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Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few.-POPE. BREAD OR LANDLORDS' TAX. or quite all the arable land in Prussia is required to raise the corn necessary for the consumption of that country; wherefore it would be impossible for the Prussian cultivators to supply any great quantity for England, and none without resorting to expensive soils that would enhance the price to the extent he conjectured. Whether this As public opinion is now happily turned towards the subject of the be correct or erroneous as regards Prussia, it is certain that the state Com Laws, it is the duty of every journalist who feels how deeply of things is very different in a much finer corn country-Poland. the country is interested in that question, to assist in showing the "We are informed by Mr. BEKEND, of the house of ALMONDE and extent of the mischief now endured, and the practicability of an effec-BEHREND, great corn-merchants at Dantzic, that fully one-third of tual remedy. Of all subjects of public interest, we do not know one which is of more universal importance than this. Every individual has a direct interest in the price of a principal article of food-to every poor family in particular it is a matter of anxious concern; while, considered more generally, the merchant, the manufacturer, the farmer, the politician, must all view it as intimately connected with the welfare of the nation. That time of ignorance has passed away; we presume, when the dearness of the quarteru loaf was considered to be the effect of a wicked conspiracy among the millers and bakers; and we take it for granted, that every person who has read or thought on the subject, is aware, that the law which forbids the importation of foreign corn at any rate less than 80s. a quarter, renders artificially high the price of corn at home, because a sufficient quantity cannot be produced in the country for the consumption of the inhabitants, without bringing into cultivation inferior and consequently expensive tracts of land. the fertile corn-lands are entirely waste; that great tracts of land, admirably fitted for wheat, have been thrown into pasture merely for want of a market, and that great quantities of corn are consumed by cattle, and in various other ways among the cultivators themselves, which, on the opening of our ports, would be brought to market immediately."- Westminster Review, No. 6, p.403. For which reasons with 200,000 or 300,000 quarters of wheat annually, without any Mr. BEHREND is of opinion, that Poland could supply Great Britain material advance of price. The same reasoning will apply to the fertile districts in the south of Russia (the Ukraine, the Crimea, &c.) at the great port of which-Odessa-wheat could be shipped at 22s. 6d. and imported into England for as much more, making the price in our markets 45s. for grain about one-sixth inferior to the average English quality, which is of course equal to 52s. for the same quality. Besides these sources of supply, there is the vast Continent of America, the northern portion of which already wants a vent for its Calculations have been made which render it manifest, that the surplus produce, and the whole of which will, in process of time, raise Bread-Tax is the most grievous impost, both as to amount and inju-more than its population can require. It appears to us, from these nous effects, that the British nation smarts under. It is at the statements, that if our ports were always open to foreign corn, the ave same time the least understood. Most persons are aware, that we rage price of wheat in England would be about what the Westminster pay 60 millions a year to the Government in taxes (including charges far from the mark, is, we think, satisfactorily proved by the average Reviewer calculates-52s. a quarter. That such a price cannot be of collection; that we pay six or seven millions a year in poor-rates; that we pay a large sum in other parochial and county rates; and price in Holland, a country which imports a much greater proportion that the clergy draw from us yearly a sum variously estimated at from of its consumption than Great Britain ever will, and draws its supplies five to nine millions. But comparatively few are sensible, that in from about the same distances. In the 10 years, 1815 to 1824, the addition to these payments to Church and State, we pay an enormous average price at Rotterdam was only 47s. 10d. for wheat about 4s. a annual amount in the extra price of our bread, in order that a portion quarter inferior in quality to the English average. of it may go into the pockets of the owners of land! So that the Here then we come to a mode of estimating pretty fairly the sum total of taxes which appears in the neat little Treasury documents put of 10s. a quarter in the price, owing to the Corn Laws, would cause the which the nation pays