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The author's drift is to assail the Poor Law Amendment Act for England; and he goes to Java, China and other places of which we know but little and yet of that little we could show to him from recent travellers, Mr. Ellis, whose authority he cites, amongst others, that he has not given a fair account. Who, for example, that has read the narratives of recent investigators of Chinese history and manners does not know that the people are often forced to live upon what, were an Englishman left no other resource, would be tantamount to absolute starvation? What is there that the natives of the celestial empire will not devour when driven as they often are to despair by want of food? Why, rats, mice, dogs, reptiles, vermin, beetles, roots of herbs and plants, bark of trees, &c. &c.; so that a good authority says the Chinese in cases of exigency are all but omnivorous. But it cannot be necessary to instance contrary facts to those recklessly advanced by one who talks as if the word famine could never have been used or understood excepting in countries where some vile system of poor laws founded on principles inconsistent with what the author calls an "immitable law of nature" did not exist; as if, where savages prowled, and in countries where there was no positive legislation, the Creator would contradict himself if want of necessary food, clothing, and shelter was ever realized. Besides, the condition, and circumstances of all the nations mentioned for the sake of illustrative argument are by no means analogous to those of this country.

We observe that all along the anonymous author leaves completely in the dark what he understands by the terms Necessity and Necessitous; terms, which, however vaguely or sweepingly he may apply them, can only rationally and morally express the source and cause of rights to the assistance of the community and of the less straitened, when no other means of support and protection are within the reach of that exertion which is consistent with man's temporal welfare mentally and bodily, nay, indispensable to his truest comforts on earth, and a necessary preparation for another state of existence. What would be the condition of England if an opposite doctrine prevailed and was acted upon throughout the nation, according to a universally recognized right and system? Why, the worthless, the profligate, and the thriftless would eat the bread of the virtuous poor, they would swamp the community.

We have spent more time upon certain assumptions and unauthorized conclusions than we suppose any reflecting person will think was called for, who reads so much of the Pamphlet as we have done. But observing the confidence of the author, and his oft reiterated gratuitous assertions of things, in the manner of principles and facts, which appear to us to be opposed to reason, justice, and truth, and just as if they never had been and could not be objected to; and finding also, amid all this reckless dealing, an admixture of what we consider to be some of the most misleading fallacies that are bandied about on the subject of pauperism and the claims of paupers to support, at all hazards, and whatever may be the nature of the case, we have thought fit to indicate the grounds of our dissent, as well as to allow some of the doctrines before us to be beheld in their natural breadth and absurdity, the author having in his zeal and honesty despised the glossings and the midway views of more dextrous pleaders.

The

We have said above that he has strung together some curious opinions, facts, and enactments. A considerable number of such are drawn from the histories of nations remote from us, either as to date or space. Judaic laws and customs are chiefly resorted to as compiled or extracted from Maimonides and others. Here is a specimen :

"THE VARIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS to which the Poor of Palestine were entitled, are thus detailed by Maimonides, as expounded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, They comprise, indeed, thirteen out of the 613 Precepts of the Law: Seven being Affirmative, and six Negative. They are as follow, viz.

"1. To leave the Corner.

"2. No one shall wholly reap the Corner.

3. To leave the Gleanings.

"4. No one is to glean his land.

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These Four Precepts are founded upon the following Verses of the 12th and 23rd Chapters of Leviticus: viz. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.-And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of the vineyard thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger. I am thy Lord, thy God.

5. To leave the small bunches of the vine.

"6. No one to glean his Vine.

"7. To leave the fallen-grapes of the Vineyard.

"8. No one to collect the fallen-grapes of his Vineyard.

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These Four precepts are founded upon the following Verses of the 23rd Chapter of Leviticus, and the 24th Chapter of Deuteronomy:—And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleanings of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them unto the poor and stranger. I am the Lord, your God.-When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterwards, it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

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9. To abandon a thing left through forgetfulness.

10. No one to return to take a thing left through forgetfulness. Founded upon the following Verse of Deuteronomy; (Chap. xxiv. 19.) -When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands.

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11. To separate Tithes for the Poor.

Founded upon the following verses of Deuteronomy Ch. 14, v. 28. 29. At the end of three years, thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates.—And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hand, which thou doest.

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12. To bestow Alms according to one's means.

13. No one to harden his heart against the poor.

Founded upon the following verses of Deuteronomy Ch. 15, v. 7 to 11. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother,-For the poor shall never cease out of the land, therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land."

In the Appendix the author offers some remarks upon the modes of punishment amongst the Hebrews, and then passes on to the practices in later times and in other nations, bringing his declamation to bear chiefly upon certain methods and systems that obtain in England, without, however, suggesting any remedies; exactly in the manner of other violent fault-finders. The conclusion of the entire treatise is in perfect keeping, every way, with all that precedes. We quote the passage:

"In conclusion, it may be asserted, that the comparison of the various fancies in various ages, for torturning the bodies of the weaker portion of mankind, is not unfavourable to the politique méprisable du peuple ignorant et barbare-the contemptible polity of the Hebrews: but whether we contemplate the clean cutting off the grystal of the ryght eare, by the sanguinary ruffian. Henry, the cool and quaker barbarities of the English Steam-Mill-the Scorpion' and bastinado of the unenlightened Hebrews, Romans, and Mahomedans-the nine-tail-cat of the enlightened and highly-civilized English-the dungeon of the English debtor-the Factory-thong-the piratical fiend-like stealing of the poor Negro-the Shoddy-hole of the Factory-child-the two-footed plants of Aristotlethe Pauper-hold, the severing of man and wife, and the swine's food of the Pauper-Law-or the various modes of punishment and torture now obsolete—we must admit the correctness of the words of the Motto,

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that

• Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes and a dungeon! and his body
Serves the triple purpose !'"

