single blessedness. So the squire and his two faithful companions lived on together a long life of tranquil monotony, a vegetative dream-like existence, so unruffled by the usual accidents of "chance and change," that their very minds became stagnant, incapable of reflecting exterior objects, and insensible to the noiseless wafting of Time's pinions, that swept by so gently. But those quiet waters brooded on their own depths-on" the long-faded glories they covered," and perhaps the pride of ancestry, and the feeling of hereditary consequence, were never more powerful than in the hearts of those three secluded persons, whose existence was scarcely remembered beyond the precincts of their own domain, whose views, and cares, and interests, had long been circumscribed by its narrow limits, and with whom the very name itself, the longtransmitted name, would so soon descend into the dust and be extinct for ever. Barring this human failing, and perhaps also the unsocial retired ness of their general habits, which had grown on them imperceptibly, partly from natural shyness, heightened by indulgence into morbid feeling, and partly from the altered circumstances of the family, which they shrank from exposing to the vulgar eye-Barring such human failings, these last descendants of the De la Veres were kind, and good, and pious people, beloved in their household and amongst their tenantry, and never named but respectfully, (when named at all,) even by the neighbouring gentry, with whom they had long ceased to keep up any visiting intercourse, beyond the rare occurrence of a morning call. So years stole on, till age

had palsied the firm step of the squire, and silvered the bright locks of the once-blooming sisters.

Then was the last branch shaken off the old sapless tree. Three withered leaves yet hung upon it, to be succeeded by no after vegetation. First dropt the brother; and soon after the youngest of the venerable sisters; and then one poor, infirm, solitary female, the last of her race, was left alone, in the desolate habitation of the once flourishing De la Veres. But if you would know more of that antique mansion, and of its aged mistress and her immediate predecessors, you must come outside the church, for there are their sepulchres. There, since the closing up of the family vault, have the later De la Veres made their beds in the dust, though without the walls of the church, yet as near as might be to its subterranean chambers, and to the ashes of their kindred dead. These things that I have spoken of-those tombs and those hatchments, and the family pew, and the low iron doorare they not to be seen, even unto this day, in the ancient church of Halliburn?-You know, dear Lilias! they so engrossed our attention on our first visit to the same, that time remained not that evening for our purposed survey of the old family mansion. Besides, the churchyard was yet to be conned over, and the sun was already descending behind the distant hills. So taking our outward survey of the venerable church, and a slight pencilsketch, almost as rapidly executed, we turned our faces homeward, reserving for another evening the farther prosecution of our antiquarian researches.

A.

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VOL. XVII.

CONQUER an island, situated as near as possible to, and having as many means of communication as possible with, your own shores. If by any means practicable, let its population be as one to two, compared with your own, and let it comprehend about seven millions of souls.

Induce the proprietors of the soil to let their estates, at the highest rent they can obtain, to middlemen or landjobbers, and then to abandon their country, to dwell and spend their incomes elsewhere. Let it be an indispensable condition in the leases, that the land-jobbers shall be permitted to subdivide the land as they please; to let it by auction to the highest bidders, no matter of what character; and to do anything with it that may be the most conducive to their own benefit, save and except making away with the fee-simple.

The jobbers having got due authority, and being secured from any pernicious restraint that the presence of the proprietors might impose upon them, will immediately commence a course of the most liberal and beneficial conduct. Having an interest in the land for only a fixed term of years; having no other object than to extract from it the greatest possible amount of profit; and being under no responsibility touching the state in which they may leave it, or the cultivators whom they may settle upon it, they will naturally exhaust every effort to re-let it for the very highest rent that can be procured. If the poulation be dense, a matter devoutly be wished, they will, by auctionting and subdividing, to accommote competition, easily be able to let r considerably higher rents than any deavours or privations of the subenants can pay. This, aided by the salutary labours which it will impose upon certain functionaries of the law, will speedily dissipate any capital that the cultivators may possess; the jobbers and attorneys will not only obtain a rack-rent, but they will obtain all the stock, utensils, &c. that the fortunate occupiers may adventure up

on the soil. Of course, as the capital of the cultivators, instead of being augmented, will rapidly vanish, the ability to occupy good-sized farms will be annihilated, and the island will be cut into potatoe-gardens.

