Page images
PDF
EPUB

duty and enjoyment, and of the just and ultimate sweet or majestic in the simple aspect of nature that subordination of the former to the latter.' This was indestructible love of flowers and odours, and dews a vocation of high mark and responsibility, and on and clear waters-and soft airs and sounds, and bright the whole the critic discharged his duty with honour skies, and woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, and success. As a moral writer he was unimpeach- which are the material elements of poetry-and that able. The principles of his criticism are generally fine sense of their undefinable relation to mental emosound and elevated. In some instances he was harsh tion, which is its essence and vivifying soul-and and unjust. His reviews of Southey, Wordsworth, which, in the midst of Shakspeare's most busy and Lamb, and Montgomery, are indefensible, inasmuch atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks as the writer seems intent on finding fault rather and ruins-contrasting with all that is rugged and rethan in discovering beauties, and to be more piqued pulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer with occasional deviation from established and con- and brighter elements-which he alone has poured out ventional rules, than gratified with originality of from the richness of his own mind without effort or thought and indications of true genius. No excuse restraint, and contrived to intermingle with the play can be offered for the pertness and flippancy of ex- of all the passions, and the vulgar course of this pression in which many of these critiques abound, world's affairs, without deserting for an instant the and their author has himself expressed his regret proper business of the scene, or appearing to pause or for the undue severity into which he was betrayed. digress from love of ornament or need of repose; he There is some ground, therefore, for charging upon alone, who, when the subject requires it, is always the Edinburgh Review, in its earlier career, an ab- keen, and worldly, and practical, and who yet, withsence of proper respect and enthusiasm for the works out changing his hand, or stopping his course, scatters of living genius. Where no prejudice or prepos- around him as he goes all sounds and shapes of session of the kind intervened, Jeffrey was an ad- sweetness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal mirable critic. His dissertations on the works of fragrance and freshness, and peoples them with spirits Cowper, Crabbe, Byron, Scott, and Campbell, and of glorious aspect and attractive grace, and is a thouon the earlier and greater lights of our poetry, as sand times more full of imagery and splendour than well as those on moral science, national manners, those who, for the sake of such qualities, have shrunk and views of actual life, are expressed with great back from the delineation of character or passion, and eloquence and originality, and in a fine spirit of declined the discussion of human duties and cares. humanity. His powers of perception and analysis More full of wisdom, and ridicule, and sagacity, than all the moralists and satirists in existence, he is more are quick, subtle, and penetrating, and withal comprehensive; while his brilliant imagination invested wild, airy, and inventive, and more pathetic and fansubjects that in ordinary hands would have been tastic, than all the poets of all regions and ages of the dry and uninviting, with strong interest and attrac-world; and has all those elements so happily mixed tion. He seldom gave full scope to his feelings and sympathies, but they occasionally broke forth with inimitable effect, and kindled up the pages of his criticism. At times, indeed, his language is poetical in a high degree. The following glowing tribute to the universal genius of Shakspeare is worthy of the subject:

Many persons are very sensible of the effect of fine poetry upon their feelings, who do not well know how to refer these feelings to their causes; and it is always a delightful thing to be made to see clearly the sources from which our delight has proceeded, and to trace the mingled stream that has flowed upon our hearts to the remoter fountains from which it has been gathered; and when this is done with warmth as well as precision, and embodied in an eloquent description of the beauty which is explained, it forms one of the most attractive, and not the least instructive, of literary exercises. In all works of merit, however, and especially in all works of original genius, there are a thousand retiring and less obtrusive graces, which escape hasty and superficial observers, and only give out their beauties to fond and patient contemplation; a thousand slight and harmonising touches, the merit and the effect of which are equally imperceptible to vulgar eyes; and a thousand indications of the continual presence of that poetical spirit which can only be recognised by those who are in some measure under its influence, and have prepared themselves to receive it, by worshipping meekly at the shrines which it inhabits.