ART. XX.-The Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean. A series of Views from Nature, &c., &c. London: Fisher.

THE motto from Dr. Johnson of this highly embellished and beautifully illustrated work is aptly chosen. "The grand object of all travelling," says he, "is to see the shores of the Mediterranean; on these shores were the four great empires of the world: the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our laws, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." But the glory, in a great measure, hath departed from the cradle of civilization, of learning, science, and the arts. Still, a halo dwells over reposing antiquity, the lines of the great and the beautiful are still to be traced of the works of men in the days of old, exciting all those emotions which to the venerable and the hallowed rightfully belong, while the liberal, bounteous, and most luxuriant hand of nature continues, without a grudge, to lavish there her richest and loveliest stores; and thus are combined the most interesting and in

structive relics of the past with the freshness and life of the present,those multitudinous associations that most impressively and gratefully affect the mind,-classic recollections, historic monuments, the ruins of empires.

There is no way by which all these interesting and awakening facts and associations can be so fully and touchingly brought home to the comprehension and sympathies of untravelled persons as by a judicious and tasteful union of literary description, and pictorial illustration; no other way by which the memory of the traveller can be so agreeably refreshed. At the same time it is saying less than the occasion warrants us, when we declare that never before was the union spoken of, produced and wrought out, in a manner so to be desired and so accessible, as in the present publication.

It is sufficient to state, to all who are acquainted with the illustrated works which the same publishers have brought out upon a similar plan with the one before us,-and few there are, we believe, among the lovers of art or the reading community, who are otherwise circumstanced, their "Constantinople and its Environs, with the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor," for instance,—that the "Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean," while affording a still more fertile and varied series of subjects, is a production unsurpassed by any of its predecessors as regards not only the beauty of the execution, but the lifelike scenes and objects selected for delineation. Eight Parts are before us, (twelve to complete the work) in which the Views of Sicily predominate, taken from Nature by W. L. Leitch Esq. The Barbary Coast is illustrated in a similar manner by Major Gen. Sir Grenville T. Temple, Bart., with several of whose travels we have made the reader acquainted; while Calabria, Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands have obtained the kindred services of Lieut. Allen. An Analysis of the pictures, and the phenomena of the Mediterranean, and descriptions of the immediate subjects of the Plates, by the Rev. G. N. Wright, M.A., constitute the letter-press portion of the publication.

The quarto size of the work affords scope for such minuteness of detail as fidelity and intelligibility require. The Drawings must have been accurately and delicately managed, for the perspective in the Plates and the harmony between the different parts, the sky and body of the picture, with scarcely an exception, delightfully conduct us to sunny lands. The Plates have a depth and massiveness as well as softness, not often perceptible in steel engravings. There are four pictures in each part; the wonder is how each of them can he sold at the rate of six-pence, not counting a farthing for the literary matter. The work only requires to be seen to be admired.

ART. XXI.-Lady, Cheveley; or, the Woman of Honour. Churton. A SMALL publication, which in verse retorts with considerable smartness and power upon the author of "Cheveley, or, the Man of Honour.” Erroneously, and in the face of internal evidence, some portion of the public that feeds on scandal, has pronounced it to be the work of Sir E. L. Bulwer. The following letter which was addressed to its

publisher in anticipation of its appearance ought to set the matter at

rest:

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32, Great James Street, Bedford Row, April 24, 1839.

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Sir, I am instructed by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer to inform you, that it is with deep regret and concern that he saw the announcement of a work, to be published by you, called Lady Cheveley, or the Woman of Honour.' Whatever the views and objects of the writer may be (probably not inimical to himself, judging by the terms of that announcement), Sir Lytton Bulwer is compelled, for the sake of his children, and in their name, to enter his most earnest protest against any attempt to prolong or widen the notoriety of a publication, which carries its own answer and its own condemnation.

I am, Sir, Your Obt. Servant,
WILLIAM LOADEN."

ART. XXII.-The Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society. By John Morrison, D.D. London; Fisher.

THIS work now appearing in Parts, is to trace and describe the influence which Methodism has had on the spirit of Modern Missions,-Wesley and Whitfield being held as the instruments that prepared the way for these, and many other philanthropic undertakings characteristic of the present age; it is also to give historical sketches of the principal missionary Societies which have entered on the great field for the conver. sion of the Heathen world: and lastly to present biographical notices of the honoured, and venerable, and learned men who laid the basis of the institution named in the title, and which has been most prominent in the noble enterprise. Portraits of many of the Founders are to accompany the letter press. There cannot be a doubt, where the theme is so arresting and rich, and the champions identified with it so numerous and eminent, of the work's success in obtaining the countenance of the religious portion of the community, or of its stimulating to further exertions in the same path. The merely speculative philosopher; he who delights to watch the revolutions of opinion, and to mark how a change or a novelty in the religious sentiment sends its influence abroad and throughout other regions of thought and endeavour, will do well to look into this book.

ART. XXIII.-History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. By A. ALISON, Advocate. Vol. VII. Edinburgh: Blackwood. 1839.

THE History of Europe during its most eventful period as embraced by the title of this work has still to be written. Here we have the Seventh volume, in which the Government of the Marquis of Wellesley in India, -the Austrian war of 1806, the Tyrolese war, and the capture for the second time of Vienna,-the disasters of the Walcheron expedition,-and Wellingtons early campaigns in the Peninsula, are the principal divisions; bringing the narrative down to a date no later than that of the battle of

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