independence both of circumstance and instinct, which characterises what is here called a spiritual affection. It is, as we have said, in sentiment that the tempering moods are rooted which give rise to so much of our highest poetry, and touch with a sort of illuminating magic so much more which would otherwise have no intrinsic charm. Gray's Elegy, for instance, is popular solely for the tender melancholy that hangs around it, and almost constitutes it an incarnation of evening regret. Now, of those sentiments which tune the imagination Mr. Browning's poems seem destitute, and the consequence is that he is apt to plunge us from cold spiritual or intellectual power into the fever of passion, and back again from this fever into the cold. But we suspect that his dramatic intellect has gained through this hiatus in his imagination. Sentiment, because it is lyrical, because it tempts the mind into dwelling on its own moods, is a great hindrance to that strategic activity of the intellect which enables it to pass easily from one intellectual and moral centre to another. A great dramatist is in some sense a great intellectual and spiritual ventriloquist, and nothing should, one would think, more interfere with the ease of spiritual ventriloquism than the clinging personal sentiments, which never leave the creative mind really free and solitary. For it must require a habit not merely of physical, but, if we may so speak, of spiritual solitude, to migrate rapidly in this way from your own actual centre in the world of intellect and feeling to a totally different centre, where you not only try to speak an alien language, but to think unaccustomed thoughts and feel unaccustomed passions. Mr. Browning says very finely in one of his dramas,

When is man strong until he feels alone?

It was some lonely strength at first, be sure,
Created organs such as those you seek

By which to give its varied purpose shape,

And, naming the selected ministrants,

Took sword and shield and sceptre-each a man!"

This seems to us to describe a dramatic poet's work not much less powerfully than it describes the royally creative thought of the divine administration. Mr. Browning's intellectual and spiritual strength has apparently been much braced in this cold solitude. And it has been perhaps easier to him, from the absence of that refracting atmosphere of personal sentiment, which, even when we are alone, creates a kind of twilight of customary influences, and environs us with crowds of associations which are apt to fritter away the creative powers of the mind, and to diminish its power to issue those sharplydefined imaginative decrees which may be said to originate

66

proprio motu, as the papal language of absolute free-will aptly expresses it. To a dramatic intellect (unless the imagination be of the very highest spontaneous fertility) the power of completely controlling the thoughts and images, of saying to one go," and to another "come," must be of the first moment. No poet of modern days gives us more distinctly this sense of an imagination which acts proprio motu than Mr. Browning. It is one reason why his poems have a cold air; for that resisting medium of restraint, the atmosphere which surrounds the dramatic intellect, though it may hamper the practice of intellectual migration, will, if it does not prevent it, lend a warmth and natural ground-colour of harmonising feeling to the new creations which will blend them into a more perfect work of art. Mr. Browning's mind appears somehow to travel in vacuo, and therefore with greater rapidity than almost any part of his genius; but he carries no vestige of his former self about with him, which necessitates, therefore, a perfectly new plunge for the reader into quite a new world in every new poem. But hence also the bracing effect which his masculine and rugged poetry has on the intellect. Poetry is apt to be enervating, producing the effect of intellectual luxury; or if, like Wordsworth's, it is as cool and bright as morning dew, it carries us away from the world to mountain solitudes and transcendental dreams. Mr. Browning's-while it strings your intellect to the utmost, as all really dramatic poetry must, and has none of the luxuriance of fancy and wealth of sentiment which relaxes the fibre of the mind-keeps you still in a living world,—not generally the modern world, very seldom indeed the world of modern England, but still in contact with keen, quick, vigorous life, that, as well as engaging the imagination, really enlarges the range of one's intellectual and social, sometimes almost of one's political, experience. Mr. Browning cannot, indeed, paint action; but of the intellectual approaches to action he is a great master. And in spite of more grating deficiencies in the power of expression than any eminent English poet perhaps ever laboured under, these poems cannot fail to win for him slowly a substantial and an enduring fame.

ART. VIII. THE EFFECTS OF THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold ascertained, and its Social Effects set forth, with two Diagrams. By W. Stanley Jevons, M.A., formerly of the Sydney Royal Mint. London: Stanford. THE meeting of the British Association has once more recalled public attention to the effect of the gold discoveries, and the discussion opened in section F has been continued in the columns of the Times. We cannot say that we think much light has been thrown on the complicated question of monetary depreciation by the recent contributions to the controversy; nor do we think that the exhibitions of economic dialectics which it has called forth, if these are to be taken as an indication of the present state of economic knowledge in the country, afford us much reason for self-congratulation upon this head. Far from political economy being, as we have been accustomed to regard it, an established science, resting on solid foundations of fact and reasoning, with recognised principles applicable to the solution of practical questions, its most elementary doctrines seem still to be open to dispute: each speculator excogitates a theory for the nonce, apparently in entire ignorance that his sudden inspirations conflict directly with principles which have been wrought out by the labours of a series of able thinkers, and verified by a long course of experience. One writer, for example, in the recent discussion (and he merely gave distinct expression to what appeared to be the latent thought of many more) denies point-blank that an increase in the precious metals has any tendency to lower their value: it did not do so in the sixteenth century; it will not and cannot do so now. "The new gold and silver have been so much new capital added to the wealth of the world; they have acted as a stimulus to industry, and caused the production of commodities equal in value to themselves. The world is, in fact, richer than it was fifteen years ago by the whole amount, not only of the precious metals, but by all the property they represent." "I can discover nothing in this," he naïvely adds, "contravening the acknowledged principles of political economy." Another writer qualifies this position: he admits that increased supply may lower value, but gold, he informs us, distributes itself, not according to the principles expounded by Ricardo, but after the analogy of water:* it runs first to the lower levels, and does not touch

