tassels tied below the knee, his stout well-formed legs in checkered blue and white stockings, and his rather dangerous-looking knife in his leathern girdle, might pass in the streets of Gibraltar for one of the Andalusian smugglers in his gala dress : the fair hair, blue eye, and greater bulk, would distinguish the man of the extreme north, from him of the extreme south of Europe, much more than the dress- - although the costume of a Midsummer-day at Gibraltar seems not particularly adapted to a Midwinter-day at Christiana. It is probable that when there was little or no variety in the material of clothing-only home-made stuff to cut and carve upon there was also very little variety in the shape, or fashion, in different countries; taste or fancy was not awakened by new material; and the old got always the same shape and fashion given to it. One never sees in local costumes any other than the local material : where foreign cloth, cotton, and silk, have made their appearance, it is always in a different shape from the old hereditary cut of the home-spun. A taste for novelty has been awakened, a new want has to be gratified; and, with all deference to the ingenious travellers who find it instructive to paint and describe local costumes, the tastes and wants which abolish them are the spurs to commerce, industry, and civilisation: and their advance in a country, a much more important object of curiosity, than the forms of dress which they are superseding. It is only in a few secluded valleys and districts, that these fashions of the ruder ages

still linger; and there some curious old customs also still keep their hold. At the guilds, or feasts, given by the bonder, or peasants, at Christmas, or at a marriage, there is still the high seat, or elevated seat of honour, for the principal parties - for the peasant himself, and his wife, if it be a family meeting. Each dish is brought to table in a procession, headed by the musicians: the young women who attend on the guests, have their long, and generally yellow hair, untied, and floating over their shoulders. There is a master of the revels, that is, a friend of experience in such matters, who takes the command of all the business and order of the feast. There is also an equivalent for the jester of ancient times; some jovial young neighbour, who takes the charge of keeping up the mirth of the company, and who is to find talk, and jokes, and capers, to the last these matters are arranged as seriously as they would have been in the 14th century. The great intercourse, however, of the Norwegians with other nations since the last peace -Norway having now, in proportion to her population, more shipping than any other country in Europe except England is rapidly assimi

*

*The number of vessels belonging to Norway above 2 tost, or about 4 tons burden, was,

In the years 1819, 1964 vessels, carrying 62,284 tosts.

The number of seamen, not including the ship-masters, was, in 1834, 9407 men, which is supposed to be about one third of the total number of registered seamen above 16 years of age, liable to serve at sea instead of in the land force.

lating her customs to those of the present times in the rest of the civilised world; and no doubt conveying in return to other people her juster notions of society and government.

There is not wanting in Norway, as in other countries, a class of political economists, who deplore the change from the ancient frugality and simplicity in dress and mode of living, and see only luxury and ruin in the increasing taste and demand for the modern enjoyments of life. Norway is not a re-exporting country, but consumes every shilling's worth of the luxuries or necessaries she imports: the argument, therefore, of the impoverishing effect of the use of foreign luxuries, or a taste for them among a people, is more clear and net, than in commercial countries, and admits of being examined by itself, without admixture of secondary considerations. The use of coffee, tea, and sugar, is the most generally diffused of those luxuries or acquired tastes in modern times, and that which these political economists especially decry as ruinous to the common people from its expense, compared to the simple milk-diet of their forefathers. It is curious and instructive to look at what statistical facts bring out upon this argument. Norway contains, in 1835, a population of 1,194,610 persons, or, at 5 to a family, 238,922 fami- ̧ lies; and 646,315 head of cattle; 1,034,289 sheep; 185,554 goats; 98,321 rein-deer. Each family has, therefore, of milk-giving animals, 8.2 on an average; viz. of cattle, 2.95; of sheep, 4.33; of goats, 0.77; of rein-deer, 0.41. The average importation of coffee is

BB

reckoned 2 millions of pounds' weight; of tea, 40,000 lbs.; of sugar, 2,350,000 lbs. Each family, therefore, on an average, consumes 8 lbs. of coffee yearly; 9 lbs. of sugar; and 0.17 lbs. of tea: the retail price of coffee being 1 mark 2sk., or 10 d. sterling; of sugar, 1 mark, or 94d. sterling; of tea, 3 marks 8sk., or 2s. 8d. sterling: each family lays out yearly, on an average, 78. Od. sterling in coffee; 78.73d. sterling in sugar; 5d. sterling in tea; or in all, 15s. 1 d. sterling, in the liquid of two diets daily. Now if this liquid were milk, which these pastoral political economists recommend, it could not well be less in quantity than half a pint to each person at a diet - half a pint of milk is but a draught and this would be five pints daily in each family all the year round. But one cow could not give this supply winter and summer, in calf or not in calf; and one cow could not be kept for 15s. 1d. sterling yearly. Allowing but one cow, it would require 238,922 milking cows in addition to the present stock of the country — that is, one to each five persons-to supply the equivalent liquid for coffee and tea, at two meals, daily to the population of Norway. If we consider the proportion of arable land which must be kept in grass for pasturage for such an overstock of cattle in a country, and the state of agriculture in countries overstocked with half-starved cattle, we may guess at the cause of the frequent dearth of corn in ancient times in Europe. It is better for the Norwegians to buy the liquid for their morning and evening repast, at the expense of 109,0097. sterling, from the East and

West Indies, giving in exchange for it the money raised by their industry, in fishing, wood-cutting, &c. than to drink milk at five times the expense of the liquid they prefer, and be without that industry. They do not get coffee or sugar for nothing: they work for it, and must besides work for the other necessaries of life as much as if they used none. They gain additional industry by the new tastes and wants which these political economists decry as ruinous. Man is not so irrational as to labour without an object. It is to enjoy these or similar foreign luxuries that is, things which he cannot himself produce-that he exerts the powers of mind and body. Without these incentives to industry the Norwegian would be like the Laplander, without industry and civilisation; and the nearer he approaches to the beau idéal of those political economists to the state of being without a taste for these foreign and expensive luxuries-the nearer he approaches to the condition of the Laplander in the comforts and enjoyments of life. The gradation can be distinctly traced here, as from local situation there are peasants who have few of those acquired tastes for luxuries, and whose industry and civilisation are small in proportion.

The peasants, who, evidently from their costume, belong to secluded inland districts, bring game, butter, skins, and such articles, to the Christiania market in winter. One day I saw a crowd gathered round a sledge, and found that one of these peasants had in his simplicity brought to market the skinned carcass of a bear, thinking, no doubt, that