In the exposition of these there is room enough for originality, and more room than Mr Hazlitt has yet filled. In many points, however, he has acquitted himself excellently; particularly in the development of the principal characters with which Shakspeare has peopled the fancies of all English readers-but principally, we think, in the delicate sensibility with which he has traced, and the natural eloquence with which he has pointed out, that familiarity with beautiful forms and images-that eternal recurrence to what is

up in him, and bears his high faculties so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensiin him is in unmeasured abundance and unequalled tive for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything perfection; but everything so balanced and kept in subordination as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and descriptions, are given with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn without loading the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple, and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his voyage, not less, but more rapidly and directly, than if they had been composed of baser materials. All his excellences, like those of Nature herself, are thrown out together; and instead of interfering with, support and recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his fruits crushed into baskets, but spring living from the soil, in all the dew and freshness of youth; while the graceful foliage in which they lurk, and the ample branches, the rough and vigorous stem, and the wide-spreading roots on which they depend, are present along with them, and share, in their places, the equal care of their Creator.

Of the invention of the steam-engine he remarks with a rich felicity of illustration-It has become a thing stupendous alike for its force and its flexibility-for the prodigious power which it can exert, and the ease, and precision, and ductility with which it can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal before itdraw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift up a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin and forge anchors, cut steel into ribbons, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.'

How just, also, and how finely expressed, is the following refutation of a vulgar error that even

[ocr errors]

The Critical and Historical Essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review, by T. B. MACAULAY, three volumes, 1843, have enjoyed great popularity, and materially aided the Review, both as to immediate success and permanent value. The reading and erudition of the author are immense. In questions of classical learning and criticism-in English poetry, philosophy, and history-in all the minutiae of biography and literary anecdote-in the principles and details of government-in the revolutions of parties and opinions-in the progress of science and philosophy-in all these he seems equally versant and equally felicitous as a critic. Perhaps he is most striking and original in his historical articles, which

Byron condescended to sanction, namely, that genius rence on that judicial seat which has derived inis a source of peculiar unhappiness to its possessors: creased celebrity from his demeanour-a youth of -Men of truly great powers of mind have gene-enterprise-a manhood of brilliant success — and rally been cheerful, social, and indulgent; while a honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," entendency to sentimental whining or fierce intole- circling his later years-mark him out for venerarance may be ranked among the surest symptoms of tion to every son of that country whose name he little souls and inferior intellects. In the whole list has exalted throughout Europe. We need not speak of our English poets we can only remember Shen- here of those graces of mind and of character that stone and Savage-two certainly of the lowest-who have thrown fascination over his society, and made were querulous and discontented. Cowley, indeed, his friendship a privilege.'* used to call himself melancholy; but he was not in earnest, and at any rate was full of conceits and affectations, and has nothing to make us proud of him. Shakspeare, the greatest of them all, was evidently of a free and joyous temperament; and so was Chaucer, their common master. The same disposition appears to have predominated in Fletcher, Jonson, and their great contemporaries. The genius of Milton partook something of the austerity of the party to which he belonged, and of the controversies in which he was involved; but even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues, his spirit seems to have retained its serenity as well as its dignity; and in his private life, as well as in his poetry, the majesty of a high character is tempered with great sweet-present complete pictures of the times of which he ness, genial indulgences, and practical wisdom. In the succeeding age our poets were but too gay; and though we forbear to speak of living authors, we know enough of them to say with confidence, that to be miserable or to be hated is not now, any more than heretofore, the common lot of those who excel.' Innumerable observations of this kind, remarkable for ease and grace, and for original reflection, may be found scattered through Lord Jeffrey's critiques. His political remarks and views of public events are equally discriminating, but of course will be judged of according to the opinions of the reader. None will be found at variance with national honour or morality, which are paramount to all mere party questions. As a literary critic, we may advert to the singular taste and judgment which Lord Jeffrey exercised in making selections from the works he reviewed, and interweaving them, as it were, with the text of his criticism. Whatever was picturesque, solemn, pathetic, or sublime, caught his eye, and was thus introduced to a new and vastly-extended circle of readers, besides furnishing matter for various collections of extracts and innumerable school exercises.

