so far as to predict, that when these faculties shall be properly exercised, it will surpass any attainments that man himself has yet acquired: and others were long puzzled to ascertain what faculties it really possessed, and whether its actions were wholly instinctive. Many philosophers in Scotland composed laborious and most intricate treatises upon this curious question, and afterwards wrote an account of each other's lives and labours; but since an eminent naturalist, about a century back, discovered that its impressions were received through the medium of the eyes, the ears, and the feelings, very little real knowledge has been contributed. One philosopher has taken alarm lest this animal should increase in number too rapidly, and overrun the whole earth, eat up all the beasts, birds, fish, fruit, and vegetables, and then die of hunger. Now, although it is found capable of subsisting upon very small quantities of food, and requiring less in proportion as its higher faculties are cultivated, yet has this philosopher many followers, who are equally terrified, and are busily occupied in striving to increase the quantity of food, and circumscribe their numbers within a geometrical ratio. Some members of the Zoological Society have lately turned their attention to this interesting

creature, and are devising plans for placing it in situations most congenial with its nature, as its wonderful properties are daily becoming more manifest.

"Not to be too tedious, it may yet be necessary to give your Ladyship the most ample information regarding this extraordinary animal. It has proved in this country of late rather destructive to game and poultry; and although means have been adopted to take it alive, and even to domesticate a number of them together in certain districts, yet it seems to dislike this novel treatment as much as would one of your Ladyship's Italian greyhounds the occupation of a turnspit. Those who promote this plan of herding them together, like many others, overlook its superior faculties; and as long as they can be kept quiet, a bare existence is all they deem necessary: but its better faculties having been awakened, the animal has now other desires, and pines if they are not gratified."

It is needless to say, that the effect of such a letter being read before the basket was unlocked, must have given rise to an exceedingly ludicrous scene.

Fitzosborne, shortly after the above event, felt that his exertions had now rendered an experiment for recreation of essential importance to his health, and was induced to extend an excursion which he had made in Wales to Cumberland, by the entreaties of his friend Bertrand, who baited his invitation with the luxuriant morsel which was composed of a promise to be introduced to Dr. Southey. The period of this event was that interval which had preceded the publication of Sir Thomas Moore, a work in which the two apostles of the new morals expected that their province would be interfered with. Fitzosborne took his place in the Carlisle mail; and on the day after his arrival there, he proceeded to search the retreat of the Muses among the delightful scenery of Keswick. Great was his astonishment, upon inquiring of the peasantry in the neighbourhood, to find that no individual of the name of Dr. Southey was known; but they told him, pointing to a gentleman walking beside the lake with a volume in his hand, and whose name was Montesinos, that he could probably give him some intelligence regarding him, as he was known to all the principal residents in the neighbourhood.

Fitzosborne having mentioned the object of his journey, when Montesinos immediately invited him, saying he would give him every information respecting the individual whom he wanted. But what struck Fitzosborne was, that Montesinos offered to let him have the manuscript of the work in preparation bolonging to Southey. In fact he told him that he himself was going to a party that evening, and he offered to take Fitzosborne with him; but the latter being told that he could obtain the manuscript that evening, declined the company, and was allowed to sit in the library over the manuscript during the rest of the day. The visitor, in casting his eyes over the work, was surprised to see it arranged VOL. III. (1833), No. IV.

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in dialogues between Montesinos and Sir T. More, and he concluded that it was to Southey himself that he had been speaking all this time, who had assumed, for what reason he could not divine, this eccentric title. A highly interesting account is given by Fitzosborne of a long interview which he had with Montesinos on the next day, when they entered at considerable length into the principles inculcated in many passages of the manuscript. A similar degree of boldness in remark and remonstrance, as was employed in the case of Mr. Malthus, was repeated with Mr. Southey, and Fitzosborne, as in the former instance, comes off, leaving his opponent completely beaten.

The farther we proceed in this work the more convinced are we that the whole object which the author has in view is to establish the doctrines of Mr. Owen. Indeed that gentleman, and his principles, form the constant land-marks by which all the narratives, all the dialogues, and even the briefest observations in these volumes, are guided. In the early pages of the second volume no inconsiderable space is devoted to a biography of Mr. Owen, in which there will be found a very complete account of his labours and objects. The diagrams and cubes employed by that indefatigable speculator in the illustration of his lectures, are represented also in this work; and those who wish to contemplate a finished specimen of human folly will not fail to peruse it.

We encounter, in a succeeding chapter, headed "Education," a long dialogue, in which the speakers are the present Lord Chancellor and one of the colleagues of Fitzosborne, Lord Hampden. A very cursory glance at the language put into the mouth of Lord Brougham will at once convince the reader either that the concoctor of the dialogue is utterly ignorant of the mental accomplishments of the Chancellor, or that he has designedly presented them in a state of inferiority of which he must be conscious. We find that the leading part of the conversation, the longest time for speaking at least, is given to Lord Hampden, while Lord Brougham is represented as listening with the most submissive forbearance, as if overwhelmed by the superiority of his antagonist, and is rarely permitted almost to speak at all; and even when he does utter a sentence, it is couched in terms of timidity and acquiescence, such as bespeak the very lowest degree of moral weakness. Those who have had the opportunity of studying the character of the noble lord, even through the medium of those second-hand materials which are daily to be seen in the public prints, must feel at once the discrepancy between the real personage, and the effigy constructed by Fitzosborne.

