been renewed, and the China trade opened. But nature and art working together are silently yet certainly advancing to the accomplishment of this grand purpose by a very simple means-the increase of the growth of corn. The barrier of more force than all the rest to external free trade (internal free trade we already nearly possess) has been the Corn Laws. These have been for the last two years at least all but a dead letter, owing to the supply equalling, if not exceeding, the demand. Rents have fallen-tithes have fallen-labour has fallen-taxation has fallenthus levelling the elements of English prime cost with those of the foreigner. The farmer begins to see the fallacy of protection—the landlord to find how little it advantages himself. Thus nature and skill have superinduced a change of opinion which reason failed to effect. The practical inefficiency of protecting duties is daily made more apparent, while the restrictions they lay on manufacture, thus reacting upon landlords in restricting our competition in foreign markets-narrowing the space of employment at home-originating pauperism and increasing the charges-and, by lessening the demand for agricultural produce, depressing its price-all these things, we say, are gradually working the conviction which will soon end in the abolition of the Corn Laws, and all laws which cramp the exertions of industry. And when we examine the claims to superiority which the fabrics of England put forth, a consideration that may and will give to their excellence the widest power of diffusion is unquestionably devoutly to be wished. In hardware we exceed the world; in silk we all but, if not quite, equal the best of France, and have superseded the East Indian and Chinese in their own dominions; in muslins and in calicos, indeed, we so far outgo the East, both in quality and in price, that we import the raw material, and can afford to export and offer the manufactured article at a cheaper rate than it can be produced in the far-distant country of its growth. In porcelain we equal France and China, if we do not excel them; in woollen cloths we can successfully contend with the French; with Germany in linens. What then is wanting to carry this almost universal supremacy to its pitch, and to its due reward? what but that free communication which the natural extinction of the Corn Laws, so to speak, is rapidly educing. The evil of the country is its pauperism; make our paupers productive labourers, and consequently consumers, in lieu of deducting eight millions of the earnings of others for keeping them to the minimum of subsistence*. Teach them-nay, There is a very ingenious and well-written article in the last "Quarterly Review," wherein this reductio ad minimum is insisted upon as the basis of correcting the temptation to pauperism. This is quite just when pauperism is the voluntary consequence of determined idleness; but the grand cause of pauperism is want of employment and low wages-the result of the too severe competition arising out of numbers increasing beyond the area of employment. To avoid this reductio ad minimum, how many will be driven to crime? To bring the benefit of the PoorLaw Amendment Act to a test, it will be necessary to ascertain the increase of crime and the attendant sacrifice of property. It is much to be apprehended that the firmest spirits amongst the unemployed will not submit to this scheme of pauper-privation, but turn to plunder when honest endeavours to earn a livelihood fail. There can be no objection to punish the voluntary pauper by diminished fare; but when a man has no alternative, thus to punish him is unjust. The want of the bill is a provision for employment, which, however, it is hardly in the province of such an act of legislation to give; more might nevertheless have been done to this intent, and must yet be done, unless the country is to be covered with pauper-prisons under the name of workhouses, allow them-for they are ready enough to earn almost one-third of the present actual national income, which from their numbers it may fairly be computed they would earn, and distress would rapidly disappear. No! say our committees of lawgivers, no, let the nation be taxed to locate them in the Canadas and Australia. Nature indeed says (and so says true political economy) let them produce, and exchange their surplus for the production of other climes. "O dear no," says the lecturer, indeed you are wrong; the preventive check and coloniam deducere! We are an old country." It might be replied, "You are a parcel of old fools! You have soil, capital, and labour all in superabundance; you have nothing to do but to combine them." 66 Nor Of such a nature are a few of the arrangements into which the minor details of the vast commerce of England-the retail accommodations— have adjusted themselves. But there can be no doubt, far as our national genius for the inventions and enterprises of trade is advancedenormous as are the accumulations of property-and beneficial as is the exaltation of confidence and credit-all these relations must be considered to be in comparative infancy. The materials of nature are only just expanding themselves to the search of science. If, in whatever light we examine the triumphs of our species over the creation submitted to its power, we explore new sources of wonder," there is a fund for speculation and experiment incalculably more vast before us. can we better exalt, while we conclude, the very important portion of the subject we have here treated, than by quoting the words of a philosopher, who, in the midst of his large and comprehensive inquiry into the principles and progress of science, thus eloquently discloses and describes the expanse before us. "When we reflect," says Mr. Babbage," on the very small number of species of plants, compared with the multitude that are known to exist, which have hitherto been cultivated and rendered useful to man, and when we apply the same observation to the animal world, and even to the mineral kingdom, the field that natural science opens to our view seems to be indeed unlimited. These productions of nature, numerous and varied as they are, may each in some future day become the basis of extensive manufactures, and give life, employment, and wealth to millions of human beings. But the crude treasures perpetually exposed before our eyes contain within them other and more valuable principles; all these, in their innumerable combinations, which ages of labour and research can never exhaust, may be destined to furnish in perpetual succession new sources of our wealth and of our happiness. Science and knowledge are subject, in their extension and increase, to laws quite opposite to those which regulate the material world; unlike the forces of molecular attraction, which cease at sensible distances, or that of gravity, which decreases rapidly with the increasing distance from the point of its origin, the farther we advance from the origin of our knowledge the larger it becomes, and the greater power it bestows upon its cultivators to add new fields to its dominions. Yet does this continually and rapidly increasing