* The writer referred to thus explains his meaning: "England is in the very centre of the mouth of a very wide and very long estuary, and as the water rises it extends over a constantly increasing area in length and width; but the quan

the table-lands till these have been filled. England is now table-land, and hence no effect on its monetary system need be apprehended, at least until India, China, and all the lower currency levels have been raised to its height. A third tells us that we should compare the new supplies, not with the existing stock of the precious metals, but with currency in general-including with gold and silver every form of paper and credit medium. Mr. E. Ashworth, who, as a practical man, seems to consider himself dispensed from assigning reasons, thinks the question sufficiently disposed of by declaring his belief, that, however large might be the annual production of gold, it would all be absorbed," an opinion which strikes us as eminently safe, but the bearing of which on the question of depreciation is not by any means obvious, unless, indeed, there are persons who contend that depreciation can only be accomplished by leaving the new gold to accumulate at the pit's inouth. Even Mr. Fawcett does not appear to have seized the principles of his subject with any firm grasp. A year ago he denied the existence of any sensible depreciation of gold, founding himself upon the fact that the gold-price of silver had not sensibly risen; now he admits depreciation to the extent of from ten to fifteen per cent, although the price of silver-his own criterion-remains precisely where it was. Finally, the Times sums up the whole controversy by declaring that the one thing evident in the discussion is, that political economy is at fault. "Gold ought, according to the laws of science, to have been depreciated long ago; but every writer in succession has been compelled to acknowledge that this result, at least in the proportions which science requires, has not occurred."

In this chaos of opinion among those who take part in economic discussions, it will not be out of place to advert briefly to some of the elementary principles applicable to the matter in hand. In the first place, then, in opposition to the ingenious theory as to the "stimulating" effect of gold on industry and the "absorbent" influence of wealth on gold, we must contend that gold is no exception to the universal rule, that whatever facilitates production promotes cheapness, and that less will be given for objects in proportion as they are obtained with less trouble. The authors of the theory in question have not favoured us with their notion of the manner in which the alleged stimulus to industry operates and the supposed absorption is effected. We are told, indeed, that "the new gold and silver

tity of tidal water sufficient to raise the channel at dead low water a foot would not be the thousandth, or perhaps millionth, part of what would be required for a foot rise over the whole estuary at the top of a spring-tide." Times, 12th Sep

tember 1863.

have been so much new 'capital' added to the wealth of the world;" but if by this it be meant that the productive power of industry is increased in a direct ratio with each additional ounce of gold added to the world's stock, we must simply deny that gold possesses the attribute which is here assigned to it. We deny that gold and silver can exert any effect on the increase of wealth till they are exchanged for commodities suitable for productive operations; and it has yet to be explained how the stock of such commodities is increased pari passu with the stock of gold and silver. When the obvious reductio ad absurdum has not restrained such speculations, it is perhaps idle to meet them by serious argument. We say the obvious reductio ad absurdum; for if the doctrine be good for any thing, it would prove that under no circumstances could gold fall in value. The theory applies to every conceivable augmentation of the precious metals. The stimulus is represented as in proportion to the supply. However great, therefore, the increase, in the same degree would be the stimulusin the same degree the amount of wealth produced, and in proportion to the wealth would be the absorption. Gold might, according to this doctrine, be as abundant as copper, as common as sand, and yet as valuable as ever: a given quantity would still command as much of all other things as before. When such a consequence is boldly faced, it is perhaps idle to appeal to reason. Still we will suggest this one consideration: How is the extension of productive industry which the theory assumes to be carried out? In the last resort it is only possible through a more extended employment of labour. But when once all the hands in a community are employed, the effect of further competition for labour can only be to raise wages; and, wages once being generally raised, profits can only be maintained either by a corresponding rise of prices, or by increased productiveness of industry, prices not undergoing a corresponding decrease; either of which implies a depreciation of money. When, therefore, the influence of the new money has once reached wages, a point which has long ago been attained in this country, it is evident that there will be no motive to continue production to the length which, by acting on supply, would bring prices to their former level: a depreciation of money must therefore at this stage of the movement be permanently established.

We hold, then, by the old doctrine, that an increased supply of money does tend to lower its value; and, further, we maintain that, not only does the value of money decline from an increase of supply, but that, other things being the same, the decline proceeds in inverse proportion to the amount of augmentation. We shall now endeavour to show that gold, so far