Francis Jeffrey is a native of Edinburgh, the son of a respectable writer or attorney. After completing his education at Oxford, and passing through the necessary legal studies, he was admitted a member of the Scottish bar in the year 1794. His eloquence and intrepidity as an advocate were not less conspicuous than his literary talents, and in 1829 he was, by the unanimous suffrages of his legal brethren, elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. On the formation of Earl Grey's ministry in 1830, Mr Jeffrey was nominated to the first office under the crown in Scotland (Lord Advocate), and sat for some time in parliament. In 1834 he was elevated to the dignity of the bench, the duties of which he has discharged with such undeviating attention, uprightness, and ability, that no Scottish judge was ever perhaps more popular, more trusted, or more beloved. has been his enviable lot, if not to attain all the prizes of ambition for which men strive, at least to unite in himself those qualities which, in many, would have secured them all. A place in the front rank of literature in the most literary age-the highest honour of his profession spontaneously conferred by the members of a bar strong in talent and learning eloquence among the first of our orators, and wisdom among the wisest, and universal reve

It

treats, adorned with portraits of the principal actors, and copious illustrations of contemporary events and characters in other countries. His reviews of Hallam's Constitutional History, and the memoirs of Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, Sir Robert Walpole, Sir William Temple, Sir Walter Raleigh, &c. contain a series of brilliant and copious historical retrospects unequalled in our literature. His eloquent papers on Lord Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, Horace Walpole's Letters, Boswell's Johnson, Addison's Memoirs, and other philosophical and literary subjects, are also of first-rate excellence. Whatever topic he takes up he fairly exhausts-nothing is left to the imagination, and the most ample curiosity is gratified. Mr Macaulay is a party politician-a strong admirer of the old Whigs, and well-disposed towards the Roundheads and Covenanters. At times he appears to identify himself too closely with those politicians of a former age, and to write as with a strong personal antipathy against their opponents. His judgments are occasionally harsh and uncharitable, even when founded on undoubted facts. In arrang ing his materials for effect, he is a consummate master. Some of his scenes and parallels are managed with the highest artistical art, and his language, like his conceptions, is picturesque. In style Mr Macaulay is stately and rhetorical-perhaps too florid and gorgeous, at least in his earlier essays-but it is sustained with wonderful power and energy. In this particular, as well as in other mental characteristics, the reviewer bears some resemblance to Gibbon. His knowledge is as universal, his imagination as rich and creative, and his power of condensation as remarkable. Both have made sacrifices in taste, candour, and generosity, for purposes of immediate effect; but the living author is unquestionably far superior to his great prototype in the soundness of his philosophy and the purity of his aspirations and principles.

WILLIAM HOWITT, &c.

WILLIAM HOWITT, a popular miscellaneous writer, has written some delightful works illustrative of the calendar of nature.' His Book of the Seasons, 1832, presents us with the picturesque and poetic features of the months, and all the objects and appearances which each presents in the garden, the field, and the

*North British Review for 1844.

[ocr errors]

waters. An enthusiastic lover of his subject, Mr Howitt is remarkable for the fulness and variety of his pictorial sketches, the richness and purity of his fancy, and the occasional force and eloquence of his style. If I could but arouse in other minds,' he says, that ardent and ever-growing love of the beautiful works of God in the creation, which I feel in myself—if I could but make it in others what it has been to me

The nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being-

if I could open to any the mental eye which can never be again closed, but which finds more and more clearly revealed before it beauty, wisdom, and peace in the splendours of the heavens, in the majesty of seas and mountains, in the freshness of winds, the ever-changing lights and shadows of fair landscapes, the solitude of heaths, the radiant face of bright lakes, and the solemn depths of woods, then indeed should I rejoice. Oh that I could but touch a thousand bosoms with that melancholy which often visits mine, when I behold little children endeavouring to extract amusement from the very dust, and straws, and pebbles of squalid alleys, shut out from the free and glorious countenance of nature, and think how differently the children of the peasantry are passing the golden hours of childhood; wandering with bare heads and unshod feet, perhaps, but singing a "childish wordless melody" through vernal lanes, or prying into a thousand sylvan leafy nooks, by the liquid music of running waters, amidst the fragrant heath, or on the flowery lap of the meadow, occupied with winged wonders without end. Oh that I could but baptize every heart with the sympathetic feeling of what the citypent child is condemned to lose; how blank, and poor, and joyless must be the images which fill its infant bosom to that of the country one, whose

mind

Will be a mansion for all lovely forms,
His memory be a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies!

I feel, however, an animating assurance that nature will exert a perpetually-increasing influence, not only as a most fertile source of pure and substantial pleasures — pleasures which, unlike many others, produce, instead of satiety, desire-but also as a great moral agent: and what effects I anticipate from this growing taste may be readily inferred, when I avow it as one of the most fearless articles of my creed, that it is scarcely possible for a man in whom its power is once firmly established to become utterly debased in sentiment or abandoned in principle. His soul may be said to be brought into

habitual union with the Author of Nature

Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind.

Mr Howitt belongs to the Society of Friends, though he has ceased to wear their peculiar costume. He is a native of Derbyshire, and was for several years in business at Nottingham. A work, the nature of which is indicated by its name, the History of Priestcraft (1834), so recommended him to the Dissenters and reformers of that town, that he was made one of their aldermen. Disliking the bustle of public life, Mr Howitt retired from Nottingham, and resided for three years at Esher, in Surrey. There he composed his Rural Life in England, a popular and delightful work. In 1838 appeared his Colonisation and Christianity, which led to the formation of the British India Society, and to improve

Mr

ment in the management of our colonies. Howitt afterwards published The Boys' Country Book, and Visits to Remarkable Places, the latter (to which a second series has been added) descriptive of old halls, battle-fields, and the scenes of striking passages in English history and poetry. Mr and Mrs Howitt now removed to Germany, and after three years' residence in that country, the former published a work on the Social and Rural Life of Germany, which the natives admitted to be the best account of that country ever written by a foreigner. Our industrious author has also translated a work written expressly for him, The StudentLife of Germany. The attention of Mr and Mrs Howitt having been drawn to the Swedish language and literature, they studied it with avidity; and Mrs Howitt has translated a series of tales by Frederika Bremer, which are characterised by great truth of feeling and description, and by a complete knowledge of human nature. These Swedish tales have been exceedingly popular, and now circulate extensively both in England and America.

JOHN CLAUDIUS LOUDON, &c.

JOHN CLAUDIUS LOUDON (1783-1843) stands at the head of all the writers of his day upon subjects connected with horticulture, and of the whole class of industrious compilers. He was a native of Cambuslang, in Lanarkshire, and pursuing in youth the bent of his natural faculties, entered life as a landscape-gardener, to which profession he subsequently added the duties of a farmer. Finally, he settled in London as a writer on his favourite subjects. His works were numerous and useful, and they form in their entire mass a wonderful monument of human industry. His chief productions are an Encyclopædia of Gardening, 1822; The Greenhouse Companion; an Encyclopædia of Agriculture, 1825; an Encyclopædia of Plants, 1829; an Encyclopædia of Cottage, Villa, and Farm Architecture, 1832; and Arboretum Britannicum, 8 volumes, 1838. The four encyclopædias are large volumes, each exhausting its particular subject, and containing numerous pictorial illustrations in wood. The 'Arboretum' is even a more remarkable production than any of these, consisting of four volumes of close letter-press, and four of pictorial illustrations, and presenting such a mass of information, as might apparently have been the work of half a lifetime to any ordinary man. tasks Mr Loudon was enabled to undertake and carry to completion by virtue of the unusual energy of his nature, notwithstanding considerable drawbacks from disease, and the failure, latterly, of some of his physical powers. In 1830 he married a lady of amiable character and literary talent, who entered with great spirit into his favourite pursuits. The separate publications of Mrs Loudon on subjects connected with botany, and for the general instruction of the young, are deservedly high in public estimation. It is painful to consider that the just reward of a life of extraordinary application and public usefulness, was reft from Mr Loudon by the consequences of the comparative non-success of the 'Arboretum,' which placed him considerably in debt. This misfortune preyed upon his mind, and induced the fatal pulmonary disease of which he died.

