In vol. iv. p. 161, he tells us, "All reformers are the same, be the matter to be reformed what it may. It is only the spirit of destruction 'let loose." After which follows a long test of no very estimable characters, whom he designates reformers. We object less to these principles on points purely theoretical, than we do on matters which immediately bear on practical subjects on which the happiness of society depends.

Dr. Macculloch, vol. iii. p. 239, attempts most zealously to combat the received opinions on the subject of education; and wishes to upbraid the English for their want of national spirit, in admitting the superiority of the lower orders in Scotland over the lower orders in England, from the general diffusion of Scottish education. We beg to inform Dr. Macculloch that the most valuable trait in the character of Englishmen, has been to introduce into England whatever they found valuable and excellent in every part of the world; and to tell him, that the friends of education in England, in acknowledging the decided advantages of the lower orders in Scotland, arising from education, have shewn a truly honorable spirit, and have taken the true mode of raising our national character, by their efforts to diffuse, in like manner, the blessings of education throughout England: and, in spite of the opposition of such men as Dr. Macculloch, we hope that, in a few years, every man, from the Land's End to Berwick, will read and write as well as every man from Berwick to Johnny Groat's. To elevate our countrymen, and not attempt to depreciate our neighbours, is an Englishman's creed, and true patriotism.

On the agriculture and fisheries of the Highlands, there are many useful remarks; and, although we cannot venture to recommend the present work, we will, nevertheless, allow that such persons as have courage enough to wade through it, will occasionally derive from its matter valuable information.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POLITICS.

Essay on Slavery. By An Eye-Witness.-8vo. pp. 38. J. and H.

L. Hunt.

THIS is a well-written and able effort to turn the tables on those, who, in order to support the views of some of the West Indian colonists, preposterously contend that negro slavery is sanctioned by Biblical and Christian authority; and that, in fact, it is a divine institution.

All the world knows what the amiable, civilized, and benevolent inhabitants of Europe have done for those poor semi-human savages, called negroes; and how blindly insensible they are to the transporting enjoyments of slave ships, and to the benefits of that golden age, and of that Hesperian country, to which the said slave ships convey them. Christians first introduced among them, rum, gin, and brandy. (Think of the black ingratitude of minding a little slavery, in return for rum, gin, and brandy!) They likewise made known to them a thousand remedies by which the most inveterate diseases are alleviated and healed; and, in order that they might fully comprehend the benefits and comforts of these medicines, they previously introduced among

them the diseases they were calculated to cure. They incited them to civil wars; and, in order to render the benefit more substantial, supply them with gunpowder, to enable them to get rid of their superfluous population. They were, besides, so condescending as to remain at hand, to purchase such captives as those wars might produce, or such criminals as the drunkenness and vices with which they took care to inoculate as many as their philanthropy could reach, had subjected to this commutation of punishment. Finally, as soon as they had separated these semi-human bipeds from the ignorant two-legged animals whom they called mothers, wives, children, &c. &c. to whom they were so stupid as to manifest a savage attachment, and had transplanted them to the paradisaical land of the blood-hound and the chain; with the cart-whip and the branding-iron they crowned all the unspeakable benefits which they heaped on these now superlatively happy, though still inferior beings, by proving from Scripture that slavery is a holy dispensation; is the original and natural state of man; and that the native African independence of the negro, before he becomes acquainted with the virtuous slave-dealer, and the tender cartwhip leader," now unnatural, bestial, artificial, unscriptural, unbiblical, and unchristian. Negroes, indeed! are they not as black as Satan? How, then, can any one who loves lucre, pretend to say that they are any thing but certain long-heeled woolly-headed, sable animals, walking erect on two mishapen legs, uttering certain uncouth sounds, and having something of a distant resemblance to the human countenance? How, without consummate ingratitude, could these ignorant, sable, ugly, and distant resemblances of human beings, so immeasurably raised by philanthropic flesh-dealers in the scale of existence, refuse the trifling return of working a little (i. e. sixteen hours daily, under a burning sun,) for their too generous and disinterested benefactors?

