and there the fruit of his labour ends, as when he enjoys day by day the advantage of his former toil, and works always in hope of the recompence which is always to come? The small farmer, or, in the language of Latimer and old English feeling, the yeoman, had his roots in the soil,-this was the right English tree in which our heart of oak was matured. Where he grew up, he decayed; where he first opened his eyes, there he fell asleep. He lived as his fathers had lived before him, and trained up his children in the same way. The daughters of this class of men were brought up in habits of industry and frugality, in good principles, hopefully and religiously, and with a sense of character to support. Those who were not married to persons of their own rank, were placed in service; and hence the middle ranks were supplied with that race of faithful and respectable domestic servantsthe diminution and gradual extinction of which is one of the evils (and not the least) that have arisen from the new system of agriculture. One of the sons succeeded, as a thing of course, to the little portion of land which his fathers had tenanted from generation to generation.

"The sense of family pride and family character were neither less powerful nor less beneficial in this humble rank, than it is in the noblest families when it takes its best direction. But old tenants have been cut down with as little remorse and as little discrimination as old timber,-and the moral scene is in consequence as lamentably injured as the landscape!

"If the small farmer did not acquire wealth, he kept his station. The land which he had tilled with the sweat of his brow, while his strength lasted, supported him when his strength was gone: his sons did the work when he could work no longer; he had his place in the chimney corner, or the bee-hive chair; and it was the light of his own fire which shone upon his grey hairs. Compare this with the old age of the day-labourer, with parish allowance for a time, and the parish workhouse at last! He who lives by the wages of daily labour, and can only live upon those wages, without laying up store for the morrow, is spending his capital; a time must come when it will fail; in the road which he must travel, the poor-house is the last stage on the way to the grave. Hence it arises, as a natural result, that, looking to the parish as his ultimate resource, and as that to which he must come at last, he cares not how soon he applies to it. There is neither hope nor pride to withhold him: why should he deny himself any indulgence in youth, or why make any efforts to put off for a little while that which is inevitable at the end? That the labouring poor feel thus, and reason thus, and act in conse

quence, is beyond all doubt; and, if the landholders were to count up what they have gained by throwing their estates into large farms, and what they have lost by the increase in the poor-rates, of which that system has been one great cause, they would have little reason to congratulate themselves on the result. The system which produces the happiest moral effects will be found also most beneficial to the interest of the individual and to the general weal: upon this basis the science of political economy will rest at last, when the ponderous volumes with which it has been overlaid shall have sunk by their own weight into the dead sea of oblivion.”*

These sentiments are liberal, benevolent, and statesmanlike. There is a grandeur in them worthy of the philosopher and the legislator. But the men whose opinions we are investigating "come with the spirit of shop-keepers to frame rules for the administration of kingdoms;" and, if the pecuniary cost of production be somewhat diminished, they care not how much the moral cost is increased.‡

But the most striking instance of contempt for the happiness of man is to be found in the new theory of population. Under this system, a few are to riot in luxury, while the rest of mankind are to pine in indigence, or perish in despair. Manual labour being in a great measure dispensed with by another part of the system, the poor man is voted to be first a useless burden, and then a vile nuisance. This is by far the most detestable part of the system. Cupidity may overcome the natural sensibility of our nature; the selfish feelings may be frequently too powerful for the benevolent ones. The love of accumulation may make men not very delicate as to the means; but this is the first and only system, since

"That all true glory rests

All praise, all safety, and all happiness,
Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes;
Tyre, by the margin of the sounding waves;

Palmyra, central in the desert, fell;

And the arts died by which they had been raised.
-Call Archimedes from his buried tomb

Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse,
And feelingly the sage shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is that Philosophy, whose sway is formed
For mere material instruments: How weak
Those Arts, and high Inventions, if unpropp'd
By Virtue."

WORDSWORTH.

the creation of the world, which ever sought to render men selfish upon principle; which taught them that charity was criminal, and that, by persecuting the poor, they were doing the state service. Surely such a doctrine requires only to be exposed to be abhorred. Degrees in wealth and comfort there will be, and perfect equality of property is but the dream of fools, or the cant of knaves; but it is too much for those who are "clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day," to say to their indigent fellows,This world and its good things are for us, and you have "neither part nor lot in the matter;" and, when the famineworn wretch asks only to live, to tell him that he has no right to live, that the "table's full," and that "at nature's feast there is no room for him."+

A writer, already quoted,‡ has classed the discussions of poli

* The system of those metaphysicians, who refer all actions to selflove, affords no exception to this remark; for even these persons have recommended benevolence as condueing to self-gratification.

Massinger, no less than a hundred and fifty years ago, seems to have anticipated the character of a Malthusian philosopher in the person of LUKE, in his comedy of the City Madam. I will sit

Luke.

Alone, and surfeit in my store, while others
With envy pine at it. My genius pamper'd

With the thought of what I am, and what they suffer

I have marked out to miserie.-Act 5, scene 1.

Your servants, debtors, and the rest that suffer
By your fit severity, I presume the sight
Would move you to compassion.

Luke.

Not a mote.

The musick that yon Orpheus made was harsh
To the delight I should receive in hearing

Their cries and groans.

Ha, ha, ha!
This move me to compassion? or raise
One sign of seeming pity in my face?
You are deceived: it rather renders me
More flinty and obdurate. A south wind
Shall sooner soften marbles, and the rain
That slides down gently from his flaggy wings
O'erflow the Alps, than knees, or tears, or groans,
Shall wrest compunction from me. 'Tis my glory
That they are wretched, and by me made so;
It sets my happiness off. I could not triumph,
If these were not my captives.

Quarterly Reviewer.

tical economists with the scholastic questions, which were agitated in the middle ages. Inasmuch as they are idle and useless, they are worthy of the association; but, as they tend to the destruction of all the charities of life, to set man against his fellows, and render him selfish, reckless, and cruel;-as they are calculated not merely to impoverish the stream of benevolence, but to dry up the spring;-they deserve to be classed with the most immoral productions that ever issued from the press.

LYRICAL STANZAS.

I HEARD the melody of sound
Breathe like the roses' soft perfume,
Brought, by the wafting air around,
From the adjoining room.

I rose to see who 'twas that played, –
I saw two earthly angels there,
Bright as gay Flora, when arrayed
In all the full-flush'd year.

One lady was in purest white,
Possess'd of every Grecian grace;
Glanc'd sprightliness, like living light,
Her motion, speech, and face.

She is a lady full of mirth,

Of wit and raillery,

A smiling Venus upon earth
For laughing gaiety.

But there's a charm belongs to her,
By Cytherea unpossest,

Which shines o'er every beauty far,
And makes a lover blest.

But ask the moon,-she will explain
The poet's mystic measure;
None, save the ladies of this strain,
Possess such vestal treasure.