annually as a bread-tax. An artificial excess forth once a quarter, is nothing near the real total levied upon the people. It is only the amount of the State taxes; besides which, we quartern loaf to be at least 14d. dearer than under a free importation. are blessed with the parish and county rates, the Tithes or Parsons' Taking the population at 20 millions, the calculation of our friend Tax, and the Bread or Landlords' Tax. The latter is not only hea-F. P., which we quoted the other day from the Monthly Magazine, vier than the two previous, but it is more unjust and impolitic than appears extremely moderate: namely, that the extra price is equiva any other impost whatever. Unjust-because nothing is done in lent to a tax of TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS a year on the people of return for it by the Landlords, not even as much as the clergy do for Great Britain, or between a third and half as much as the total of the their tithes: impolitic, because for every three or four millions wasted, only perhaps one million is received by the class for whose advantage the tax is imposed. Conceive that Government should impose a duty which, on account of the excessive cost of collection, returned to the treasury one million out of every four it drew from the people;-and an idea may be formed of the profligate nature of the BREAD-TAX! enormous State Taxes! 66 What shadow of a pretext is there for the imposition of this grievous burden on a people already oppressed by taxation? Agriculture must be protected," we are told. True, if it needs protection; but not by means cruel to the poorer classes, and disastrous to the country's commerce and manufactures. To make corn dear, distresses In estimating the extent of this tax, we shall only refer generally to absolutely secure us against any serious ill consequences arising from the One of the great advantages of a free trade in corn is, that it would the calculations in the excellent papers on the Corn Laws which partial bad harvests which are always occurring in some part of the appeared in the 81st No. of the Edinburgh Review, and in the 6th world. While we entirely depend on our own produce, the failure of a No. of the Westminster Review, The writers in both publications crop in England must produce dreadful suffering; but when we draw examined the evidence given before Parliamentary Committees re-supplies from three or four sources remote from each other, we should be specting the price of corn in the great Continental ports, and the little affected by the stopping up of one or two, either by war or by a probable addition to that price which would be made by the expense bad season. It is a fact established by observation, that when there is a of freight, &c. before foreign corn could be brought into competition scanty harvest in one part of the earth, there is a plentiful one in another; with English in our markets. They come, however, to somewhat Nature seems to maintain an average fertility throughout the globe. So different conclusions. The Edinburgh Reviewer calculates that from Odessa in one year by an unusual abundance at New York; or the that we might reckon on being compensated for the loss of our supplies foreign wheat could not come into the English market at less than an failure of our crop at home would only cause us to relieve a glut in the average of 60s. per quarter; while the writer in the Westminster markets of Poland or Canada. How incalculable are the benefits of an maintains that it would be hardly 52s. It appears that wheat can be unfettered commerce-how beautiful the arrangement by which what shipped at Dantzic for 35s. a quarter; but the Edinburgh Reviewer is a curse in one country is converted into a blessing in another! The supposes that the demand from England, in the event of a free trade pretence therefore, that an open trade in corn would make us debeing allowed, would raise the price 15s., making it 50s.; which, add-pendent on forigners for our bread, and expose us to frequent famines, ing 8s. for importing charges, would bring corn from Dantzic into is about as reasonable as the Lord CHANCELLOR's remark the other day, Mark-lane, at nearly 60s. For this supposition, however, the Re- that the new companies for the vending of provisions, would reduce the viewer has nothing more to rely upon than the statement of Mr. cible than the manner in which this matter is put in the Lord's Protest purchasers to a dependence on the dealers! Nothing can be more forSOLLY before the Agricultural Committee in 1821; a statement against the Corn Bill in 1815, attributed to Lord Grenville:-"To conwhich upon the face of it startles one's common sense, and which fine the consumer of corn to the produce of his own country, is to refuse appears, from the examination in the Westminster Review, to be dis- ourselves the benefit of that provision which