Having, by the emigration of the proprietors, practically rid yourselves of a nobility and gentry, you will now find yourselves disencumbered of that nuisance, a respectable yeomanry-a class of sturdy masters, which, so long as it is permitted to exist, cannot be prevented from making servants of the labourers, communicating to them much knowledge, and keeping them in bondage. You will find your country population, that is, the great mass of the population of the island, to consist almost wholly of men, equal and independent; you will find the absurd distinctions of class destroyed, and your population melted into one grand class. You will find this grand class to be composed of people without both capital and income—without food and raiment-not half employed-having no masters to control them-having no other class to mislead them by example-having full liberty to spend their time as they please-impelled by idleness to congregate together, and to contract habits of the most liberal character and having no means of changing their condition. Any plan that would cause the proprietors to promote the system of subdivision,for example, one that should give the elective franchise to the potatoe-garden occupiers,-might aid greatly in producing this glorious consumma

tion.

This will necessarily make the people of your island WEALTHY.

In accomplishing this great work, you will, no doubt, have much opposition to encounter from the bigotted slaves of antiquated prejudices. Although the influence of these wretched people is rapidly hastening to extinction, it is still formidable. Your weapons in combating them must be the divine science of Political Economy and the divine Liberal System. If these bigots declare that this,

without the operation of any other cause, will inevitably make the people paupers, barbarians, profligates, and ruffians, first laugh at them-one laugh has more potency with the mass of men than ten facts or arguments; then assert that the absence of the landlords cannot produce any evil, and that the jobbers are a beneficial order of men, and quote the Edinburgh Review to prove it, shew, by the divine science of Political Economy, that the stale maxim, "custom is second nature," is a fiction-that in rents, wages, prices, &c., supply and demand govern everything, and differences in personal disposition and feeling, in habits and means, in the prejudices and partialities of education, rank, and class, have no influence over them. No landlord will ever take less than the full rent for his land, and no tenant will ever offer more for it. A landlord will not, from large revenue, a princely spirit, prejudices derived from his forefathers, and a pride in seeing his estates in high cultivation, and peopled by an intelligent and opulent tenantry, let his land below its value; and a tenant will not, from the fear of starvation, a contempt of honesty, and a peculiar system of land-letting, covenant to pay a rent which will feed him on potatoes, clothe him in rags, and prevent him from paying any creditor that he may have, save his landlord. If rents become excessive, the cultivators of land will immediately betake themselves to trade and manufactures, which, of course, will find them profitable employment. Provided the laws do not interfere, society will ever adopt those systems which will produce it the most benefit; it will ever keep its different kinds of labourers equally paid, and it will ever equalize profits. All this may be triumphantly established by the divine science of Political Economy.

It is a most lamentable truth, that things in Great Britain set themselves in fearful array against this divine science. The servants of wealthy traders and people of fortune have double and treble the wages that the servants of other people have, yet they form a large portion of the whole servants of the country, and there is as great a superabundance of them as of any other description of servants. They have the least labour and no extra share of trust. Agricultural wages are nearly

double the amount in some counties, of what they are in others. Manufacturing labourers can earn nearly as much more as agricultural ones. A vast portion of the large proprietors of land let their farms for half the rent that small proprietors obtain. A very large share of the land of England would, at this moment, let for nearly double its present rent, if it were let by auction. This is not an accidental, temporary state of things, but it is the regular and permanent one; it is one which is immediately re-established, if accident change it for a moment. All this, no doubt, militates most detestably against the doctrines of supply and demand, natural equalizations, &c., as applied to rents and wages.