But the advocates for negro slavery, whom the author controverts, shew the weakness of their argument, by their dread of the Christian religion, and their consequent determination to run down those whom they please to call the "Saints," and the Missionary establishments, as tending to diffuse insurrectionary sentiments. We certainly do not agree with those who expect danger from the various Missionary establishments of this country. If, however, there be one thing more than another calculated to excite surprise, mixed with hope-we had almost said, awe-in the bosom of the philanthropist, it is the rise and progress of these and similar institutions for the diffusion of Christian civilization to the extremities of the earth. Neither the instruments nor the agents of these societies appear to be aware of the mightiness of the engine which they wield. Its power is only less obvious than real, because it is less noisy in the process of its accumulation, and regular in the energy of its application. Scarcely is there a spot on the globe unvisited by the rays of this missionary zeal; scarcely a ramification of society which does not vibrate to the impulse of its distant centre. And we grant that there would be something portentous in the co-operation of such instruments to one great result, were not the lightnings produced by the mental collision of knowledge with barbarism, conducted to the earth by the soundness of the

pe

motives and the temperateness of the means. The means are mild, benevolent, and efficacious elements of a reform, beginning at the right end, which draw their living shower of nourishment from the rennial fountain of religious morality. The motives are, the advancement of social communication-the growth of knowledge and liberty, -the spread of Christian civilization;-motives, compared with which all human ambition sinks into the dust; the diadem pales its fire on the brow of the despot; and even the blossom withers in the garland of the patriot;-compared with which the fame, and wealth, and dignities of the world are but as light, that dazzle to mislead, and shine the brightest at the moment of extinction; transitory as the painted lights of the rainbow that sparkles in its cloud and disappears.

The Missionary Societies have this peculiar claim to veneration in the eyes of the genuine lovers of liberty, that, whenever the true principles of Christian civilization have germinated and developed themselves, freedom has grown up with them; that wherever its triumphant banner has been carried, the rays of enlightenment have scattered the dark phalanxes of ignorance and crime. Of that, the bounds of Christianity at this very moment, are the bounds of the existence of man, as they ought to be, as an intellectual, moral, responsible, and progressively improveable being.

The Political Pentateuch; a Dialogue. By John Fitzwilliam.-London. Miller. pp. 24.

THE author of this singular pamphlet, with a singular name and singular diagram, is, we apprehend, a pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and a convert to the doctrines of the Contrat Social. At a period when the demand for Constitutions has so greatly augmented, that even the much-famed pigeon-holes of the Abbé Sieyes would scarcely seem capable of supplying it; and when a complete suit of political regulations may be furnished to measure in the course of a given number of days, we humbly think the political world is highly indebted to the author for having brought a fresh stock of the commodity into the market, and in such a convenient form, that the curious in the article may select, as from a tailor's pattern-book, the colour and fashion most congenial to their own particular fancy. Swift has observed, that man himself is but a micro-coat, or rather a complete suit of clothes with all its trimmings:" and it was a maxim of that great legislator, Jack Cade, that "the clothier ought to dress the Commonwealth, turn it, and put a new nap on it." These reflections, probably, induced the author to try his hand in stitching together the annexed projet.

"

The following passages of the Political Pentateuch are remarkable, though not new:

At page 5, the "Christian lawgiver" is called "the asserter of man's natural equality."

At page 10, men are said to be created "of the same intellectual, social, and moral nature."

And again, governments can only be entitled to support when framed in strict accordance to the "inherent rights of man.”

Crit. Gaz. Vol. 1. No. 4.

2 U

At page 5, "patriotism" is said to be practical religion. Of course, no other is necessary.

At page 12, "a denial of universal suffrage implies either a pitiable darkmindedness, or an impious conceit of being wiser than God."

And at page 13, we have the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people announced in its most insulting and arrogant form :-" Serving a sovereignty being incompatible, a chief magistrate being a servant, cannot partake of authority with legislators, who personify the national sovereignty."

We have said that these elements of government are remarkable, but not new. As to the allegation, that we are all born equal in intellectual and moral nature, we leave that to the profound decision of the phrenologists and cranioscopists. The rest of the dogmas are, we believe, such as Babœuf, Robespierre, and Thomas Paine, broached some short time since. They told us then, like the author, that this was the age of reason; that a new light had arisen on the besieged faculties of men; that we were, in an astonishing degree, fitter for the exercise of political rights than our ancestors: founding their opinion, we presume, on that of the satirical poet:

"That we grow more polite and improve every day,

That for eating and drinking we know the best rules,

And our fathers and mothers were blockheads and fools."