Providence itself has made proved by well-ascertained facts. Mr. SOLLY asserted, that nearly for equalizing to man the variations of season and of climate,” 66 the purchasers, but it does not protect" Agriculture. It causes more corn to be grown than otherwise would be; but that is no protection to Agriculture. If foreign corn were consumed in place of that which is raised from inferior soils at great expence, the cultivation of the good soils would not be the less profitable to the farmer. Agriculture in fact needs no "protection." In 1795, a bill was brought into Parliament by Mr. PITT, and passed into a law, for allowing the importation of all kinds of provisions duty free; yet at that time the average price of wheat was only 54s. the quarter, and all connected with the land, landlords, tenants, and labourers, were prosperous and content. The Corn Laws then are not necessary for the protection of Agriculture. That they do no good to the farmer, seems quite clear; seeing that rent regularly rises with the price of corn, and that the farmer shares in the general diminution of the profits of capital, which is caused by increased dearness in the necessaries of life. Who then do benefit by this frightful system? If any one, the landlord and the tithe-owner. Even in their case however the advantage is very doubtful. Let us consider the situation of the landlord. His rental is higher in consequence of the Corn Laws, but it is neither so steady nor so well paid. While foreign corn is excluded or loaded with a heavy duty, violent fluctuations must take place in the home price. Within a few years we have seen the landowners flourishing in the midst of the distresses of the rest of the community (their rents rising on every new lease) and afterwards reduced to a very low state, while the other classes were comparatively at their ease. When we consider also, that the landlord suffers as a consumer, from the dearness of other necessaries occasioned by the unnatural price of bread; and that he fixes his establishment, regulates his allowances to his family, and raises money by mortgage, on the temporary high scale of income which most men are prone to reckon upon as permanent,-it will appear very questionable whether a steady price of corn, though lower than the present average, would not be better for him in the long run, than a higher but constantly fluctuating price. At all events, the landlord's gain must be admitted to be very small in reality, compared to what it might be hastily reckoned at first sight; and that is sufficient for our argument. If the benefit of the Corn Laws to the landlords be doubtful, the injury to the nation at large is certain. Admitting that the landlords do gain something by the system, it cannot be a fifteenth or even a twentieth part of what the rest of the community lose. Justice, policy, and humanity, therefore, all forbid the continuance of so oppressive and profligate a tax. It has been a common cry with the advocates of the Corn Laws, that the land in England being heavily taxed, it is impossible that its produce can compete with the produce of the Continental states. This assertion, however, is never accompanied with anything like proof; and it would be difficult for those who advance it, to show, that the difference between English and foreign taxation on land amounts to more than the importing charges which must be added to the price of foreign wheat before it can be sold in Mark-lane. But that does not affect the question. It is simply an affair of rent. Good land will always be cultivated, although wheat should fall to half its present price, and not rise again. The landlords will get less rent, of course; but would that be a national calamity? Can we suffer the matter to be argued on the assumption, that high rent is a sine quá non for the country? Taxation diminishes the profits of all classes: why should the landlords demand an exemption from their share of the nation's burdens? They did very well before the war, with corn at a less price than the free importation would now make it, and the same proportion of tithe and land-tax. (Poor-rates are higher, but chiefly owing to the frightful system of partially paying the labourer in parish allowances instead of wages.) The other taxes they bear in common with the rest of the community, and ought to bear with less complaint, because they have had a most flourishing time during the rise of prices, and the value of their property has increased in a very remarkable ratio. It has been stated in print, that Mr. COKE'S rental, which thirty-eight years ago was 2,200l. was lately 20,000l. a-year. It was doubtless still higher when corn was 80s. and 100s. a quarter; but has the landlord any right to complain of the amount under the present" depreciation?" In a sensible pamphlet, entitled "An Address to the Electors of the United Kingdom" upon the Corn