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age, and more unlucky to live to a refined one. They have lasted beyond their own and are cast behind ours.' Happily indeed for England, in that disgraceful age there were many from whose hearts and minds the stamp of better times had not been effaced. The age of Shaftesbury and Buckingham was also that of Ormond and Newcastle and Southampton and Sandwich, of Sir William Temple, of Hale and Evelyn and Boyle, the noblest and the most accomplished and the best of men. At the time when Dryden composed comedies to the taste of the court, and Elkanah Settle tragedies to the taste of the city; when Wycherley and Etherege published their impurities, and the press was polluted by the filth and ribaldry of Tom D'Urfey and Tom Brown, at that very time Clarendon was completing in exile his noble history, the most precious legacy that ever statesman bequeathed to his country: Milton, in poverty and blindness, was composing the Paradise Lost; and Izaak Walton, in the enjoyment of a green and cheerful old age, the reward of an innocent and tranquil life, produced, without art or study, his inimitable pieces of biography, not unconscious how rich a treasure he was preserving for posterity, but not dreaming of the honour in which his own name would lastingly be held for those labours of love. Mr. Wordsworth has properly noticed these delightful lives in his Ecclesiastical Sketches, and in a strain worthy of the subject.

There are no colours in the fairest sky

So fair as these. The feather whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men
Dropped from an angel's wing. With moistened eye
We read of faith and purest charity

In statesman, priest and humble citizen.

Oh, could we copy their mild virtues, then

What joy to live, what blessedness to die!

Methinks their very names shine still and bright,

Apart, like glow-worms in the woods of spring,

Or lonely tapers shooting far a light

That guides and cheers,—or seen, like stars on high,
Satellites turning in a lucid ring

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory.

Political as well as moral causes contributed to the recovery of the nation. The death of Charles produced a salutary effect. The face of the whole court, says Evelyn, was exceedingly changed into a more solemn and moral behaviour, the new king affecting neither profaneness nor buffoonery. The suddenness of Charles's fate might well indeed excite awful feelings in all who had witnessed the life which he had continued to lead till the stroke of death arrested him. January 25 Evelyn enters in his Diary: 'I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the king in

the

the midst of his three concubines, as I had never before seen, luxurious dallying and profaneness.' A week afterward he assisted at the proclamation of James II. and records his feelings thus: "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness to, the king sitting and toying with his concubines Portsmouth, Cleaveland and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing lovesongs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2000 in gold before them, upon which, two gentlemen who were with me made reflexions with astonishSix days after was all in the dust!'

ment.

The circumstances which ensued while they roused the spirit of the nation awakened also its better feelings. It was a struggle, wherein the vital interests of civil and religious freedom were at stake; and though it is not, and ought not to be dissembled, that unworthy means were employed for promoting a cause just and noble in itself, we were preserved by the special blessing of Providence from all those dangers which any eruption of political or spiritual fanaticism must have produced. The example of the court under the two sister queens then became as favourable to good morals as it had lately been injurious. Among the minor causes of general amendment something may be ascribed to the societies for the reformation of manners, to the disuse of masks, and to the abolition of those sanctuaries which had continued after all notions of religious protection had ceased, and were become more evidently pernicious than they had ever been in the worst ages of superstition. But the main causes are unquestionably to be found in that purer spirit of literature which, from the days of Addison, has predominated; and most of all in the stability and character of our church establishment. Whether the great and manifest improvement of society has been general among us, or whether, while some classes have been happily progressive, others have not been deteriorated both in their physical and moral condition, affords matter for serious and important inquiry, upon which we have more than once entered. Of this, however, we are sure that never at any time has there prevailed in this country, a more general and generous desire of diminishing the evils and miseries by which mankind are afflicted whether at home or abroad. This too is certain, that as it is the visible interest of our rulers to promote by every possible means the improvement and happiness of the people, (for upon their morals and their well-being the security of the state depends,) so it is not less their desire than their duty. We say this not merely in hope, still less in adulation, but with the confidence of knowledge, and upon the evidence of facts.

03

ART.

ART. VIII.-Thoughts and Details on the High and Low Prices of the last Thirty Years. By Thomas Tooke, F.R.S. London.

1823.

WE E look upon this work of Mr. Tooke as a very valuable contribution to the science of political economy. It is an inquiry into the causes of the fluctuations which have occurred during the last thirty years in the prices of corn and other commodities; and in the pursuit of it he adduces a large and interesting collection of facts. This mode of treating his subject we consider as peculiarly judicious. At all times an extensive collection of facts relative to the interchange of the various commodities of the commercial world, which is more within the reach of intelligent merchants than any other class of men, cannot but be of great importance to the science of political economy; but it is more particularly required at the present moment, when it must be acknowledged that some of our ablest writers in this science have been deficient in that constant reference to facts and experience, on which alone it can be safely founded, or further improved.