Rousseau, the very high-priest of political perfectability, does not extend his theory of democratic suffrage so far as the author of the Political Pentateuch. In his express work upon original equality, he admits that "taking the term in its true signification, there never has existed a democracy, nor will one ever exist. If, indeed, a people of gods existed, they might form a democracy, but so perfect a government is not suitable to man."

In conclusion, we crave permission to offer the author of the "Political Pentateuch," a piece of advice from the "manual" of Epictetus. That philosopher, among many lessons worthy of attention, suggests the following rule of salutary discretion:- "Do you wish to scale Olympus? It is a brave intention; but consider first, whether fitted for the task."

you are

The Practical Means of reducing the Poor's Rate, encouraging Virtue, and increasing the Comforts of the aged, afflicted, and deserving Poor, as well as repressing able-bodied Pauperism, by a proper Application of the existing Laws respecting Select Vestries, and incorporated Houses of Industry. By the Rev. J. Bosworth, M.A. F.A.S. F.R.S.L. Vicar of Little Norwood, Bucks, and Author of the Elements of the Anglo-Saxon Language, &c. &c.—8vo. pp. 48. Simpkin and Marshall.

We have never perused a pamphlet more replete with sound sense and practical information, than the present. It is written with great perspicuity, and, from its useful and practical details, deserves the careful perusal of every one concerned in the management of the poor. There is nothing in it visionary; on the contrary, the whole is built on the solid basis of experience and facts. It does not treat of what may be, but

what has been done: and many places are named, where the poor's-rate has been reduced to less than one-fourth of its former amount, by a more efficient application of existing laws. Enough is here advanced, to prove, that the oppressive burden of the poor's-rate does not arise from a defect in the principle of the poor's laws, but from their partial, defective, and slovenly administration. The ministers of Elizabeth's Augustan age were not such novices in legislation, as to build upon an unsound foundation. They, in wisdom, equity, and humanity, made a provision for the actual wants of the "impotent, lame, and blind;" but, at the same time, they steadily withstood voluntary idleness and fictitious claims; hence, as Blackstone observes, when "the number of indigent persons was greatly increased, by withdrawing the alms of the monasteries, a plan was formed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, more humane and beneficial, than even the feeding and clothing of millions; by affording them the means, with proper industry, to feed and clothe themselves. And the further any subsequent plans for maintaining the poor have departed from this institution, the more impracticable, and even pernicious, their visionary attempts have proved."

After enlivening the statement of facts, by several very appropriate anecdotes, the pamphlet closes with these remarks:-" No attempt will be made to extend the claims further than will be legitimately allowed from the preceding facts: but, if they be admitted, and allowed to have their full weight, can it be denied that, by means of select vestries, and well-regulated incorporated houses of industry, under the sanction of the existing laws, a check will be given to the alarming progress of pauperism, and industry will be encouraged ?" Thus, the moral and temporal interests of the poor will be most effectually promoted. To substitute industry for mendicity, and to found the maintenance of the poor, not upon eleemosynary contributions or parochial relief, but upon their own personal foresight and exertions, is not merely to promote the happiness of the inferior classes, but to elevate the national character, and to establish it upon a proper basis. The objections generally adduced against the utility of large incorporated houses of industry, in producing these salutary effects, will not only prove nugatory, when answered by those who speak from experience, but they will prove, that such institutions are most efficient auxiliaries in working the desired reformation. In this decision, we are influenced by no theoretical illusion, but by the incontrovertible evidence of facts. At the same time that virtue is encouraged, vice is restrained; and the natural result is, that the oppressive burden of the poor's-rate is removed.

State of the Trade of Great Britain with all Parts of the World. By Cæsar Moreau, Esq. Vice-Consul of France, &c. &c.- On an Atlas Sheet.

It is impossible to analyze a mere tabular arrangement of figures, and we cannot do our duty to M. Moreau and the public better than by recommending his noble chart to general circulation. It displays the commerce of this country with all nations, from 1697 to 1822. In that