continue to resort to Paris in vast numbers, and go the usual round of sights and introductions: occasionally take part with Ultras or with Liberals, with Bonapartists, with Bourbonists; but few have thought of inquiring what sort of thing the People of France actually is at this moment?-we do not mean the politicians of Paris only, but the thirty millions of souls which compose the population of the kingdom. We have lately taken some pains to inform ourselves upon this great question-and shall now lay before our readers the sum of the knowledge we have acquired. A very large proportion of the French nation, composed of mere country labourers, found themselves unexpectedly raised to the rank of Proprietors by the sale of national lands in small parcels at the beginning of the Revolution. A prodigious impulse was given to industry by this change of situation; and the love of property it originally produced has continued ever since to increase. The competition for the acquisition of land is such, that a farm in the neighbourhood of any village, if sold in small lots, is sure to bring a considerable advance of price. There are instances of sales at the rate of 80 or even 100 years' purchase the new proprietor depending for his subsistence in a great degree on the produce of his personal labour and that of his family. Children usually inherit equal shares of the paternal property, although the law allows the father to dispose of one-third if he leaves only two children, and one-fourth if he leaves a greater number. This is another and a constantly increasing principle of division of property, and with it of popu lation, every fractional proprietor thinking he can marry upon his small patrimony. A change, no less important, has taken place in the condition of Artificers: the Gothic system of corporate bodies of tradesmen (Jurandes et Maîtrises) endowed with exclusive privileges, was abolished at the Revolution, as well as the regular course of apprenticeship, companionship, &c. Society has so far gained, that natural abilities, and superior industry have freer scope, and the skilful and the strong win the race easier than they would have done otherwise at the same time that those of inferior capacity are sooner distanced. Some of the old regulations were tyrannical and absurd: they might have been amended with evident benefit; but it is not certain that the public or the workmen themselves have gained upon the whole by their indiscriminate abolition. The continental system had given to French industry a mo nopoly which some of the great manufactories established under EDINBURGH: Printed by David Willison, FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH: AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME AND BROWN, LONDON. 1820. CONTENTS OF No. LXVIII. ART. I. The Comedies of Aristophanes. By T. Mitchell, A. M. late Fellow of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge. Vol. I. p. 271 II. 1. Whitelaw's History of the City of Dublin. 3. Gamble's Views of Society in Ireland III. An Account of Experiments for Determining the Va- IV. Poems. By Bernard Barton V. The Transactions of the Horticultural Society of Lon- VII. Recherches sur les Bibliotheques Anciennes et Modernes jusqu'à la Fondation de la Bibliotheque Mazarine, et sur les Causes qui ont favorisé l'Accroissement successif du Nombre des Livres. Par L. C. F. Petit Radel, Membre de l'Institut de France, &c. &c. VI. Mademoiselle de Tournon, par l'Auteur d'Adèle de 372 320 VIII. Journals of two Expeditions into the Interior of New 338 348 357 383 4.22 |