its publication has now subsided, it will always be read with delight by such as are not insensible of the high gratification which all ingenuous minds must feel in observing the ease with which a superior intellect clears away the irrelevant matter with which a question has been designedly embarrassed, reduces false facts to their just value, and traces and exhibits the constant operation of the same general principle through all the mazy intricacies of practical detail.

The merit of these pamphlets was duly appreciated; and Mr Ricardo's society was, in consequence, courted by men of the first eminence, who were not less pleased with his modesty, and unassuming manners, than with the vigour of his understanding. He formed, about this time, that intimacy with Mr Malthus, and Mr Mill, the historian of British India, which ended only with his death. To the latter he was particularly attached, and readily acknowledged how much he owed to his friendship.

Mr Ricardo next appeared as an author in 1815, during the discussions on the bill, afterwards passed into a law, for raising the limit at which foreign corn might be imported for consumption, to 80s. Mr Malthus, and a "Fellow of University College, Oxford," (afterwards Sir Edward West), had, by a curious coincidence, in tracts published almost consentaneously, elucidated the true theory of rent, which, though discovered by Dr Anderson as early as 1777, appears to have been entirely forgotten. But neither of these gentlemen perceived the bearing of the theory on the question in regard to the restriction of the importation of foreign corn. This was reserved for Mr Ricardo, who, in his "Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock," showed the effect of an increase in the price of raw produce on wages and profits; and founded a strong argument in favour of the freedom of the corn trade, on the very grounds on which Mr Malthus had endeavoured to show the propriety of subjecting it to fresh restrictions.

In 1816, Mr Ricardo published his "Proposals for an

Economical and Secure Currency, with Observations on the Profits of the Bank of England." In this pamphlet he examined the circumstances which determine the value of money, when every individual has the power to supply it, and when that power is restricted or placed under a monopoly; and he showed that, in the former case, its value will depend, like that of all other freely supplied articles, on its cost; while in the latter, it will be unaffected by that circumstance, and will depend on the extent to which it may be issued compared with the demand. This is a principle of great importance; for, it shows that intrinsic worth is not necessary to a currency, and that, provided the supply of paper notes, declared to be legal tender, be sufficiently limited, their value may be maintained on a par with the value of gold, or raised to any higher level. If, therefore, it were practicable to devise a plan for preserving the value of paper on a level with that of gold, without making it convertible into coin at the pleasure of the holder, the heavy expense of a metallic currency would be saved. To effect this desirable object, Mr Ricardo proposed that, instead of being made exchangeable for gold coins, bank notes should be made exchangeable for bars of gold bullion of the standard weight and purity. This plan, than which nothing can be more simple, was obviously fitted to check the over-issue of paper quite as effectually as it is checked by making it convertible into coin; while, as bars could not be used as currency, it prevented any gold from getting into circulation, and consequently saved the expenses of coinage, and the wear and tear, and loss of coins. Mr Ricardo's proposal was recommended by the Committees of the Houses of Lords and Commons appointed, in 1819, to consider the expediency of the Bank of England resuming cash payments; and was afterwards adopted in the bill for their resumption introduced by Mr (now Sir Robert) Peel. In practice it was found completely to answer the object of checking over-issue. But inasmuch as it required that the place of sovereigns should be filled with one pound

notes, the forgery of the latter began to be extensively carried on; and it was wisely judged better to incur the expense of recurring to and keeping up a mixed currency, than to continue a plan which, though productive of a large saving, held out an all but irresistible temptation to crime.

