called in to their assistance.' If that great man could speak from the grave, with what a voice of thunder would he give the lie to this impostor who tells us that our danger at this time is from the Crown, not from the spirit of revolution and anarchy; and that he, were he living, would throw his weight into the popular scale! At home and abroad,' the Oracle tells us, we are in profound peace;' and it adds, now then let us, instead of crouching before domestic oppression, bethink us in good earnest of repairing in that constitution which our triumphs have saved, the breaches which the struggle itself has occasioned.' Who but must smile to find the Oracle, which Philippized during the contest, confessing now that the country had been saved' by that triumph which the cowardly counsels of the tripod would have rendered impossible!

But are we in such perfect peace at home as is thus gravely asserted? If so, with what reason is it, that one set of City Resolutioners contemplate with the deepest dismay and agony the too probable issue of such a state of things'-that others menace us with anarchy and the horrors of civil war, as the inevitable result if Parliamentary Reform be further neglected'-that tavern-orators and mob-orators tell us a crisis is at hand,' and that the demagogues, in their weekly and daily diatribes, are stimulating the people to bring into practice what the Oracle at this precise time, with its usual felicity, calls the sacred principle of Resistance? A provincial paper is before us, in which every mechanic in the county who has legs to carry him, is invited to a general meeting to embrace the glorious opportunity of manfully asserting his rights in a peaceable and constitutional manner, and to hoist the flag of general distress.' And the petitioners of the Common Council assert that nothing but Parliamentary Reform will allay the irritated feelings of the people.' By the people, of course, the discontented faction is meant--the deceivers and the deceived--according to that figure of speech by which a part is put for the wholea political synecdoche. Upon the propriety of concession to a faction in this temper, Burleigh has left us his opinion, when in reference to the factions of his days, he asked Elizabeth whether she would suffer them to be strong to make them the better content, or discontent them by making them weaker,-for what the mixture of strength and discontent engenders,' says the veteran statesman, there needs no syllogism to prove.'

The Oracle would be satisfied with a simple change of situation between the Ins and the Outs. How much would satisfy the petitioners of all classes, the London citizens who prepare their own grievances, and the poor deluded mechanics in the country who receive them ready-made in one of Major Cartwright's three hundred circulars, it would be difficult to say; nor can they themselves

tell. And if all these parties were contented,) than which, the mind of man can imagine nothing more impossible,) there remain the Spencean Philanthropists,-a set of men not to be confounded with any of whom we have hitherto spoken ;-men who know distinctly what they mean, and tell us honestly what they aim at,infinitely more respectable than the shallow orators who declaim about Reform with many words making nothing understood,' and far more dangerous, inasmuch as great and important truths, half understood and misapplied, are of all means of mischief the most formidable. It is fit that our readers should have their political confession of faith before them.

SPENCE'S PLAN.

For Parochial Partnerships in the Land
Is the only effectual Remedy for the
Distresses and Oppressions of the People.

The Landholders are not Proprietors in Chief; they are but the
Stewards of the Public;

For the LAND is the PEOPLE'S FARM.

The Expenses of the Government do not cause the misery that
Surrounds us, but the enormous exactions of these
Unjust Stewards.'

Landed monopoly is indeed equally contrary to the benign
Spirit of Christianity, and destructive of
The Independence and Morality of Mankind.
The Profit of the Earth is for all ;'

Yet how deplorably destitute are the great Mass of the people!
Nor is it possible for their situations to be radically amended, but
By the establishment of a system

Founded on the immutable basis of Nature and Justice.
Experience demonstrates its necessity; and the Rights of Mankind
Require it for their preservation.

To obtain this important object, by extending the knowledge of the above system, the society of Spencean Philanthropists has been instituted. Further information of its principles may be obtained by attending any of its sectional meetings, where subjects are discussed calculated to enlighten the human understanding; and where also the regulations of the Society may be procured, containing a complete developement of the Spencean system. Every individual is admitted, free of expense, who will conduct himself with decorum.

The Meetings of the Society begin at a quarter after eight in the evening, as under:

Frst Section every Wednesday, at the Cock, Grafton-street, Soho. Second, Thursday, Mulberry Tree, Mulberry-ct. Wilson-st. Moorfields. Third, Monday, Nags Head, Carnaby-market.

Fourth, Tuesday, No. 8, Lumber-street, Mint, Borough.

In all the schemes which have been devised for a perfect society since men first began to speculate upon such subjects, the principle

of a community of goods has in some degree entered; and certain approaches toward it, though under many modifications, have been made both in ancient and modern times, as in Crete and in Sparta, -among the Peruvians, and by the Jesuits in Paraguay. Such a community prevailed among some of the primitive Christians,though no law of the Gospel enjoined it; the Moravians in Germany approach very nearly to it at this time. The mendicant orders were established on the same principle, and have thriven upon it, nihi habentes et omnia possidentes-The Papal Church, with its usual wisdom, (for that church assuredly possesses the wisdom of the serpent.) having prevented the principle from becoming dangerous, by thus sanctioning, and taking it into its service. In America also it is acted upon by many obscure sects living inoffensively and industriously in small communities. A religious influence has prevailed in all these instances,-Lycurgus could not have succeeded without the assistance of Apollo, and Mango Capac was the son of the sun. The doctrine becomes formidable when it is presented as a political dogma, with no such feeling to soften and sanctify it. Joel Barlow, the American republican, who died when lackeying the heels of Bonaparte on his expedition into Russia, perceived that the fashionable doctrines of liberty, of which he was so warm an advocate, tended this way, and must end there; but he thought proper to adjourn sine die the time for carrying these ultimate principles into effect. There is reason for supposing that Robespierre at the time of his overthrow had formed some extravagant project of this kind; he spoke of 'momentous secrets which a kind of pusillanimous prudence had induced him to conceal,' and promised to disclose in his will, if he should be cut off prematurely, the object to which what he called the triumph of liberty tended. If Baboeuf may be believed, this object was an equalization of property, an object which Babeuf* attempted by the most atrocious means to bring about, but perished in the attempt. Happily it was made too late-sick of horrors and satiated with blood, the people were weary of revolutions, and France escaped a convulsion more dreadful than any which it had experienced.