power, instead of giving us any reason to anticipate the exhaustion of so fertile a field, place us at each advance on some higher eminence, from which the mind contemplates the past, and feels irresistibly convinced that the whole already gained bears a constantly diminishing ratio to that which is contained within the still more rapidly expanding horizon of our knowledge." Paris. MARIA'S MEDITATION Over the unclosed Coffin of George Barnwell. Yea! I have known that ruin'd form-those features, Scarce would he yield to self his slightest care. GILBERT GURNEY, CHAPTER IX. WHEN I awoke in the morning-or I should say afternoon, since it was considerably past twelve before I opened my eyes-all the proceedings at Wolverhampton-house appeared like a dream. The audacity of Daly-the mischief he had committed upon a kind and confiding friend who apparently did all she could to make him welcome and happy, seemed too gross and glaring to be real; and it was not until I saw on the table by my bed-side, a rose which had graced the bosom of the charming Mrs. Fletcher Green, that I was assured that I had really seen a bull on a staircase, and heard of the Pandean minstrels eating the Prince's supper in the Pavilion. I had carefully placed the half-faded flower in a glass of water, and greatly rejoiced to see it look refreshed by my delicate attention. I admit, however, that a reproachful feeling diffused itself over my mind, when I recollected under what very peculiar circumstances I had half taken and half received this precious bud from my charming new acquaintance. I had treasured the gift-if gift it had been-and placed it at my bed-side on the very morning that my kind and active friend had undertaken to work my eternal happiness by a marriage with my dear unsophisticated Emma Haines. But what then? Mrs. Fletcher Green was only an acquaintance,-a very delightful one,-much Emma's senior. I thought her indeed rather advanced in life,-I being just oneand-twenty; and she, as I afterwards had occasion to know, three years under thirty. But so completely are our judgments and opinions, especially in that particular, regulated by comparison, that I felt a kind of respect for her age mingled with my admiration of her accomplish .ments. Mrs. Fletcher Green was evidently pleased with me, and that, as everybody must admit, was a very powerful reason for my being charmed with her. I was determined to call upon her, and improve the acquaintance; and, strange to say, I almost hoped that Daly had not got so far the start of me in rising as to be on his way to Tenby to open the negotiations with the Haineses. It was not that Mrs. Fletcher Green had entirely superseded. Emma in so short a time, or that she had carried my heart by a coup de main, but she was so graceful, so polished, so agreeable, knew everybody and everything about everybody; and was so exquisitely good-tempered, and had such eyes! I believe a heart just of age was never proverbial for constancy; yet there was a striking difference between my feelings to the fair widow and those which bound me to my first love; I cannot conveniently describe the dissimilitude, but I was conscious of it, and yet equally conscious that I ought not to be so much interested about one lady when on the very point of concluding a negotiation, if possible, with another. When I called at Daly's lodgings, I found the bird flown. He had indeed afforded me a new and remarkable proof of the activity of his friendship. He had started, as his servant told me, before eight, after little more than an hour's sleep. He had left a note, in which he desired me to confide in his judgment and discretion, and informed me that he would write to report progress the moment any progress had June.-VOL. XLIV. NO. CLXXIV. M been made. His servant appeared particularly solicitous to know when I expected his master back; and his anxiety seemed to me scarcely equal to that of a half gentlemanly-looking man whom I found at the door, in conversation with Redmond, who held a longish slip of paper in his hand, which, after my sincere declaration that I had no notion how long he would remain out of town, he returned to a long black book which he had previously carried under his arm, and which, now that the paper was replaced within its folds, he deposited in a pocket made in the inside of one of the lapels of his coat. I had become so accustomed to the society and conversation of my volatile friend, that when I turned from his lodgings I felt as if I had lost a part of myself now that I was left alone. I strolled along the streets as far as Wolverhampton House, where I left my ticket, and afterwards sauntered down what was then imagined to be the promenade of London, Bond-street, the utter destruction of which as a fashionable lounge by the splendid creation of Regent-street, or any other possible cause, none of the beaux of those days even remotely anticipated. Still I felt dull and distrait; and when, after having descended the hill of St. James'sstreet, and passed half way along Pall-mall, I recognized a friend of my theatrical Mæcenas coming out of an auction-room, where an extensive book sale was going on, I was quite delighted! I scarcely expected, as I had abandoned dramatic literature, and absented myself from the Thespian votaries, that he would recognize me! On the contrary, his plump rosy cheeks purpled with warmth and kindness, as he held out his hand to take mine, and protested that I was the very man he wanted most particularly to see. Hull-for so was my warm-hearted friend called-was a very extraordinary person. He knew the business of everybody in London better than themselves. He" happened to know" everything that was going forward in all circles-mercantile, political, fashionable, literary, or theatrical; in addition to all matters connected with military and naval affairs, agriculture, finance, art, and science. Everything came alike to him; to his inquiring eye no mystery continued undiscovered,-from his attentive ear no secret remained concealed. He was plump, short, with an intelligent countenance, and near-sighted, and with a constitution and complexion fresh enough to look forty, at a time when I believed him to be at least four times that age. We had a joke against him, in those days, as to his antiquity, in which he heartily and goodnaturedly joined, until at last we got him to admit—and I almost think, believe that he had sold gunpowder to King Charles the Second, and dined more than once with the witty Lord Rochester. "Wanted to see me?" said I. "As how ?" "Wanted you to come and meet a few friends at my cottage at Mitcham," said Hull. "All plain and simple,-good wine, I promise you, and pleasant company; but you are such a fellow, my dear friend. Pooh, pooh! don't tell me ; there's no catching you-eh, I say. I have heard all about the cakes, the cow and the Countess, the Pandeans in the Pavilion, and the dead dace in the drawing-room." "What do you mean ?" said I, not imagining it possible that events which had so recently occurred, should have already obtained such publicity. "O you dog!" said Hull. "I happen to know, my dear Gurney; |