These vast

Essays on Natural History, by CHARLES WATERTON, Esq. of Walton Hall, is an excellent contribution made to natural history by a disinterested lover of the country; and Gleanings in Natural History, by EDWARD JESSE, Esq. surveyor of her majesty's parks and palaces, two volumes, 1838, is a collection of well-authenticated facts, related with the view of

portraying the character of animals, and endeavouring to excite more kindly feelings towards them. Some Scottish works of this kind are also deserving of commendation-as RHIND's Studies in Natural History; M'DIARMID's Sketches from Nature; MILLER'S Scenes and Legends, or Traditions of Cromarty; DUNCAN'S Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons, &c. A love of nature and observation of her various works are displayed in these local sketches, which all help to augment the general stock of our knowledge as well as our enjoyment.

The Thames and its Tributaries, two volumes, 1840, by CHARLES MACKAY, is a pleasing description of the scenes on the banks of the Thames, which are hallowed by the recollections of history, romance, and poetry. The same author has published (1841) Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.

ROBERT MUDIE (1777-1842), an indefatigable writer, self-educated, was a native of Forfarshire, and for some time connected with the London press. He wrote and compiled altogether about ninety volumes, including Babylon the Great, a Picture of Men and Things in London; Modern Athens, a sketch of Edinburgh society; The British Naturalist; The Feathered Tribes of Great Britain; A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature; two series of four volumes each, entitled The Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and the Air; and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; and next, Man: Physical, Moral, Social, and Intellectual; The World Described, &c. He furnished the letter-press to Gilbert's Modern Atlas, the "Natural History' to the British Cyclopædia, and numerous other contributions to periodical works. Mudie was a nervous and able writer, deficient in taste in works of light literature and satire, but an acute and philosophical observer of nature, and peculiarly happy in his geographical dissertations and works on natural history. His imagination could lighten up the driest details; but it was often too excursive and unbridled. His works were also hastily produced, to provide for the day that was passing over him;' but considering these disadvantages, his intellectual energy and acquirements were wonderful.

[ocr errors]

A record of English customs is preserved in Brand's Popular Antiquities, published, with additions, by SIR HENRY ELLIS, in two volumes quarto, in 1808; and in 1842 in two cheap portable volumes. The work relates to the customs at country wakes, sheep-shearings, and other rural practices, and is an admirable delineation of olden life and manners. The Every-day Book, Table Book, and Year Book, by WILLIAM HONE, published in 1833, in four large volumes, with above five hundred woodcut illustrations, form another calendar of popular English amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events incident to every day in the year. Mr Southey has said of these works-'I may take the opportunity of recommending the Everyday Book and Table Book to those who are interested in the preservation of our national and local customs: by these very curious publications their compiler has rendered good service in an important department of literature.'