Laws, is the following statement:" About the year 1790, a farm which the Auther knows was offered for sale at 8000l. but a purchaser at that price could not be found. The present owner bought the farm for 11,500/. since which he has refused 30,000l. for it (with out any material improvement upon the farm;) but in 1816 he found it would not bring him more than 25,000/." There may be very sincere differences of opinion as to whether the price of a quarter of wheat in England it was 38s. 10d. Between those two intermediate prices. In May onerage you 8d. In November, eriods it rapidly vary to all was free importation of corn would injure the landlords, and also as to the extent of the injury; but the present mode of protecting them by an enormous tax levied upon the public, is what no rational person can approve. If they are entitled (which we certainly do not admit) to a higher price of wheat than that at which foreign wheat can be sold when loaded with the cost of importation, let them have an equivalent in some other way; but do not let the whole people be taxed to the amount of TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS a-year-do not let the poor labourer be driven from bread to potatoes-do not prevent our manufactures from competing in price with those of other nations, on account of the dearness of necessaries-do not inflict all these evils on the industry of the country and the comforts of the people, in order that a very small part of the sum thus mischievously extorted from the nation may go into the pockets of the landlords. Above all things, let us not pursue the suicidal policy of excluding the cheap. corn of countries which would take our manufactures in return; let us not raise wheat from inferior soils, at great expense at home, when we may buy it cheap of foreigners, and produce a far greater value in manufactured commodities with the same cost and labour. Let us not add one farthing to the price of the poor man's loaf; but if it be proper or necessary that the landlords should get higher rents than a free importation would permit, let a scale be calculated of the pecuniary loss they would sustain by every shilling of abatement in the price of grain, and let them be paid the average amount each year out of the national funds. The only substantial reason against an immediate opening of the ports to the admission of foreign corn without any duty whatever, is to be found in the situation of those landlords who have mortgaged their estates for a considerable portion of the value under the high prices, and who would consequently be nearly or wholly ruined by a sudden reduction of rent. This is one of the evils common to all bad systems, but it forms no argument against the return to a sound policy under proper regulations. The strongest inference to be drawn from it is, that the remedy should be gradual, not sudden; in order that the suffering of those who have abused an artificial prosperity may be mitigated. This could be managed by the imposition of a duty on imported corn, to diminish every year until it ceased altogether. We expect that Ministers will propose, and the landlords consent to the substitution of a fixed duty for the present absurd prohibition; but unless that duty be low enough to cause a reduction in the present price of wheat, no good will be done by the change beyond the prevention of the extreme fluctuations of price experienced within the last ten years. It should never be forgotten too, as the Editor of the Globe and Traveller has very justly observed, that the 80s. at which the Corn Bill of 1815 fixed the importation-price, is only equal to 65s. of our present currency. So that any duty which made the price of imported corn above 65s. a quarter, would be an aggravation, instead of a mitigation, of that oppressive and pernicious law. THE WISHING-CAP. No. XXVI. A NOVEL PARTY. (Concluded.) -Hic ingentem comitum affluxisse novorum Invenio admirans numerum.-VIRGIL. O the pleasure that attends Such flowings in of novel friends. If the reader is critical, and will not enjoy his bread and butter without among a company to which we seem not to belong, we have to inform a reason; we mean, if he wishes to know how we came to we admitted him, that, on the contrary, we belong very much to the company, and do make a considerable figure in all novels, past, present, and to come. He himself makes the same, and has an equal privilege. In short, name of Reader. The Novelist appeals to us on all occasions, inwe are the important and multitudinous personage, known by the troduces his characters to us, and makes us a party to all their proceedings. By virtue of the dignity we possess in his eyes, we have titles bestowed upon us, which are sometimes as gratuitous as those of angry, "Serene Highnesses" and sulky "Gracious Majesties." At one time we are the "Benevolent Reader;" then the "Candid," then