tion of the farmer, who can only be injured to the extent to which he is bound by a lease to pay a higher rent than the prices of former times would allow. But the fact is, that the practice among landlords has become so general, as to be almost universal, of not giving leases at all, or only giving them for two or three years, for the sake of being able to squeeze more rent out of the farmers as fast as prices rise, or to squeeze servility out of them along with rent. It would not; be a very great sum, therefore, which would be required to redeem all the existing rents in the kingdom. A single year' subsidy, to one foreign emperor, or king, who ought to have done his own business upon his own means, would much more than suffice. The farmers would then stand exempt from inconvenience. And all that would ensue, would be simply this; that a part of those extraordinary advantages which the land-owners have been enjoying during the war, during which the principal classes of the people have severely suffered, would cease. And so will the advantages of the officers of the army and the navy cease; so will the advantages of army contractors, navy contractors, and loan contractors cease. So will the extraordinary advantages of ship owners, and ship builders, army agents, navy agents, and navy proctors, cease; togethe with the advantages of all those classes of manufacturers, a very numerous body, whose principal employment has arisen from the demand of the army and navy. Why should the nation be taxed in its bread, to render perennial the extraor dinary and casual advantages of the land-owners alone?

To these, a great number of other considerations of great weight might be added, to prove the impolicy and injustice of a law to prevent or obstruct the importation of corn. But it is impossible for us to carry the argument to a greater length. Of the publications, placed at the head of this article, we recommend the first, the work of Dawson, with the greatest warmth. The author places the question of the corn laws in several new and very important lights. He does not, on every point, reason with perfect accuracy from the established principles of political economy; but he has put together a variety of very just, and frequently, very profound observations. Those who wish to see all that can be said in favour of the prohibitory duties, forcibly and very confidently stated, may peruse Lord Lauderdale's pamphlet. George Rose, as usual, sees infinite advantages in the existing state of things, and infinite danger in any alteration. Mr. Malthus professes to state the argument on both sides, and to leave the decision to the reader; but of several of the determining circumstances, he seems to us, during the writing of his pamphlet, to have had no recollection; and with him the balance remains unturned; or inclines with difficulty,

compelled to witness the ill-treatment of some virtuous feeling, the encouragement of some dangerous propensity, or even the fostering of some viper passion, by the injudicious remarks or the ill-timed smiles of a good-natured company, we can scarcely select an individual to whose conduet the study of mind would not be an advantage,-is not indeed almost indispensable, to prevent the ruin, as far as his influence extends, of those families which are unfortunately exposed to his visits. Let not the admirer of a sweet complexion, of a pretty curl, or of a sparkling eye,-nay, let not him who administers other than a kind and sober approbation even of amiable conduct, or of worthy acquirements, suppose that the study of mind is unnecessary to him. If the look that praises, swims with admiration, rather than beams approval, it is doing mischief. If the well-earned plaudit is but a tone too lively, it is doing mischief. Actions thus repaid, will rarely spring again from honest principle, or from simple feeling. False motives and false views, will acquire an early and fatal ascendancy; the eye of the world will become incentive, its praise, sufficient reward;-and oh, the ruin which is implied in such a change! -which accrues from such ignorance of the treatment by which character is formed, and of the conscientious delicacy which is required in all who approach even to witness the interesting process! Obvious, therefore, to every thoughtful mind, as must be the utility of this primary study, it seems almost unnecessary to devote an essay to prove it, and to meet objections which appear at a glance untenable :-we say almost, for perhaps, while a simple objector remains, it is not altogether needless labour. While an individual may be found who fancies that it is as safe to travel in the dark as in the daylight, it may be necessary to explain the utility of the sun, and to support the explanation by illustrations not less obvious than just.