This, however, is not the theory of the Spencean philanthropists. These root-and-branch reformers take their name from a poor man, who, if he had unluckily lived in the days of the French Revolution, might have been a very inoffensive member of society, and remembered only, if he had been remembered at all, among those writers who have amused themselves by building constitutions in the air, instead of castles. When I began to study,' says he, I found every thing erected on certain unalterable principles. I * An account of this conspiracy, collected from the official documents, is in our sever.h volume, p. 417-422. It is a curious part in the history of the French Revolution.

found every art and science a perfect whole. Nothing was in anarchy but language and politics. But both of these I reduced to order: the one by a new alphabet, and the other by a new constitution. The new alphabet of this modest reformer we have not had the fortune to see; it seems, however, that the first edition either of his New Constitution, or his Trial, was printed in what he calls his natural or philosophical orthography.' His political opinions were first propounded in the form of a Lecture, read before the Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1775, and printed immediately afterwards; from which time, he says, he went on continually publishing them in one shape or other.' They are fully and harmlessly explained in his Constitution of Spensonia, a country in Fairy Land; situated between Utopia and Oceana.' 'The Spensonian Commonwealth is one and indivisible; and, the Sovereign People is the Universality of Spensonian citizens.' Divested of such nonsensical language, which was then in full vogue, and too much of which still passes current, his scheme is, That the soil belongs to the state, and that individuals should rent their lands and tenements from their respective parishes; the rent being the revenue, and the surplus, after all public expenses are defrayed, to be divided equally among all the parishioners; every kind of property being permitted except in land. The larger estates are to be leased for one and twenty years, and at the expiration of that term re-let by public auction; the smaller ones by the year: and larger ones subdivided as the increase of population may require. The legislative power is vested in an annual parliament, elected by universal suffrage, women voting as well as men,-the executive is in the hands of a council of twenty-four, half of which is to be renewed annually. Every fifth day is a sabbath of rest,-not of religion; for though this constitution is proclaimed in the presence of the Supreme Being, no provision is made for worshipping Him. All the Spen-. sonians are soldiers; and in the Spensonian Commonwealth, Nature and Justice know nothing of illegitimacy.' To the end of this Constitution an Epilogue is annexed, in decent verse, saying that the Golden Age will no longer be accounted fabulous, now that mankind are about to enjoy

-All that prophets e'er of bliss foretold,

And all that poets ever feigned of old.'

And these verses, to show the strange humour of the man, and the vulgarity which adhered to him, are followed by a 'Chorus,' to the tune of Sally in our Alley :'

Then let us all join heart in hand

Thro' country, town, and city,

Of every age and every sex,

Young men and maidens pretty;

To baste this Golden Age's reign
On every hill and valley,-
Then Paradise shall greet our eyes

Thro' every street and alley!'

In any other age this might have gone quietly to the family vault. But the French Revolution made Spence suppose that the time for realizing his speculations was arrived; and the manner in which he proposed to do this, brought him under the cognizance of the Attorney General,-how deservedly, a brief specimen of his philanthropical proposals will show :

We must destroy,' he says, all private property in land. The Landholders are like a warlike enemy quartered upon us for the purpose of raising contributions; therefore any thing short of a total destruction of the power of these Samsons will not do; and that must be accomplished, not by simple shaving,'-(look to it, Mr. Coke, of Norfolk!) not by simple shaving, which leaves the roots of their strength to grow again ;no: we must sealp* them, or else they will soon recover, and pull our Temple of Liberty about our ears. Nothing less than a complete extermination of the present system of holding land will ever bring the world again to a state worth living in. But how is this mighty work to be done? I answer, it must be done at once. For the public mind being suitably prepared by my little tracts, a few contiguous parishes have only to declare the land to be theirs, and form a Convention of parochial deputies other adjacent parishes would immediately follow the example; and thus would a beautiful and powerful New Republic instantaneously arise in full vigour. In fact, it is like the Almighty saying, Let there be light, and it was so:-So the people have only to say, Let the land be ours, and it will be so. For who, pray, are to hinder the people of any nation from doing so, when they are inclined? Are the landlords more numerous in proportion to the people than the officers in our mutinous fleets were to their crews? Certainly not. Then landsmen have nothing to fear more than the seamen, and indeed much less; for after such a mutiny on land, the masters of the people would never become their masters again.'

For this publication the Scalping Philanthropist was most deservedly prosecuted; having before richly entitled himself to this distinction by a periodical farrago called Pig's Meat,' wherein the same doctrines were promulgated, and circulated in the cheapest form among the lower classes of tradesmen and mechanics. We remember to have heard that he excited compassion at his trial

This, as may be supposed, was a favourite passage with the author. He adds in a note, that the overbearing power of great men by their revenues, and the power of Samson by his hair, are strikingly similar, and show such men to be dangerous companions in society, till scalped of their hair, or revenues. For it is plain, that if the Lords of the Philistines had scalped Samson, instead of only shaving him, they might have saved both their lives and their temple.' The Philistines in France were of this opinion, and to make short work as well as sure, they employed a machine which took off head and all,