stance, that the Proctor himself, the very man who was one of the defendants, might have sat with the assessor, and his brother Proctor, as one of the judges!

Now it must be observed, that the conduct of the Proctors seems to have been not only unnecessarily harsh and severe, but illegal. That this was the opinion of the Vice Chancellor, may be inferred from the circumstance of the young women being liberated without appearing before him, who, if any thing whatever could have been proved against them, would not have dismissed them without a reprimand. It would have been unjustifiable and illegal, even if the young women had been common prostitutes, for they had been guilty of no ill behaviour; and the ProProctor interposed his authority at a time of the day when he had no lawful nor statutable power of exerting it, except on matriculated persons. Punishment, in this case, if inflicted at all, should have been inflicted on the gownsmen; but they were allowed to escape with impunity.'

By the re-appearance of these letters at this distance of time, we should apprehend that the original cause for them has not been removed.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 26. The Rural Walks of Cowper; displayed in a Series of Views near Olney, Bucks: representing the Scenery exemplified in his Poems; with Descriptive Sketches, and a Memoir of the Poet's Life. 12mo. 7s. 6d. Boards. Sherwood and Co. 1822. The style of this new Memoir of Cowper may be appreciated from one sentence: It has been asserted, and is generally believed, that his talents as an essayist were equalled only by those of Addison.'-The best thing in the Memoir' is the republication of the beautiful little poem from the "Olney Hymns," which shines in that collection as the greenest oasis that it can boast, and is one of the few compositions which cannot be too often read. It gives us sincere pleasure to be able to add that we find nothing in this volume which calls forth the strong censure that we felt obliged to express on some late occasions; when the secret sufferings of the gifted but most unhappy subject of this work were detailed with a minuteness, which nothing but the unsocial and indelicate taste of methodism could for one instant have endured.

Fifteen pleasing engravings decorate this little volume, explained by letter-press, of various but not transcendant merit. It is, however, a very soothing and pleasing sort of reminiscence of Cowper, and must be truly delightful to his intimate friends and enthusiastic admirers. Indeed, all the lovers of goodness love to trace it to its retreats; and, when melancholy and poetry have thrown their double charm about it, there are few human pictures that have a better chance of exciting a general interest. We hope that such a representation will always continue to have its natural effect: but we earnestly deprecate the hardening of the heart, and the bewildering of the head, which must accrue

from

from the unfeeling exposure of the details of the most degrading of all human miseries.

Art. 27.

Tales of my Father and my Friends. Crown 8vo. pp. 172. Underwood. 1823.

Perhaps the most that can be said of this neat little volume of tales is that the reader will not be a loser by them; for we think that he will find just a sufficient degree of amusement in them to counterbalance his expenditure of time, and no more. The labors and the pleasures of a critic are by no means synonymous; and yet, in the present case, we felt ourselves so far interested, that we were grateful to the author for not having put our patience to that severe test by which it is sometimes tried. We meet with no novelty in these tales, which turn on the usual topics of love and war, and misanthropy and treachery: but, for our own part, we are contented with the same excitements which satisfied our fathers, and can sympathize with passions represented for the thousandth time.

'Sir Edgar Boyd,' the first tale, is the best: the scene is laid in India, with which country the author seems to be acquainted; and indeed, from the whole character of the narratives, we should imagine that they proceeded from a hand which had exchanged the sword for the pen. We have seldom read a more spirited description than that of the sally from the fort in India. Moreland' is too wild and inconsistent; yet it displays considerable powers; and such a character, it must be confessed, is not altogether out of nature. Alavia' is the worst tale in the collection. It gives no answer to the question cui bono? but, when the reader has finished it, he cannot imagine why the author wrote it. He seems to have had some other plot in his brain, which he abandoned on account of its difficulty. The Tourist's Tale' is an ordinary lovestory.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The style of R. C. S., and the good sense of his observations, -granting him his facts, would intitle his letter to our serious consideration: but these supposed facts are not facts, and therefore he is only reasoning rightly from wrong premises.

"O that it were with us as in times past," we could not help exclaiming when we had read the lively epistle signed Harriet. Byron' we might then hope to find in our corps a Sir Charles Grandison, (or something like him,) to enter the lists with our fair correspondent, and be a thriving" candidate for her favor. it is, we shall try what justice will permit us to enact in the court of criticism, rather than what gallantry might enable us to achieve in the court of love.

As

The APPENDIX to VOL. XCIX. of the Monthly Review is published with this Number, and contains the usual proportion of FOREIGN LITERATURE, with the General Title, Index, &c. for the Volume.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For FEBRUARY, 1823.

ART. I. The present State of England in regard to Agriculture, Trade, and Finance; with a Comparison of the Prospects of England and France. By Joseph Lowe, Esq. 8vo. pp. 480. 12s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1822.