At length, in 1817, Mr Ricardo published his great work on the "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND TAXATION." This was a step which he did not take without much hesitation. He was not, and did not affect to be, insensible of the value of literary and philosophical reputation; but his modesty always led him to undervalue his own powers; and having acquired a very high degree of celebrity as a writer on currency, he was unwilling to risk what he already possessed, by attempting to gain more. Ultimately, however, he was prevailed upon, by the entreaties of his friends, to allow his work to be sent to press. Its appearance forms a memorable æra in the history of political science. Exclusive of many valuable subsidiary inquiries, Mr Ricardo has pointed out, in this work, the source and limiting principle of exchangeable value, and has traced the laws which determine the distribution of wealth among the various ranks and orders of society. The powers of mind displayed in these investigations, the dexterity with which the most abstruse questions are unravelled, the sagacity displayed in tracing the operation of general principles, in disentangling them from such as are of a secondary and accidental nature, and in perceiving and estimating their remote consequences, have never been surpassed; and will for ever secure the name of Ricardo a conspicuous place among those who have done most to unfold the mechanism of society, and to discover the circumstances on which the well-being of its various orders must always mainly depend.

Mr Ricardo maintains, in this work, the fundamental principle, that the exchangeable value of commodities or their relative worth, as compared with each other, de

pends exclusively on the quantities of labour necessarily required to produce them, and bring them to market. Smith had shown that this principle determined the value of commodities in the earlier stages of society, before land had been appropriated and capital accumulated; but he supposed that, after land had become property and rent began to be paid, and after capital had been amassed and workmen began to be hired by capitalists, the value of commodities fluctuated not only according to variations in the labour required to produce and bring them to market, but also according to variations of rents and wages. But Mr Ricardo has shown that this theory is erroneous, and that the value of commodities is determined in all states of society by the same principle, or by the quantity of labour required for their production. He showed that variations of profits or wages, by affecting different commodities to the same, or nearly the same, extent, would either have no influence over their exchangeable value, or if they had any, it would depend upon the degree in which they occasionally affect some products more than others. And Dr Anderson and others having already shown that rent is not an element of cost or value, it follows that the cost or value of all freely produced commodities, the supply of which may be indefinitely increased (abstracting from temporary variations of supply and demand), depends wholly on the quantity of labour required for their production, and not upon the rate at which that labour may be paid; so that, supposing the labour required to produce any number of commodities to remain constant, their cost and value will also remain constant, whether wages fall from 3s. to 1s., or rise from 3s. to 5s. or 7s. a-day. This is the fundamental theorem of the science of value, and the clue which unravels the intricate labyrinth of the laws which regulate the distribution of wealth. Its discovery has shed a flood of light on what was previously shrouded in all but impenetrable mystery, and the apparently knotty and hitherto insoluble questions regarding the action of wages and profits on each other and

on prices, have since ceased to present any insuperable difficulties. What the researches of Locke and Smith did for the production of wealth, those of Ricardo have done for its value and distribution.

The establishment of general principles being Mr Ricardo's great object, he has paid comparatively little attention to their practical application, and sometimes, indeed, he has in great measure overlooked the circumstances by which they are occasionally countervailed. In illustration of this we may mention, that society being laid under the necessity of constantly resorting to inferior soils to obtain additional supplies of food, Mr Ricardo lays it down that, in the progress of society, raw produce and wages have a constant tendency to rise and profits to fall. And this, no doubt, is in the abstract true. But it must at the same time be observed, that while on the one hand society is obliged constantly to resort to inferior soils, agriculture is on the other hand susceptible of indefinite improvement; and this improvement necessarily in so far countervails the decreasing fertility of the soil; and may, and in fact very frequently does, more than countervail it. Mr Ricardo has also very generally overlooked the influence of increased prices in diminishing consumption and stimulating industry, so that his conclusions, though true according to his assumptions, do not always harmonise with what really takes place. But his is not a practical work; and it did not enter into his plan to exhibit the circumstances that give rise to the discrepancies in question. The "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" is not even a systematic treatise, but is principally an inquiry respecting certain fundamental principles, most of which had previously been undiscovered. And though it be often exceedingly difficult, or, it may be, all but impossible, to estimate the extent to which these principles may in certain cases be modified by other principles and combinations of circumstances, it is obviously of the greatest importance to have ascertained their existence. They are so many land-marks to which to refer,