Amongst the living political economists selected for particular remark by Fitzosborne, Miss Harriett Martineau is by far the subject of the severest criticism. Still his objections to her doctrines are stated with moderation, as in the following passage an

'Like the school to which she belongs, Miss Martineau has not dis

tinguished the effects of machinery upon its first introduction and during its progress towards a period when the supply of labour is permanently superabundant, and when that period has actually arrived. In the former case, machinery, by cheapening the manufactured goods, increased the consumption, and created a greater demand for labourers than existed before; in the latter case, when machines are so numerous that many are laid by, and the labourers standing idle, an abridgement of labour increases the number of the idlers, and is of no avail in the increase of capital; for the markets being already saturated with labour and its product capital, production ceases to be profitable. How then can it be said, as in the Summary of Principles to No. 2, that productive industry is proportioned to capital, whether that capital be fixed or reproducible? "The interests of the two classes of producers, labourers and capitalists, are therefore the same; the prosperity of both depending on the accumulation of capital." Capital may go on increasing while the labourer is receiving the smallest rate of wages, frequently not more than his parish would be obliged to pay him. The overwhelming power of machinery, now occasions rapid and immense production; this increases competition, and reduces profits to such a degree, that the more wealthy capitalists, by making very large returns, can alone succeed; the smaller proprietors are distressed, their funds are wasted, and thousands, perhaps millions of the people, are reduced to the alternative of seeking relief from the parish, or by the trade of plunder. This cause of general commercial difficulty, and of wide-spread poverty in the midst of unexampled riches, is entirely overlooked; and wherever some subsidiary or local circumstances cannot be lighted on, refuge is sought in the Malthusian theory of over-population, population increases faster than the means of subsistence." As each individual can produce much more than he is able to consume, every newborn infant is an increase in the means of production beyond consumption; but if the land is possessed by a few, and the population, as in Ireland, are deprived of the fruits of their industry, all that can be said is, that population may increase faster than the wisdom, justice, and benevolence necessary to alter those institutions of the country which take from the humbler classes the abundant means of subsistence, and to adapt them to the present wants of society.'-Vol. ii. pp. 165–168.

The remedy, in such a case, proposed by Miss Martineau, is that no more children should be brought into the world than there is a subsistence provided for; in other words, she says, the timely use of the mild preventive check may avert the horrors of any positive check. Upon this, as one of the leading principles of the Malthusian school, Fitzosborne comments, and certainly with no small power of reasoning. He says, and with truth, that of all the speculations of the political economists for removing the ills of society, there is not one that appears so extravagant as that of supposing that the people will forego, in addition to their other privations, the comforts of domestic society. To impart to them sufficient information to take even the comparatively comprehensive view of the subject as the economists themselves, would give them that insight into the actual structure of society as would lead to its subversion too speedily to admit of the careful substitution

of a better that an individual will, under some circumstances, refrain from marriage for the sake of other enjoyments, daily experience convinces us; but to suppose that millions of people will consent to an unnatural abstinence, which, after all, would prove no remedy to themselves, for the accommodation of a fractional portion of the community, and to prolong the existence of that monopoly of which they are the greatest victims, it is difficult to imagine. The people will continue to unite as they ought, under the form prescribed by religion, at the age indicated by nature; and they would do well to refuse unanimously to emigrate, but remain an increasing burden (as the small extorted restitution is called,) upon the rich, until dire necessity shall compel them to be just.

The principal subjects which are treated of in the subsequent chapters are Education, as it exists in the Universities, the state of the manufacturing population, (in the chapter on which, a powerful description of a "strike" of the workmen is given), the slave trade, and several miscellaneous subjects connected with the moral and religious state of the population of this country. It is, however, perfectly apparent that even the missionaries themselves, without exception, have been convinced, upon comparing notes at the end of their labours, that there is no prospect of suc cess, at least at present, for their doctrines. They were so certain of failure being the uniform consequence of any further exertion, that they entered into a discussion as to the course of proceeding which they should in future adopt. One of them proposed that the agitation of the new system should be allowed to fall into apparent oblivion, until the increased difficulties of the country engendered a more decided tendency in the public mind to consider any subject connected with the amelioration of society. They knew that there was no expedient of the slightest promise which would not be resorted to before any of the fundamental changes proposed by them was adopted, so strongly were all parties, sects, and communities, opposed to their views. They consoled themselves, however, by the flattering unction, that a conviction of the evils which existed in the present system, was every day more and more acknowledged, and that there were few persons, even amongst the class of meanest capacity, who did not feel that the great inequalities in the condition of mankind were founded on injustice. So desperate, indeed, had Lord Hampden grown, under the disappointments which his unwearied exertions had met with, that he came to the resolution of laying down his title and honours, and retiring to a private station. His lordship fulfilled his pledge, and the speech which he is said to have made on bidding farewell to the House of Lords concludes these volumes. It is of considerable length, and nearly recapitulates the doctrines and views of the "New Views of Society" people. It is composed, we must in justice acknowledge, in a bold strain of fervent elo

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