the "Judicious" or "Reflecting." And here I cannot help deserving persons as Mr. Smollett and Mr. Fielding, and to feel ourobserving, how pleasant it is to be addressed in this manner by such selves sitting with them in their respective parlours and societies. How inclined we were, in general, to exhibit the qualities they attri bute to us! to be the benevolent reader, the candid, and the kind. Judicious we are, of course. Having settled this point, we are not afraid to answer another question which may come into the reflecting but at the same time benevolent head of our brother reader: to wit, how the company themselves happened to meet one another. He must know then, that the meeting was of the same nature with assemblies in country towns, where all the inhabitants, of any importance, àre in the habit of coming together for the public advantage, and being amiable and censorious. There the Sir Charles Grandison of the place meets the Tom Jones and the Mrs. Humphrey Clinker. There the Lady Bellaston interchanges courtesies and contempt with the Miss Marglands; and all the Dubsters in their new yellow gloves with all the Delvilles. Having thus taken care of our probabilities (or verisimilitude, as the critics call it) to which in our highest flights we are much attached, we proceed with our narrative. troversy with the Grandisons, and reduced them sadly to their precedents and authorities. The conclusion of the company seemed to be, that if the world were to be made different from what it is, the change would be effected rather by the philosophies of these gentlemen than the seraphics of the other party; but the general opinion was, that it would be altered by neither, and that in the mean time, variety was charming;" a sentiment which the Vicar of Wakefield took care to explain to his wife. (We differ, for our parts, with this opinion about non-alteration, and were very much of Mr. Desmond's and Mr. Hugh Trevor's way of thinking: but we are bound to record what was said.) But how are we forgetting ourselves? We have left out, in our divisions, a fifth set, the most delightful of all, one of whom is a whole body of humanity in himself; to wit, Mr. Abraham Adams, and all whom he loves. We omit his title of Reverend ; not because he is not so, but because titles are things exclusive, and our old friend belongs to the whole world. Bear witness, spirit of every to be produced in these latter times, to love such a man as Abraham thing that is true, that with the exception of one or two persons, only Adams better than all the characters in all the histories of the world, orthodox or not orthodox, we hold him to be only inferior to a Shaks peare: and only then, because the latter joins the height of wisdom intellectual to his wisdom cordial. He should have been Shakspeare's and a fist to stand by it! This is better than Sir Charles's fencing,' chaplain, and played at bowls with him. What a sound heart,without which his polite person-(virtue included)—would often have been in an awkward way. What disinterestedness! What feeling ! kind gift,-the comfort we all treasure more or less about us, to keep What real modesty! What a harmless spice of vanity,-Nature's ourselves in heart with ourselves! In fine, what a regret of his Eschylus! and a delicious forgetting that he could not see to read if he had had it! Angels should be painted with periwigs, to look like him. We confess, we prefer Fanny to Joseph Andrews; which will be pardoned us; but the lad is a good lad; and if poor Molly at the inn has forgiven him, (which she ought to do, all things considered) we will forgive him ourselves, on the score of my Lady in patronizing the "innocent creatures," as she calls them. We are Booby. It is more than my Lady has done, though she takes a pride afraid, from what we saw this evening, that poor Joseph is not as well as he would be with his sister Pamela. When the refreshments came in, we observed her blush at his handing a plate of sandwiches to his friend Mr. Adams. She called him to her in a whisper; and asked him, whether he had forgotten that there was a footman in the room? We forgot to mention, at the close of our last, that Mrs. Honour, the famous waiting-maid of Sophia Western, was not present. Nothing could induce her to figure as a servant, where" that infected upstart,' as she called her, Mrs. Humphrey Clinker, fidgeted about as a gentlewoman. The conversation soon became very entertaining, particularly in the hands of the Grandisons and IIarlowes, who, though we could perceive they were not so admired by the rest of the company as by one another, interested them in spite of themselves by the longest and yet most curious gossip in the world. Sir Charles did not talk so much as the others, and indeed seemed to be a little baffled and thrust off the pinnacle of his superiority in this very mixed society; but he was thought a