"Pon mente al temerario ardir di Serse,
Che fece per calear i nostri liti
Di nuovi ponti oltraggio alla marina;
E vedrai nella morte de' mariti
Tutte vestite a brun le donne Perse,
Etinto in vosso il mar di Salamina:

E non pur questa misera ruina
Del popolo infelice d'oriente
Vittoria ten' promette,

Ma Maratona e le mortali strette
Che difese il Leon con poca gente,
Ed altre mille a' hai scoltate e lette.
Perchè inchinar a Dio Molto conviene
Le ginocchia e la mente,

Che gli anni tuoi riserva a tanto bene."

"And turn thy thoughts to Xerxes' rash emprize,
Who dared, in haste to tread our Europe's shore,
Insult the sea with bridge, and strange caprice;
And thou shalt see for husbands then no more
The Persian matrons robed in mournful guise,
And dyed with blood the seas of Salamis."

Nor sole example this:

"(The ruin of that Eastern King's design),
That tells of vict'ry nigh:

See Marathon, and stern Thermopyle,

Closed by those few, and chieftain leonine,
And thousand deeds that blaze in history.
Then bow in thankfulness both heart and knee
Before His holy shrine,

Who such bright guardian hath reserved for thee."

The parallel between Dante and Petrarch is the most original part of the book; it discovers a clear and discriminating apprehension of the distinctive peculiarities of these two great Poets, with a judicious preference of the stern sublimity of the Inferno, to the soft and finished elegance of the love-chants of Vaucluse. One of the most unpleasing traits in Petrarch's character is his constant habit of speaking contemptuously, or at least coldly, of his great and unfortunate predecessor; and it is the more remarkable, because with respect to every one else, no man that ever belonged to the genus irritabile displayed a more perfect freedom from that petty jealousy, which is the original blot and humiliation in human genius. It is impossible not to believe that this must have proceeded from a secret and deep feeling of the real superiority of the man, who thus forced him to acknowledge his own comparative weakness, by an ebullition of

envy, which no contemporary had strength to excite within his breast.

They were, indeed, different and very opposite characters by nature; the difference was confirmed and made ineffaceable by the different circumstances of their lives. Misfortune changed the quiet dignity of the one into sternness and severity; constant prosperity melted the philosophical calm of the other into softness and languor. Persecution, and poverty, and exile, exasperated the first; favour, and riches, and honour, infected and weakened the second. The Author of the Divina Comedia, was struck to the heart by the arrows of tyranny; he retired from his native country under an edict of perpetual banishment; he was never suffered to be at rest; he was dogged and insulted, and outraged, wherever he went; he met all this with an unconquerable pride; he opposed enmity with hatred; he concentred all his mental force into one profound habit of fierce endurance, and thirst of revenge; and when his foes pursued his solitary steps with the slanders and the malignant missiles of faction,

"Egli rosa à diceva alcuna cosa:
Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardardo,
A guisa di Leon, guardo sí posa."

Petrarch maintained throughout his life a reputation and an influence unprecedented in the annals of literary men ; he was the friend and counsellor of Princes, Kings, and Republics; he was feared and yet courted by Pope after Pope; he refused bishoprics and repeated offers of high secular offices; he died with the reputation of a saint, for whom heaven performed miracles; and the Venetian Senate made a law against those who purloined his bones, and sold them as relics! Yet Petrarch was more unhappy than the undaunted Dante; who was excommunicated after his death, and his remains threatened to be disinterred and burnt, and their ashes scattered to the wind! He cherished a reluctance to active life, and indulged immoderately in contemplation and solitude; but his contemplations were broken and restless, and his solitude peopled with the visionary phantoms of his agitated imagination. He was ever straining after a moral perfection, which neither himself could reach nor others understand; he was vexed and chagreened at the discrepancy which he saw between the actual state of the world and his own notions of what he thought it ought to be; he became troubled and anxious in his mind, and fearful of the insufficiency of all human endeavours to appease the anger

or satisfy the justice of the All-seeing Being. Twenty-six years after her death, his love for Laura still survived; it had become a natural habit, and which was necessary to his being, though it overshadowed the evening of his life with a mixed sensation of melancholy, pain, and regret.

Petrarch retired to Arqua, near Padua, some time before his death. He was found on the eve of the 70th anniversary of his birth, on the 20th day of January, 1374, in his library, lifeless and unconvulsed, with his laurelled head resting on a book!

ART. IV. An Address to the Members of the House of Commons, upon the Necessity of Reforming our Financial System, and establishing an efficient Sinking Fund for the Reduction of the National Debt; with the outline of a Plan for that Purpose. By one of themselves. Richardson, London, 1822.

ART. V. A Plan for reducing the Capital and the Annual charge of the National Debt; humbly submitted to the Consideration of Members of Parliament. By John Brickwood, Jun. London, 1822.

