Cyclopædia of English Literature: A Selection of the Choicest Productions ...

ISAAC TAYLOR.

A series of works, showing remarkable powers of thought, united to great earnestness in the cause of evangelical religion, has proceeded from the pen of ISAAC TAYLOR, who is, we believe, a gentleman of fortune living in retirement. The first and most popular is the Natural History of Enthusiasm, 1829, in which the author endeavours to show that the subject of his essay is a new development of the powers of Christianity, and only bad when allied to malign passions. It has been followed by Saturday Evening, the Physical Theory of Another Life, &c. The reasoning powers of this author are considerable, but the ordinary reader feels that he too often misexpends them on subjects which do not admit of definite conclusions.

POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.

There have been in this period several writers on the subject of political economy, a science which 'treats of the formation, the distribution, and the consumption of wealth; which teaches us the causes which promote or prevent its increase, and their influence on the happiness or misery of society.' Adam Smith laid the foundations of this science; and as our commerce and population went on increasing, thereby augmenting the power of the democratical part of our constitution, and the number of those who take an interest in the affairs of government, political economy became a more important and popular study. One of its greatest names is that of the REV. T. R. MALTHUS, an English clergyman, and Fellow of Jesus college, Cambridge. Mr Malthus was born of a good family in 1766, at his father's estate in Surrey. In 1798 appeared his celebrated work, an Essay on the Principle of Popu lation as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society. The principle here laid down is, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence.Population not only rises to the level of the present supply of food, but if you go on every year increasing the quantity of food, population goes on increasing at the same time, and so fast, that the food is commonly still too small for the people.' After the publication of this work, Mr Malthus went abroad with Dr Clarke and some other friends; and in the course of a tour through Sweden, Norway, Finland, and part of Russia, he collected facts in illustration of his theory. These he embodied in a second and greatly improved edition of his work, which was published in 1803. The most important of his other works are, An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815; and Principles of Political Economy, 1820. Several pamplilets on the corn laws, the currency, and the poor laws, proceeded from his pen. Mr Malthus was in 1805 appointed professor of modern history and political economy in Haileybury college, and he held the situation till his death in 1836.

MR DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823) was author of several original and powerful treatises connected with political economy. His first was on the High Price of Bullion, 1809; and he published successively Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency, 1816; and Principles of Political Economy and Tuxation, 1817. The latter work is considered the most important treatise on that science, with the single exception of Smith's Wealth of Nations. Mr Ricardo afterwards wrote pamphlets on the Funding System, and on Protection to Agriculture. He had amassed great wealth as a stockbroker, and retiring from business, he entered into parliament as representative for the small borough of Portarlington. He seldom spoke in the house, and

only on subjects connected with his favourite studies. He died, much regretted by his friends, at his seat, Gatcomb Park, in Gloucestershire, on the 11th of September 1823.

The Elements of Political Economy, by MR JAMES MILL, the historian of India, 1821, were designed by the author as a school-book of the science. DR WHATELY (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin) published two introductory lectures, which, as professor of political economy, he had delivered to the university of Oxford in 1831. This eminent person is also author of a highly valued work, Elements of Logic, which has attained an extensive utility among young students; Thoughts on Secondary Punishments, and other works, all displaying marks of a powerful intellect. A good elementary work, Conversations on Political Economy, by MRS MARCET, was published in 1827. The REV. DR CHALMERS has on various occasions supported the views of Malthus, particularly in his work On Political Economy in Connexion with the Moral Prospects of Society, 1832. He maintains that no human skill or labour could make the produce of the soil increase at the rate at which population would increase, and therefore he urges the expediency of a restraint upon marriage, successfully inculcated upon the people as the very essence of morality and religion by every pastor and instructor in the kingdom. Few clergymen would venture on such a task! Another zealous commentator is MR J. RAMSAY M'CULLOCH, author of Elements of Political Economy, and of various contributions to the Edinburgh Review, which have spread more widely a knowledge of the subject. Mr M'Culloch has also edited an edition of Adam Smith, and compiled several useful and able statistical works.

The opponents of Malthus and the economists, though not numerous, have been determined and active. Cobbett never ceased for years to inveigh against them. MR GODWIN came forward in 1821 with an Inquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, a treatise very unworthy the author of Caleb Williams.' In 1830 MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER published The Law of Population: a Treatise in Disproof of the Superfecundity of Human Beings, and Developing the Real Principle of their Increase. A third volume to this work was in preparation by the author when he died. Sadler (1780-1835) was a mercantile man, partner in an establishment at Leeds. In 1829 he became representative in parliament for the borough of Newark, and distinguished himself by his speeches against the removal of the Catholic disabilities and the Reform Bill. He also wrote a work on the condition of Ireland. Mr Sadler was an ardent benevolent man, an impracticable politician, and a florid speaker. His literary pursuits and oratorical talents were honourable and graceful additions to his character as a man of business, but in knowledge and argument he was greatly inferior to Malthus and Ricardo. An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and the Sources of Taxation, 1831, by the REV. RICHARD JONES, is chiefly confined to the consideration of rent, as to which the author differs from Ricardo. MR NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, professor of political economy in the university of Oxford in 1831, published Two Lectures on Population, and has also written pamphlets on the poor laws, the commutation of tithes, &c. He is the ablest of all the opponents of Malthus.

REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

In no department, more than in this, has the character of our literature made a greater advance during the last age. The reviews enumerated in

the Sixth Period continued to occupy public favour, though with small deservings, down to the beginning of this century, when a sudden and irrecoverable eclipse came over them. The Edinburgh Review, started in October 1802 under circumstances elsewhere detailed, was a work entirely new in our literature, not only as it brought talent of the first order to bear upon periodical criticism, but as it presented many original and brilliant disquisitions on subjects of public concernment apart from all consideration of the literary productions of the day. It met with instant success of the most decided kind, and it still occupies an important position in the English world of letters. As it was devoted to the support of Whig politics, the Tory or ministerial party of the day soon felt a need for a similar organ of opinion on their side, and this led to the establishment of the Quarterly Review in 1809. The Quarterly has ever since kept abreast with its northern rival in point of ability. The Westminster Review was established in 1824, by Mr Bentham and his friends, as a medium for the representation of Radical opinions. In point of talent this work has been comparatively unequal.

The same improvement which the Edinburgh Review originated in the critical class of periodicals was effected in the department of the magazines, or literary miscellanies, by the establishment, in 1817, of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which has been the exemplar of many other similar publications-Fraser's, Tait's, the New Monthly, Metropolitan, &c.-presenting each month a melange of original articles in light literature, mingled with papers of political disquisition. In all of these works there is now literary matter of merit equal to what obtained great reputations fifty years ago; yet in general presented anonymously, and only designed to serve the immediate purpose of amusing the idle hours of the public.

POPULAR PUBLICATIONS.

The

The plan of monthly publication for works of merit, and combining cheapness with elegance, was commenced by Mr Constable in 1827. It had been planned by him two years before, when his active mind was full of splendid schemes; and he was confident that if he lived for half-a-dozen years, he would make it as impossible that there should not be a good library in every decent house in Britain, as that the shepherd's ingle-nook should want the salt poke.' Constable's Miscellany' was not begun till after the failure of the great publisher's house, but it presented some attraction, and enjoyed for several years considerable though unequal success. works were issued in monthly numbers at a shilling each, and volumes of three shillings and sixpence. Basil Hall's Travels, and Lockhart's Life of Burns, were included in the Miscellany, and had a great sale. The example of this Edinburgh scheme stirred up a London publisher, Mr Murray, to attempt a similar series in the English metropolis. Hence began the Family Library,' which was continued for about twelve years, and ended in 1841 with the eightieth volume. Mr Murray made his volumes five shillings each, adding occasionally engravings and woodcuts, and publishing several works of standard merit- including Washington Irving's Sketch-Book, Southey's Life of Nelson, &c. Mr Irving also abridged for this library his Life of Columbus; Mr Lockhart abridged Scott's Life of Napoleon; Scott himself contributed a History of Demonology; Sir David Brewster a Life of Newton, and other popular authors joined as fellow-labourers. Another series of monthly volumes was begun in

1833, under the title of Sacred Classics,' being reprints of celebrated authors whose labours have been devoted to the elucidation of the principles of revealed religion. Two clergymen (Mr Cattermole and Mr Stebbing) edited this library, and it was no bad index to their fitness for the office, that they opened it with Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying,' one of the most able, high-spirited, and eloquent of theological or ethical treatises. The Edinburgh Cabinet Library,' commenced in 1830, and still in progress (though not in regular intervals of a month between each volume), is chiefly devoted to geographical and historical subjects. Among its contributors have been Sir John Leslie, Professors Jameson and Wallace, Mr Tytler, Mr James Baillie Fraser, Professor Spalding, Mr Hugh Murray, Dr Crichton, Dr Russell, &c. The convenience of the monthly mode of publication has recommended it to both publishers and readers: editions of the works of Scott, Miss Edgeworth, Byron, Crabbe, Moore, Southey, the fashionable novels, &c. have been thus issued and circulated in thousands. Old standard authors and grave historians, decked out in this gay monthly attire, have also enjoyed a new lease of popularity: Boswell's Johnson, Shakspeare and the elder dramatists, Hume, Smollett, and Lingard, Tytler's Scotland, Cowper, Robert Hall, and almost innumerable other British worthies, have been so published. Those libraries, however (notwithstanding the intentions and sanguine predictions of Constable), were chiefly supported by the more opulent and respectable classes. To bring science and literature within the grasp of all, a society was formed in 1825 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at the head of which were several statesmen and leading members of the Whig aristocracy-Lords Auckland, Althorp (now Earl Spencer), John Russell, Nugent, Suffield, Mr Henry Brougham (afterwards Lord Brougham), Sir James Mackintosh, Dr Maltby (Bishop of Durham),