[blocks in formation]

|

6

Bentham was a native of London, son of a wealthy solicitor, and was born on the 6th of February 1749. He was entered of Queen's college, Oxford, when only twelve years and a quarter old, and was even then known by the name of the philosopher.' He took his Master's degree in 1766, and afterwards studying the law in Lincoln's Inn, was called to the bar in 1772. He had a strong dislike to the legal profession, and never pleaded in public. His first literary performance was an examination of a pas sage in Blackstone's Commentaries, and was entitled A Fragment on Government, 1776. The work was prompted, as he afterwards stated, by a passion for improvement in those shapes in which the lot of mankind is meliorated by it.' His zeal was increased by a pamphlet which had been issued by Priestley. In the phrase "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," I then saw delineated,' says Bentham, for the first time, a plain as well as a true standard for whatever is right or wrong, useful, useless, or mischievous in human conduct, whether in the field of morals or of politics.' The phrase is a good one, whether invented by Priestley or Bentham; but it still leaves the means by which happiness is to be extended as undecided as ever, to be determined by the judgment and opinions of men. To insure it, Bentham considered it necessary to reconstruct the laws and government-to have annual parliaments and universal suffrage, secret voting, and a return to the ancient practice of paying wages to parliamentary representatives. In all his political writings this doctrine of utility, so understood, is the leading and pervading principle. In 1778 he published a pamphlet on The Hard Labour Bill, recommending an improvement in the mode of criminal punishment; Letters on Usury, 1787; Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Politics, 1789; Discourses on Civil and Penal Legislation, 1802; A Theory of Punishments and Rewards, 1811; A Treatise on Judicial Evidence, 1813; Paper Relative to Codification and Public Instruction, 1817; The Book of Fallacies, 1824, &c. By the death of his father in 1792, Bentham succeeded to property in London, and to farms in Essex, yielding from £500 to £600 a-year. He lived frugally, but with elegance, in one of his London houses-kept young men as secretaries-corresponded and wrote daily-and by a life of temperance and industry, with great self-complacency, and the society of a few devoted friends, the eccentric philosopher attained to the age of eighty-four. His various productions have been collected and edited by Dr John Bowring and Mr John Hill Burton, advocate, and published in 11 volumes. In his latter works Bentham adopted a peculiar uncouth style or nomenclature, which deters ordinary readers, and indeed has rendered his works almost a dead letter. Fortunately, however, part of them were arranged and translated into French by M. Dumont. Another disciple, Mr Mill, made known his principles at home; Sir Samuel Romilly criticised them in the Edinburgh Review, and Sir James Mackintosh in the ethical dissertation which he wrote for the Encyclopædia Britannica. In the science of legislation Bentham evinced a profound capacity and extensive knowledge: the error imputed to his speculations is that of not sufficiently weighing the various circumstances which require his rules to be modified in different countries and times, in order to render them either more useful, more easily introduced, more generally respected, or more certainly executed.' As an ethical philosopher, he carried his doctrine of utility to an extent which would be practically dangerous, if it were possible to make the bulk of mankind act upon a speculative theory.

ISAAC TAYLOR.

POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.

only on subjects connected with his favourite studies.
He died, much regretted by his friends, at his seat,
Gatcomb Park, in Gloucestershire, on the 11th of
September 1823.

A series of works, showing remarkable powers of thought, united to great earnestness in the cause of evangelical religion, has proceeded from the pen The Elements of Political Economy, by MR JAMES of ISAAC TAYLOR, who is, we believe, a gentleman MILL, the historian of India, 1821, were designed of fortune living in retirement. The first and most by the author as a school-book of the science. DR popular is the Natural History of Enthusiasm, 1829, WHATELY (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin) pubin which the author endeavours to show that the lished two introductory lectures, which, as professor subject of his essay is a new development of the of political economy, he had delivered to the unipowers of Christianity, and only bad when allied to versity of Oxford in 1831. This eminent person malign passions. It has been followed by Saturday is also author of a highly valued work, Elements of Evening, the Physical Theory of Another Life, &c. Logic, which has attained an extensive utility among The reasoning powers of this author are consider-young students; Thoughts on Secondary Punishments, able, but the ordinary reader feels that he too often and other works, all displaying marks of a powermisexpends them on subjects which do not admit of ful intellect. A good elementary work, Conversadefinite conclusions. tions on Political Economy, by MRS MARCET, was published in 1827. The REV. DR CHALMERS has on various occasions supported the views of Malthus, particularly in his work On Political Economy in Connexion with the Moral Prospects of Society, 1832. He maintains that no human skill or labour could make the produce of the soil increase at the rate at which population would increase, and therefore he urges the expediency of a restraint upon marriage, successfully inculcated upon the people as the very essence of morality and religion by every pastor and instructor in the kingdom. Few clergymen would venture on such a task! Another zealous commentator is MR J. RAMSAY M'CULLOCH, author of Elements of Political Economy, and of various contributions to the Edinburgh Review, which have spread more widely a knowledge of the subject. Mr M'Culloch has also edited an edition of Adam Smith, and compiled several useful and able statistical works.