Having thus, by way of introduction, recommended the study of mind as indispensable to those who are entrusted with the cultivation of it, our author proceeds to form a more connected chain, continued through the two volumes of which her work consists. Her first design is to illustrate the necessity of exeiting early and continued attention to the appropriate objects of affection and intellect, in order to the due expansion of both. The benevolent affections, forming the spring and vitality of moral character, are then represented as obstructed in their exercise, by a principle which is distinguished by Miss Hamilton, both from selfishness and from self-love, and which she defines a propensity to magnify the idea of self,' the nature and operations of which are amply illustrated. The cultiva tion of the benevolent affections is afterwards recommended, as

forming the natural antidote against this propensity; the necessity of attention is more fully explained, in order to their cultivation; and the work concludes with a view of the supernatural means, afforded by revelation, to facilitate their growth. In commencing this course, Miss Hamilton introduces the second essay, as,

Intending first to examine what are the effects produced by directing the attention to certain classes of the objects of perception in impeding or enlarging the use of our senses, and secondly, to examine whether each of the intellectual faculties be not so entirely dependent on the power of attention for their (its) development, as to be either operative or torpid, according as in the mind of the individual, attention has in early life been directed to the objects which are calculated to exercise and improve them (it). Vol. I. p. 56.

The first of these inquiries is solvible by the least intelligent observer. The fact, that, by appropriate exercise, the senses are improved to extreme acuteness, will be confirmed by the recollection of every reader; and it is illustrated by Miss Hamilton in a variety of familiar examples.

Hence the peculiar delicacy of touch observable in the blind, the quick sightedness of the deaf, who in many instances seem intuitively at a glance to comprehend what could not, without circumlocution, be explained to persons whose power of attention had not been thus concentrated. The same observations apply to the other organs of sense; to a cultivated ear, many sounds appear harsh and unpleasant, which the vulgar pass unnoticed: nor is this altogether the effect of association; it is produced by attention to that class of perceptions. Call the attention of your servants to the creaking of a door, they will not say that the sound is a pleasant one; yet will they perhaps acknowledge, that the door might have thus creaked for a month without their having once observed it.' pp. 58, 59.

These observations naturally lead to others of much practical importance, especially to those who superintend the education of the lower classes, and are influenced by a benevolent solicitude to render them respectable in that line of duties to which they are confined. It is probable, that were the persons who are thus engaged, to pay a due regard to the sensible remarks which occur here, the number of bad servants would not, in future, be so great; and those who are already bad, might be, in some degree, improved, if mistresses who are annoyed by them, would attend to these simple principles: at least, the feeling of provocation almost hourly excited, would be softened into that of compassion. As it is in a want of early cultivated attention that the stupidity of many domestic servants appears to originate, it is, of course, in the culture of this faculty that

the remedy must be found. It is obvious that the children of low and totally unmanaging parents, seldom afford even materials for making competent servants. They have been pushed, and dragged, and beaten, into the few lazy duties which the mother's necessities peremptorily required them to fulfil; and have been compelled to loll about with the baby, to scrape up sticks for the fire, and occasionally even to put the stool in its place, provided that just at that moment the mother had nearly fallen over it, and most provokingly hurt herself; but that quick perception of disorder which would have prevented the mischief, and to which confusion and litters are absolutely painful, independent of the inconveniences arising from them, is never awakened, nor, after long habits of negligence, can it be, except in a very small degree.

'Let us consider,' says our author, the situation of the female children of the poor, where habits of dirt and sloth prevail. Their attention never having been directed to any of the objects around them, but in a slight and superficial way, these objects afford not any exercise to the perceptions. Their perceptions, of consequence, become so languid, that they have no power of observing what is placed before their eyes. They know no distinction between black and white, clean and dirty; and as the stupidity that arises from languid perceptions renders every species of exertion painful, such habits of sloth are formed as frequently prove incorrigible, and are not without difficulty to be even partially conquered. Thus prepared, they are sent into the world to earn their bread in service; and at a period of life when the power of observation ought to have been vigorous, they have still to learn to observe: compelled by necessity, however, they do so far learn, as to acquire the method of employing their hands in such branches of domestic work as they are disposed to engage in: but, from want of perception, are incapable of observing the advantages to be derived from any improvement of the method they have first been taught, and from their slothful habits, are rendered so averse to the trouble of learning farther, that time and experience adds (add) nothing to their skill. Having once attained the power of going through a certain routine mechanically, they continue to go through it with as little fatigue of attention as possible; and as in every department of household economy, thorough cleanliness requires that perceptiou which depends upon attention, in every department in which they engage, they will, in that material point, be found deficient.' pp. 68. 70.

The truth of this description, innumerable harassed and disorderly families will attest; but of those who suffer from the consequence, how few give themselves any trouble to remove the cause, though, by looking attentively at this, and its opposite character, that cause is easily ascertained, and, by a judicious superintendance of the education of the poor, might so often be counteracted. It seems sufficiently clear that,