If the bigots get hold of these things, scoff at their ignorance, and swear that facts are nothing when opposed to Political Economy,-if they dilate on any awkward traits in the character and condition of your Islanders, protest that the Islanders are beggared by taxes even though they pay none; protest, that the Government, by its tyranny, drives them to crime, even though it suffer them to do nearly what they please; if the land be subject to tithes, protest that these ruin the occupiers, though they may not be equal to one-twentieth of the rent. Above all things, never admit that rents can be excessive and ruinous. In addition to all this, cover your opponents with the most unsavoury epithets. The adjectives bigotted, illiberal, intolerant, slavish, &c., are, at this moment, exceedingly effective when employed against the bigots; be profuse in the use of them.

Having exalted your Islanders to the condition described, you must next take measures for preventing them from being dragged from it. Their own efforts would do nothing, but those of others might do much if not opposed. You must, in the first place, use every exertion to prevent the proprietors from changing their conduct. Defend them in every practicable way. Declare that they do exactly what they ought. Protest, that on every principle of Political Economy, if they dwelt on their estates they would exact as high rents as the jobbers-they would pay no regard to the character and conduct of, and obtain no influence over, their tenants-they would employ no labourers on their grounds

-they and their large establishments of well-taught domestics would do nothing towards civilizing the barbarous villagers-they would implant no good habits and principles-their presence would destroy no petty oppressions, and put down no pernicious feelings-in a word, their residence on their estates would not alter matters in the smallest degree.

Political Economy, like surgery, is a fine science for freezing the blood. It disposes men to operate on each other as though they were logs of timber; it brings them to a level in feeling, and makes them measure everything by the rule of profit and loss. It is a most admirable pioneer for the liberal system. When you have, by the aid of this sublime science, thoroughly filled the noble and other landlords with the sentiments of the counting-house and the shop-counter, you must then assail them with the liberal system. Attack with all your might religious teachers, and the practice of religious precepts: this will purify them from any principles that may restrain them from dissipation and licentiousness. Assail any laws that may be meant to protect public morals-defend by implication, if you cannot in decency do it directly, vice and immorality-if you know any profligates stained with every private and public vice, cry them up as the most liberal and estimable of men, and as perfect models of conduct: this can scarcely fail of rendering the landlords licentious and profligate. Pour the most blackening libels on your country and your countrymen, and the most dazzling panegyrics on other nations; this will necessarily divest the landlords of those vulgar and pernicious prejudices-the love of country and public spirit.

If you succeed in rendering the proprietors covetous and selfish, sensual and debauched, and the despisers of their country and countrymen, in a word, liberal and enlightened men, you will make them the steadiest friends of your system in the island. You will impel them to dwell constantly amidst the licentiousness of other countries, incite them to give the utmost encouragement to the jobber system, and lead them to regard any vices and crimes that may distinguish those who people their estates, as so many proofs that the people are

more liberal and enlightened than those of other nations. The conversion of the proprietors into profligate spendthrifts must be the principal object of your attention. Only mould them into these, and you may then easily make them anything else that you may desire. Such spendthrifts, without any tuition, adopt the principle of supply and demand in letting their estates. Virtual auction is their rule. They operate as a pestilence upon that abomination, a wealthy yeomanry, and upon that intolerable subjection in which such a yeomanry keeps agricultural labourers; of course they destroy those pernicious habits and feelings which have so long distinguished so large a portion of the peasantry of Great Britain.

While you are thus operating upon the land-proprietors of the island, you will be producing the most beneficial effects among those of your own country.

If any attempts be made to introduce those baleful things the poor-laws into your island, resist them to the utmost. Here again the divine science of Political Economy must be your chief weapon. Prove by this incomparable science, that the assuring to the labourer of a provision from the parish when he cannot procure work, will inevitably inake him refuse to work at all-that labourers ought to be left to beg if they cannot obtain employment: that begging, whether successful or not, instead of making them idle, will make them most industrious

that the depraved habits, which begging inevitably gives, will make

them the more valuable members of society-that it will add prodigiously to public wealth, if the land be covered with clouds of beggars-that work can always be had if labourers will seek it-and that every system ought to be immediately destroyed, which produces the least of abuse and evil, no matter how comprehensive and complicated it may be, and what benefits may flow from it.