If there be any truth in the ancient adage, that "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety," it is next to impossible, that our Rulers should ever fall into error, or incur the chance of danger. Besides that numerous and very willing class of advisers who labour in our own vocation, and who are professionally bound to know all that is knowable on every subject which may happen to invite public attention, there is a large host of eager politicians, who, not possessing the convenient means which are placed in our hands for communicating opinions and tendering instruction to their betters, feel themselves impelled by the love of their country, to interpose their exertions between it, and the ruin with which it appears to be threatened, in the form of very learned, but extremely mystical pamphlets.

The ingenious author of "Richesses Commerciales," very justly observes, that on all great national emergencies, "chacun doit aw bien public le tribut de ses reflexions." We heartily approve the spirit of this maxim; and are accordingly pleased to find, that so many of our contemporaries are influenced at the present moment, by the patriotic desire

of correcting errors into which it is apprehended the inexperience of statesmen may have betrayed them; and of recommending a safer policy, of which the country may be said to have at once purchased the knowledge, and discovered the necessity, by the severe losses which it has incurred.

Before we proceed to state the objects contemplated by the two authors, whose ephemeral productions are named at the head of this article, we have a few preliminary considerations to state for the reflexion of our readers; which, if viewed in a proper light, will at once reconcile them to this species of discussion on the part of mere students and recluse theorists, such as most of the persons usually are, who, in these days write on financial subjects, and also relieve their apprehensions in regard to the pecuniary embarrassments and political catastrophes, which have been so long predicted, as always about to overwhelm this great and happy country.

In the first place, with respect to the description of writers, who take upon them to review the measures of statesmen, and to recommend to them new schemes of policy, we shall find that we have no just reason for refusing such persons a patient hearing, and far less for scouting their proposals, when he calls to mind that the celebrated piece of financial apparatus, known by the name of the Sinking Fund, was constructed and set up in the Treasury Chambers of this enlightened nation, and that too, by one of the ablest men that ever presided over its affairs, according to a plan which was furnished him by a dissenting minister! Dr. Price was unquestionably a man of genius as well as a resjectable mathematician. His work on Reversionary Paynents, possessed of considerable merit in itself, was extremely seasonable at the time it appeared, and proved of inalculable benefit to the public, already so much interested in he stability of those numerous insurance establishments, which at the period in question, began to obtain a footing in every part of the country. The name of Price imme diatel, rose as one of the first authorities in the kingdom, in regard to all matters connected with money calculations; and as Mr. Pitt neglected no opportunity of promoting the welfare of the nation, he did not think it inconsistent with the dignit of the high office which he held, to consult with a private individual, relative to the best method of introducing into the business of the State, that improved system of assurance nd redemption, which promised so many happy results on a smaller scale to the associations to which we have just duded.

Our readers are aware that Dr. Price, after rejecting the scheme devised by Mr. Pitt, proposed for the consideration of the Premier three separate plans, any one of which was understood to serve as the basis and outline of a Sinking Fund. There was a gradation pointed out as subsisting in the powers of these several schemes and Mr. Pitt it is said, chose the least efficient, as being in his estimation, the best suited to the actual resources of the country. In the whole transaction, which is detailed at some length by Mr. Morgan, the Divine appears sanguine and enthusiastic : urges with confidence the adoption of principles, which are much more remarkable for their boldness than for either their wisdom or their safety; and rejects with a certain degree of scornful impatience, all consideration of the inconvenience, which, as Mr. Pitt foresaw, could not fail to result from a too rapid accumulation of the redeemed debt. It is enough, however, to keep in mind that the Sinking Fund established by our great statesman, in the year 1786, was founded on a scheme furnished by Dr. Price. The zeal, the patriotism, and the skill necessary for superintending its operations, belonged of course to Mr. Pitt; but all the responsibility attached to the principle of that complicated instrument, and consequently all the merit arising from its success, are connected with the name of the dissenting teacher at Hackney.

The merit now spoken of, be it great or small, will be less ardently contested in the present age, than it would have been thirty years ago. It is no longer a secret, that the thaumaturgic properties of the Sinking Fund were greatl over-rated; that the use of it has been gradually restricte, and at length finally relinquished, as being useless in pere and mischievous in war: and that, both in Parliament nd out of it, all men agree in the opinion that the debts of a nation, like the debts of an individual, can only be pail by the simple expedient of making the outlay less that the income, and by regularly and constantly appropriating the difference to meet the claims of creditors. The mawels of compound interest can no longer amuse even the most ignorant financier. The mere rapidity of transfers at the Stock Exchange, has lost all power to sustain the hopes of the most credulous; and the legerdemain of Dr. Prie, who undertook to pay off the National Debt at a small expence, and no possible risk, has found its place among t'ose antiquated absurdities, wbich men throw aside with a mixed sentimeut of contempt and surprise, as to how .hey should ever have been received.