of people has increased, it is next to certain that their condition in other respects must at the same time have improved. It has sometimes been objected to manufactures, that when anything occurs to give them a check, or to throw the immense population dependent on them out of employment, or when, owing to a scarcity, a sudden rise takes place in the price of provisions, the public tranquillity, and the security of property, are apt to be endangered. It is said that demagogues, and those mock orators so frequently to be met with in the manufacturing districts, take advantage of the feverish excitement generated in the public mind by these circumstances, to vilify the institutions of the country; and represent the public distress as proceeding, not from accidental and uncontrollable causes, but from measures adopted by government, or the master manufacturers, on purpose to advance their own interests at the expense of the workmen, and thus occasion outrages which can only be repressed by the employment of a large military force, and by the adoption of measures that are not always very consistent with the principles of a free government. Now, we do not mean to say, that, though exaggerated, there is not a great deal of truth in this statement. At the same time, however, we think it would not be difficult to show that, even in a political point of view, the establishment of manufactures, on a great scale, is most decidedly advantageous. That the population dependent on them is most commonly turbulent, inflammable, and apt to be misled, is true; but, on the other hand, men seldom entertain a just sense of their own importance, or acquire a knowledge of their rights, or are able to defend them with courage and effect, until they have been congregated into masses. An agricultural population, thinly distributed over the surface of a country, and without any point of reunion, rarely opposes any vigorous resistance to the most oppressive and arbitrary measures. But such is not the case with the population of towns. Their inhabitants are all actuated by the same spirit; they derive courage from their numbers and union; the bold animate the timid; the resolute confirm the wavering; the redress of an injury done to a single citizen, becomes, in some measure, the business of the whole body; they take their measures in common, and prosecute them with a vigour and resolution that generally makes the boldest minister pause in an unpopular career.* Where, in point of fact, has private independence and public freedom been best * For some rather striking remarks on this subject, see Miller on the Government of England, vol. iv. p. 133. secured, and most vigilantly protected? Is it in agricultural France, Spain, or Poland, or in manufacturing and commercial England, Holland, and the United States? There is no struggle to be compared, either for duration, for the sacrifices it imposed on the weaker party, or for its beneficial consequences, to the struggle made by the Hollanders to emancipate themselves from the blind and brutal despotism of Old Spain. And it was mainly to the efforts of our manufacturers and merchants-for the agricultural population sided almost entirely with the House of Stuart-to their wealth, patriotism, and zeal, that we are indebted for our free constitution, and consequently for the high and conspicuous place we now hold among the nations of the earth. It should also be remembered, that the violent and unjustifiable proceedings of which the manufacturing population have occasionally been guilty, may be expected to disappear, according as they become more intelligent. Hitherto, the higher classes have been strangely indifferent to the effect that might be produced by the better education of their inferiors. Latterly, indeed, considerable efforts have been made, and with the best success, to instruct workmen in the principles of mechanical philosophy, and in a knowledge of the arts. But this, though an important, is not by any means the most important class of subjects, with respect to which they stand in need of instruction. We do not object to giving them lectures on Hydraulics and Hydrodynamics; but we see no reason why such subjects should be taught, to the exclusion of others. If we would really improve the condition of the lower classes-if we would give them better habits, as well as make them more expert workmen― we ought to endeavour to make them acquainted with the principles that must determine their condition in life. The poor ought to be taught, that they are in a great measure the architects of their own fortune; that what others can do for them is trifling indeed, compared with what they can do for themselves; that they are infinitely more interested in the preservation of the public tranquillity than any other class of society; that mechanical inventions and discoveries are always supremely advantageous to them; and that their real interests can only be effectually promoted by their displaying greater prudence and forethought. Such subjects ought to form a prominent part of every well digested system of public instruction. And if they were clearly explained, and enforced with that earnestness which their vast importance requires, we should have the best attainable security for the maintenance of the public tranquillity, and the well-being and comfort of the community. But we must hasten to a close. The remarks we have now made are, we hope, sufficient to prove that the charges brought against manufactures are quite untenable; and that, consequently, they are in everyway worthy of, and ought in all cases to receive, equal favour and protection as agriculture. No doubt, there are disadvantages incident to them, as there are to every pursuit in which man can engage. But the good of which they are productive infinitely outweighs these disadvantages. ،، They infuse," to use the words of Mr Malthus, whose leanings, it ought to be observed, are all on the side of agriculture, "fresh life and activity into all classes of the state, afford opportunities to the inferior orders to rise by personal merit and exertion, and stimulate the higher orders to depend for distinction upon other grounds than mere rank and riches. They excite invention, encourage science and the useful arts, spread intelligence and spirit, inspire a taste for conveniences and comforts among the labouring classes, and, above all, give a new and happier structure to society, by increasing the proportion of the middle classes-that body on which the liberty, public spirit, and good government of every