prodigious fine gentleman by the gravest of us, and was really a very good natured one. His female friends, who were eter nally repeating and deprecating their own praises, were pronounced by Hermsprong, as well as Peregrine Pickle, to be the greatest coxcombs under the sun. The latter said something about Pamela and Covent Garden, which we do not chuse to repeat. The consciousness of doing their duty however, mixed as it might be with these vain mistakes, gave a certain tranquillity of character to the faces of some of this party, which Peregrine and some other about him might have envied. At the same time, we must do the justice to Peregrine to say; that although (to speak plainly) he had something of the blackguard in him, he displayed some generous qualities; and is a character likely to do good in his walk of life, if not in another. His history might be dangerous to some, who are not very likely to study it; but it may serve to hinder young men "about town" from becoming worse than their habits might otherwise render them. We cannot say much for his wit and talents, which are so extolled by the Historian; nor even for those of his friend Roderick Random, though he carries some good qualities still further. The historian has praised Roderick's person. There appeared to us something particularly disagreeable in the fat and sawney cut of it. His conversation had the Scotch vice of The arrival of the refreshments divided our company into a variety coarseness; to the great delight of Squire Western, who said he had of small ones. The ladies got more together; and the wines more spirit than Tom himself. Tom did not care for a little and jellies diffused a benevolent spirit among us all. We forgot our voluptuousness; but the sort of conversation to which Roderick and controversies, and were earnest only in the putting of cakes. John his friends were inclined, disgusted him, and before women astonished Buncle however stood talking and eating at a great rate with one of him. He did not therefore very well fall in with the society of the philosophers. Somebody asked after Lovelace and Clarissa: for men not otherwise disagreeable, to him; though his wit and views of the reader need not be told, that it is only in a fictitious sense that things were, upon the whole, pretty much on a par with theirs. these personages are said to have died. They cannot die, being In person and manners he beat them hollow. Sophia neverthe- immortal. It seems that Lovelace and Clarissa live in a neighbouring less took very kindly to Emily Gauntlett and Narcissa; two ladies quarter, called Romance; a very grave place, where few of the comrather insipid. We observed that the company might be divided pany visited. We were surprised to hear that they lived in the same into four different sorts. One was Sir Charles Grandison's and party; house; that Lovelace had found out he had a liking for virtue in her another, the Pickles and Joneses; a third, the Lord Orvilles, Evelinas, own shape as well as Clarissa's, and that Clarissa thought she might and Cecilias, with the young lady from the Old Manor House; and a as well forget herself so far as to encourage the man not to make a fourth the Hermsprongs, Desmonds, and others, including a gentle- rascal and a madman of himself. This, at least, is the way that Tom man, we have forgotten to mention, Mr. Hugh Trevor. In this Gollogher put it: for Tom undertook to be profound on the subject, last were some persons whose names we ought to have remembered, and very much startled us by his observations. He made an applifor an account of whom we must refer to Mrs. Inchbald. The first of cation of a line in Milton, about Adam and Eve, which the more these parties were for carrying all the established conventional virtues serious among us thought profane, and which indeed we are afraid of to a high pitch of dignity; so much so, as to be thinking too much of repeating:-but Tom's good nature was so evident, as well as his the dignity, while they fancied they were absorbed in the virtue. They wish to make the best of a bad case, that we chose to lay the more were very clear and amusing, and we verily believe would have equivocal part of his logic to the account of his "wild way;" and for given an interest to a history of every grain of sand on the sea-shore; all that we saw to the contrary, he was a greater favourite with the but their garrulity and vanity united rendered other conversation a re- ladies than ever. Desmond's friend Waverley asked us after his freshment. The second were a parcel of wild but not ill-natured celebrated namesake. We told him he was going on very well, and young fellows, all very ready to fall in with what the others thought was very like his relation; a compliment which Mr. Waverley acknowand recommended, and to forget it the next moment, especially as ledged by a low bow. We related to him the