There have been in this period several writers on the subject of political economy, a science which 'treats of the formation, the distribution, and the consumption of wealth; which teaches us the causes which promote or prevent its increase, and their influence on the happiness or misery of society.' Adam Smith laid the foundations of this science; and as our commerce and population went on increasing, thereby augmenting the power of the democratical part of our constitution, and the number of those who take an interest in the affairs of government, political economy became a more important and popular study. One of its greatest names is that of the REV. T. R. MALTHUS, an English clergyman, and Fellow of Jesus college, Cambridge. Mr Malthus was born of a good family in 1766, at his father's estate in Surrey. In 1798 appeared his celebrated work, an Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society. The principle here laid down is, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence. Population not only rises to the level of the present supply of food, but if you go on every year increasing the quantity of food, population goes on increasing at the same time, and so fast, that the food is commonly still too small for the people.' After the publication of this work, Mr Malthus went abroad with Dr Clarke and some other friends; and in the course of a tour through Sweden, Norway, Finland, and part of Russia, he collected facts in illustration of his theory. These he embodied in a second and greatly improved edition of his work, which was published in 1803. The most important of his other works are, An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815; and Principles of Political Economy, 1820. Several pamphlets on the corn laws, the currency, and the poor laws, proceeded from his pen. Mr Malthus was in 1805 appointed professor of modern history and political economy in Haileybury college, and he held the situation till his death in 1836.

[ocr errors]

MR DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823) was author of several original and powerful treatises connected with political economy. His first was on the High Price of Bullion, 1809; and he published successively Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency, 1816; and Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817. The latter work is considered the most important treatise on that science, with the single exception of Smith's Wealth of Nations. Mr Ricardo afterwards wrote pamphlets on the Funding System, and on Protection to Agriculture. He had amassed great wealth as a stockbroker, and retiring from business, he entered into parliament as representative for the small borough of Portarlington. He seldom spoke in the house, and

[ocr errors]

Mr

The opponents of Malthus and the economists, though not numerous, have been determined and active. Cobbett never ceased for years to inveigh against them. MR GODWIN came forward in 1821 with an Inquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, a treatise very unworthy the author of Caleb Williams.' In 1830 MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER published The Law of Population: a Treatise in Disproof of the Superfecundity of Human Beings, and Developing the Real Principle of their Increase. A third volume to this work was in preparation by the author when he died. Sadler (1780-1835) was a mercantile man, partner in an establishment at Leeds. In 1829 he became representative in parliament for the borough of Newark, and distinguished himself by his speeches against the removal of the Catholic disabilities and the Reform Bill. He also wrote a work on the condition of Ireland. Mr Sadler was an ardent benevolent man, an impracticable politician, and a florid speaker. His literary pursuits and oratorical talents were honourable and graceful additions to his character as a man of business, but in knowledge and argument he was greatly inferior to Malthus and Ricardo. An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and the Sources of Taxation, 1831, by the REV. RICHARD JONES, is chiefly confined to the consideration of rent, as to which the author differs from Ricardo. MR NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, professor of political economy in the university of Oxford in 1831, published Two Lectures on Population, and has also written pamphlets on the poor laws, the commutation of tithes, &c. He is the ablest of all the opponents of Malthus.

REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

In no department, more than in this, has the character of our literature made a greater advance during the last age. The reviews enumerated in

« PreviousContinue »