country must always mainly depend." ART. II. Memoirs of Zehir-ed-din Muhammed Baber, Emperor of Hindustan, written by himself, in the Jaghatai Turki, and translated, partly by the late JOHN LEYDEN, Esq. M.D. partly by WILLIAM ERSKINE, Esq. With Notes and a Geographical and Historical Introduction: Together with a Map of the Countries between the Oxus and Jaxartes, and a Memoir regarding its Construction, by CHARLES WADDINGTON, Esq. of the East India Company's Engineers. London, 1826. HIS is a very curious, and admirably edited work. But the strongest impression which the perusal of it has left on our minds is the boundlessness of authentic history, and, if we might venture to say it, the uselessness of all history which does not relate to our own fraternity of nations, or even bear, in some way or other, on our own present or future condition. We have here a distinct and faithful account of some hundreds of battles, sieges, and great military expeditions, and a character of a prodigious number of eminent individuals,-men famous in their day, over wide regions, for genius or fortune poets, conquerors, martyrs-founders of cities and dynastiesauthors of immortal works-ravagers of vast districts abounding in wealth and population. Of all these great personages and events, nobody in Europe, if we except a score or two of studious Orientalists, has ever heard before; and it would not, we imagine, be very easy to show that we are any better for hearing of them now. A few curious traits, that happen to be strikingly in contrast with our own manners and habits, may remain on the memory of a reflecting reader-with a general confused recollection of the dark and gorgeous phantasmagoria. But no one, we may fairly say, will think it worth while to digest or develope the history, or be at the pains to become acquainted with the leading individuals, and fix in his memory the series and connexion of events. Yet the effusion of human blood was as copious-the display of talent and courage as imposing-the perversion of high moral qualities, and the waste of the means of enjoyment as unsparing, as in other long-past battles and intrigues and revolutions, over the details of which we still pore with the most unwearied attention; and to verify the dates or minute details of which, is still regarded as a great exploit in historical research, and among the noblest employments of human learning and sagacity. It is not perhaps very easy to account for the eagerness with which we still follow the fortunes of Miltiades, Alexander, or Cæsar-of the Bruce and the Black Prince, and the interest which yet belongs to the fields of Marathon and Pharsalia, of Crecy and Bannockburn, compared with the indifference, or rather reluctance, with which we listen to the details of Asiatic warfare-the conquests that transferred to the Moguls the vast sovereignties of India, or raised a dynasty of Manchew Tartars to the Celestial Empire of China. It will not do to say, that we want something nobler in character, and more exalted in intellect, than is to be met with among those murderous Orientals-that there is nothing to interest in the contentions of mere force and violence; and that it requires no very finedrawn reasoning to explain why we should turn with disgust from the story, if it had been preserved, of the savage affrays which have drenched the sands of Africa or the rocks of New Zealand-through long generations of murder---with the blood of their brutish population. This may be true enough of Madagascar or Dahomy; but it does not apply to the case before us. The nations of Asia generally-at least those of its great stateswere undoubtedly more polished than those of Europe, during all the period that preceded their recent connexion. Their warriors were as brave in the field, their statesmen more subtle and politic in the cabinet-in the arts of luxury, and all the elegancies of civil life, they were immeasurably superior; in ingenuity of speculation-in literature-in social politenessthe comparison is still in their favour. It has often occurred to us, indeed, to consider what the effect would have been on the fate and fortunes of the world, if, in the fifteenth century, when the germs of their present civilization were first disclosed, the nations of Europe had been introduced to an intimate and friendly acquaintance with the great polished communities of the East, and had been thus led to take them for their masters in intellectual cultivation, and their models in all the higher pursuits of genius, polity, and art. The difference in our social and moral condition, it could not perhaps be easy to estimate; but one result, we conceive, would unquestionably have been, to make us take the same deep interest in their ancient story, which we now feel, for similar reasons, in that of the sterner barbarians of early Rome, or the more imaginative clans and colonies of immortal Greece. The experiment, however, though there seemed oftener than once to be some openings for it, was not made. Our Crusading ancestors were too rude themselves to estimate or to feel the value of the refinement which presented itself to their passing gaze, and too entirely occupied with war and bigotry, to reflect on its causes or effects; and the first naval adventurers who opened up India to our commerce, were both too few and too far off to communicate to their brethren at home any taste for the splendours which might have excited their own admiration. By the time that our intercourse with those regions was enlarged, our own career of improvement had been prosperously begun ; and our superiority in the art, or at least the discipline, of war, having given us a signal advantage in the conflicts to which that extending intercourse immediately led, naturally increased the aversion and disdain with which almost all races of men are apt to regard strangers to their blood and dissenters from their creed. Since that time, the genius of Europe has been steadily progressive, whilst that of Asia has been at least stationary, and most probably retrograde; and the descendants of the feudal and predatory warriors of the West have at last attained a decided predominancy over those of their elder brothers in the East, to whom, at that period, they were unquestionably inferior in elegance and ingenuity, and whose hostilities were then conducted on the same system with our own. They, in short, have remained nearly where they were; while we, beginning with the improvement of our governments and military discipline, have gradually outstripped them in all the lesser and |