Here again you will, no doubt, be vigorously assaulted by the bigots. They will fling some awkward facts at your teeth, for Fortune, that illiberal and slavish goddess, seems to have maliciously fashioned the history of this despicable country in which we have had the misfortune to be born, into an inveterate enemy to our sublime

science. They will tell you that the poor-laws operated for centuries with out injuring the labourers' industrythat, not forty years since, the country labourer held it to be the extreme of degradation to receive aid from the parish, and would never crave it except from imperious necessity. They will maintain that these incontrovertible facts prove that the poor-laws, and the highest degree of industry in the labourer, can exist together, not for a moment, but permanently. They will maintain that the natural operation of the poor-laws is, not to injure, but to promote industry-that if you compel a man to beg, you make him a liar and a thief, you destroy his moralsthat if you destroy his morals, you destroy his industry-and that the poorlaws, in protecting his morals, protect his industry. They will assert exist ing facts to prove that there may be an excess of labourers, that it may be impossible for this excess to obtain employment or to escape starvation, save through parish relief or begging; that this excess would still be found if the poor-laws were destroyed, and that the destruction of these laws would increase, in a frightful degree, the evils that flow from it. They will tell you that the scarcity of work, and Cobbett and your liberal writers, were the means of destroying the pride, independence, and other good feelings of your labouring population; and that the poor-laws were not their auxiliary, but their enemy. They will maintain that a British labourer will still work whenever he can obtain employment, and will still do as much labour in the day as two labourers of any other nation, notwithstanding the operation of the poor-laws. And they will, perhaps, have the blushless effrontery to say, that these laws have done more to exalt the moral and intellectual character of the labouring orders, than anything else in your system; and that the divine science of Political Economy, in so far as it operates against public morals-against national philanthropy and benevolence against the pure and lofty feelings which antiquated moralists and philosophers were at such pains to implant-it operates not only against the other interests of the state, but most perniciously against national wealth.

Meet all this by once more asserting, that facts are nothing when op

posed to Political Economy. Declare that this sublime science stands upon the infallible maxims, that men and bodies of men will always do what it is their interest to do, and that all men, no matter of what disposition, habits, rank, and country, will always act alike in the same circumstances. Demonstrate the truth of these maxims. Shew that, as it is the manifest interest of all men to be industrious, honest, virtuous, and orderly, it is impossible for any man, or body of men, to be idle, knavish, vicious, and turbulent, if not impelled to it by such causes as the poor laws; and that, therefore, religion and irreligion, the most opposite kinds of instruction, the most discordant opinions and prejudices, will have the same effect on human conduct. Quote in proof the notorious facts, that the radicals, a few years since, did what it was their interest to do that the mobs and processionists of the late Queen did what it was their interest to do and that the Roman Catholics, and the weaver, collier, and other associations of labourers, are at this moment acting in the wisest possible manner for their own interests. Shew that it is contrary to every principle of Political Economy, for the labouring classes to be kept under surveillance and control, and point in proof to the splendid results which have sprung from the repeal of the combination-laws. Having done this, you may then, by means of the celestial liberal system, prove that public morals are a public curse, and that the community will never prosper until it is converted into a mass of vice and profligacy.

Your island will, perhaps, be threatened with another evil from which you must vigilantly protect it. In the latter part of the war there were, in Great Britain, as many respectable farmers' sons and others, in want of good-sized farms, and unable to obtain them, in their native country, as would have been able to occupy a very large part of your island. This, from the present aspect of things, is very likely to happen again; and if these persons have reasonable inducement, they will throng to your island in crowds. Their being permitted to do so would have the most fatal and melancholy consequences. They would introduce a most pernicious amount of unborrowed agricultural capital-they would