Mr. Tooke's work is divided into four Purts. The principal causes of the variations in the prices of commodities, he thinks, may be classed under three general heads: 1st. Alterations in the value of the currency. 2d. War, with its attendant taxes, and the return to peace. 3d. Varieties of the seasons. (i. p. 4.) The effects of these causes on prices he considers in the three first Parts, according to the order named; and to these he has added a fourth, consisting of valuable tables of prices from 1782 to 1822. Before he begins his inquiry into the influence to be ascribed to alterations in our currency, he very properly defines the meaning which he attaches to the terms depreciation of money and currency, excess or over issue of paper.

By depreciation of money, when applied generally, he understands the diminished value of the precious metals in the commercial world.

By depreciation of the currency, he means that state of it in which the coin is of less value in the market than by the Mint regulations it purports to be, or in which the paper that is compulsorily current is of less value than the coin in which it to be payable.-Part i. p. 8.

promises

We quite agree with Mr. Tooke in the propriety and utility of the definitions which he has adopted with regard to coin and currency; and although a more general meaning has frequently been given to depreciation, and writers consequently appear to be warranted in so using it, yet we are persuaded that it would greatly

contribute

contribute to clear ideas on the subject, if we were to confine the term depreciation exclusively to a deviation in defect from the standard which the coin or paper currency professes to represent, and denominate exclusively a fall or rise in the value of money or bullion any change which affects the standard itself, whether in any particular country, or generally. We cannot therefore agree with Mr. Tooke in his application of the term depreciation of money to a diminished value of the precious metals in the commercial world; and we were not a little surprized to find, that among his definitions there was no reference whatever to the alterations in the value of money and bullion in particular countries, alterations which have been acknowledged by all economists, and must be allowed to be especially connected with Mr. Tooke's subject.

Having thus, however, cleared the way by defining his terms, he proceeds with his facts and reasonings; and the conclusions at which he arrives are, in substance, that prices have been no further affected by the alterations in the value of the currency, (or only in the slightest degree further,) than to the extent of the difference between gold and paper; that, with the exception of commodities particularly taxed, or increased by charges on importation, or extra demand for government, there is no observable coincidence between a rise of price during war, and a fall during peace; and that the fluctuations of prices which have taken place during the last thirty years are, with the exception of the difference between paper and bullion, and the few exceptions noticed before, almost exclusively attributable to the variations of the sea

sons.

We cannot say that we are able to accompany Mr. Tooke to the full extent of these conclusions; but the excellency of his mode of treating the subject is, that he has put his reader in possession of so large a range of facts applicable to the questions treated of, that he is not only enabled to judge whether Mr. Tooke's conclusions are well founded, but furnished with the means of drawing other conclusions interesting to the science of political economy, which seem strictly and legitimately to follow from the facts advanced.

From a careful attention to these facts, we should say that Mr. Tooke's work distinctly proves the four following propositions:First, that all exchangeable value, and consequently the prices of all commodities, depend entirely upon the supply compared with the demand, and are no further affected by the labour required to produce them, than as this labour is the main condition of their supply.

2d. That the supply of commodities, as compared with the demand,

0 4

demand, is much more affected, and for a longer period, by the variations in the seasons, than has hitherto generally been supposed.

8d. That when the supply of commodities is in some degree deficient compared with the demand, whether this arises from the increase of demand, or the diminution of supply, the state of trade is brisk, profits are high, and mercantile speculations are greatly encouraged; and on the other hand, when the supply is abundant compared with the demand, there is a period of comparative stagnation, with low profits, and very little encouragement to mercantile speculation.

4th. That when these periods of deficient or abundant supply compared with the demand, are of considerable duration, which is found by experience to be frequently the case, they are necessarily accompanied by a fall or rise in the value of the precious metals in the country where they take place, according to any mode of estimating their value, which has ever been considered as approximating to the truth.

Each of these propositions appears to us to be of fundamental importance to the science of political economy; and the inquiry into the proofs of them, contained in Mr. Tooke's work, will show us at the same time to what extent he may be considered as having established his own conclusions.

In reference to the first proposition, or the universal influence of supply and demand on prices, both temporarily and permanently, we should say that the facts of all the four Parts of Mr. Tooke's work, and the reasonings of the first three, conspire to place the effects of demand and supply in such a light as to leave the truth of the proposition beyond the reach of any reasonable doubt. In the first Part, all that rise of prices beyond the difference between paper and gold, which was coincident in time with the Bank restrictions, Mr. Tooke uniformly and distinctly attributes to the state of the supply compared with the demand. He is indeed disposed to think that this rise was neither so great nor so general as has been usually supposed; but the facts which he adduces do not bear him out in this opinion: he observes,

It has further been asserted, that labour as well as necessaries experienced a progressive advance during the period referred to. I have already suggested grounds of objection to the admission of the wages of carpenters in and near London as affording a sufficient ground of inference with respect to the general rate of wages in the country; and the same objection applies, in point of principle, to the admission of the higher price paid for some other descriptions of labour, which happened to be in great relative demand. It is clear that, during the progress of a war on such a scale as the last, there must have been an un

usual

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