FOR

OR the first two or three years after the close of the late war, that is to say, when the price of corn was comparatively high, our manufacturing towns were in the greatest embarrassment; masters could find no profitable vent for their commodities; workmen were driven on their parishes in a state of starvation; and Spa-field riots, Manchester riots, Glasgow riots, and Birmingham conventions, were the order of the day. With the sinister design of imposing fresh shackles on the people, these explosions were called political insurrections, and ascribed to a spirit of disloyalty and disaffection: but, as soon as the price of corn fell, and hungry artizans and mechanics could obtain their daily meals, they proved the falsity of this charge by the perfect tranquillity of their demeanour; and we have not heard of any tumultuary movement since. The burden is taken off their shoulders, but only to be transferred to the shoulders of others. Agriculturists, however, are a more sluggish and less irritable set of people: they have very little communication with each other, and no "Standing Committees," no " Friendly Societies," no Clubs, no Village-Orators. They are dispersed over the whole surface and periphery of the circle, instead of being congregated in its centre; and if they meet once a week in small unconnected bodies at some market-town, they hasten home to their families as soon as they have sold their corn. they have sold their corn. They bear a great portion of suffering before they complain. Now and then we hear of a county-meeting, indeed, and of the deliberations of one county rousing another from its lethargy but how slow, and heavy, and infrequent must the movement of a whole county be! One of the Alps or Appennines in motion ! Mont Blanc shaking his snows in anger, and rattling his glaciers in defiance !

If, however, distress and discontent have only been moved from one class to another, if the various branches of our

REV. FEB. 1823.

I

national

national industry which flourished during the war have languished since the peace, if our financial resources, which seemed then exhaustless, and were always adequate to the emergency, have since failed, it is time to consider our situation then with reference to our situation now; to see how the one has affected the other; to ascertain how far our increase of wealth during the former period was real, and how far it was only nominal; to discover what is our present state, and to calculate what are our future prospects. Mr. Lowe has engaged in this inquiry, and has furnished us with a vast and various mass of documentary evidence to support his positions, respecting a subject sufficiently important, indeed, on which (as he observes) no research can be accounted too minute, no labor too long.

The work is divided into ten chapters, under the following heads, with sectional subdivisions; I. The late Wars; the Expenditure caused by them, and the Sources from which it was supplied. II. General Rise of Prices during the War. III. Consequences of the War exemplified since our Transition to Peace. IV. Our Currency and Exchanges since 1792. V. Our Agriculture. VI. Poor-Rate. VII. Population. VIII. On the National Revenue and Capital. IX. Fluctuations in the Value of Money. X. Our Finances. An Appendix, of 128 pages, contains additions to the several chapters, tabular statements, &c.*

---

The war with France began in 1793; and though in order to get second wind, as the boxers say, a truce was concluded at Amiens in 1802, which was called a peace, yet, as both parties had obtained glory as well as suffered losses, and as neither was exhausted, they came to the scratch again in 1803, and renewed the conflict with unabated vigor. In the year 1802, the interest of our public debt was 18 millions; and our total expenditure, had the peace of Amiens been continued, would, perhaps, not have exceeded 30 millions, while our currency was also apparently recovering from its depression: Mr. Lowe says, from its depression of 1800 and 1801:' but the average value of the currency in the former year was at par with the Mint price of gold, 37. 17s. 10 d. per ounce. Its

* In the course of this Appendix, the author has given an analysis of the Agricultural Report of 1821, which we observe to be taken almost totidem verbis from our Review of that production in our Number for July of that year. As Mr. L. has not referred to the source from which he has thus done us the honor to borrow, we mention the circumstance, lest those of our readers should be puzzled by the coincidence whose memory served to point it out to them.

average

average value per cent. in 1801 was 91l. 12s. 4d., and the de-. preciation was consequently 81. 7s. 8d. In 1802, its value per cent. was 921. 14s. 2d., and its depreciation 77. 5s. 10d. In 1803, it recovered to the average value per cent. of 971.6s. 10d., and its depreciation diminished to 27. 13s. 2d. With small fluctuations, it remained in this state till 1811, when the difference per cent. between the market and the Mint price of gold was 247. 10s. At the close of the war, in 1814, the difference was 30l. 6s. 8d. From that period, the value of the currency kept gradually recovering, and it was restored to par in 1820-21. - The financial and commercial difficulties of the country, in 1802, were comparatively speaking inconsiderable: but Mr. Lowe is of opinion that, had the reduction of our military establishment been permanent, we should have experienced in 1802 no small share of the embarrassment of late years.' This is a most tremendous and fearful proposition, when stated without comment and explanation: for it leads directly to the position that it is for the interest of this and of every other country to keep embodied a large military establishment; and, for the sake of promoting consumption, to increase the number of non-productive consumers, who are to be maintained out of the public taxes, as a means of encouraging domestic industry. We do not charge Mr. Lowe with having stated this proposition nakedly; and perhaps we should not have noticed it, had not a string of Resolutions been presented to the House of Commons in the last session, in which it is thus stated, and a legislative measure was advised to be grounded on it.*The fact, however, undoubtedly is that

war,

* In the short compass of a note, we must be allowed to say a few words on this specimen of state-logic. The syllogism is this: Production going on, deficient comsumption causes excess of supply the army, navy, and civil offices of government, are large consumers; therefore keep up a large establishment in all the civil and military departments. This cannot be done without taxes: but "taxes are borne by the people generally;" therefore, abolish no more taxes: for taxes enable those to consume who do not produce, and the object is to diminish production and extend consumption. We have here drawn no caricature. In these precious "Resolutions," the hard case of the agriculturist is most pathetically deplored, and no crocodile ever shed more tears while in the act of devouring its victim. They begin thus: a change from war to peace diminishes the consumption of commodities, which are the product of human labor; and this lessened demand for labor takes place at the time when an addition is made to the mass of productive laborers. When men are embodied as soldiers, and receive the means of subsistence from the taxes, they are, I 2

in