sea-side adventure of their teachers laid themselves open to ridicule. It must be added, Waverley's friend, the Antiquary; at which the other exclaimed, that their very inferiority in some respects gave them a more general "Good God! how like an adventure which happened to a friend of taste of humanity, particularly Tom Jones; who was as pleasant, our acquaintance? only see what coincidences will take place!" He unaffected a fellow, and upon the whole perhaps as virtuous, in his asked us if the Antiquary had never noticed the resemblance, and was way, as could be expected of a sprightly blood educated in the ordinary surprised to hear that he had not. "I should not wonder at it," said fashion. The Camillas and Evelinas were extremely entertaining, he, "if the incident had been well known; but these Antiquaries are and told us a number of stories that made us die with laughter. Their niggardly fellows after all, and I will tell him of it," added he, "when fault consisted in talking too much about lords and pawn-brokers. I see him." Mr. Waverley anticipated with great delight the society Monimia (What's her name?) from the Old Manor House, ridiculed of his namesake with his numerous friends, though he did not seem to vulgarity also a little too much to be polite. The most puzzling expect much from the female part of them. people in the room were the Desmonds and Hugh Trevors, who had Before we broke up, tragical doings were likely to have occurred come up since a late revolution in our sphere, They got into a con-between the house-keeper and Mrs. Humphrey Clinker. Mrs. Slip singular attempts to mingle the concerns of love and religion, which all history proves to be a very hazardous and critical species of combination, whatever the form and circumstances under which it has from time to time appeared. slop sent up a message apologizing for some of the jellies. She expressed a fear-(which was correctly delivered by an impudent young rogue of a messenger)-that "the superfluency of the sugar would take away the tastality of the jellies, and render them quite innoxious." (If the reader thinks this account overcharged, we have The work before us, to which we mean very briefly to allude, may to inform him that he will fall into the error of the audience about be denominated an effort of the kind above mentioned in favour of the pig). Mrs. Humphrey was indignant at this "infected nonsense," that most orthodox of all opinions, the creed of the Thirty-nine Articles, as she called it; and was fidgeting out of the room to scold the rheto-agreeably to the interpretation of what is usually called the "High rician, when her husband called her back, telling her that it was beneath Church." We are much inclined to think, that it is the first formal the dignity of a rational soul like her's to fret itself into such matters. attempt of the kind; for if we recollect aright, most of the previous Winifred's blood began to rise at the first part of this observation; labours of this class have been either evangelical or methodistical; but the words, "like hers," induced her to sit down, and content religious tracts in the story-telling way included. However this may herself with an answer to the message. Peregrine Pickle, who was be, the task of the Southeyan or purely orthodox Novelist, in the sorry to see affairs end so quietly, persuaded her however to put her argumentative way, is much more difficult than that of the Vital Chrismessage in writing, and Mrs. Slipslop would have inevitably been tianity tale-teller, in as much as the fabled Mahometan bridge on the roused and brought up stairs, had not Sir Charles condescended to road to heaven is not more narrow and difficult to pass without falling, interfere. The answer was as follows: over, on one side or the other, than the almost invisible line of high church orthodoxy. This tru:h, indeed, has been so deeply impressed on the mind of the Right Rev. Bishop of Peterborough, that he has fenced the said path with a railing, consisting of eighty-three propositions, to prevent his flock from falling in the boundless vacuity below! All this is mighty pleasant; but we should exceedingly doubt à priori, its facile adaptation to the novel; and attending to the subject à posteriori, through the medium of Tremaine, although evidently the production of a gentleman and a scholar, we find no sort of reason to alter our opinion. "MRS. SLIBBERSLOP,Hit Bing beneath the diggingit of a rasher and sole, to cumfabberrate with sich parsons, i desire that you wil send up sum geallies fit for a cristum and a gentile wommun to heat. We ar awl astonied att yure niggling gents. The geallys ar shamful." Peregrine begged her to add a word of advice respecting the "pompous apology;" upon which she concluded thus: A nuther tim doant Send up sich pumpers and Polly jeers and stuf; and so no moar at present from "Yure wel wisker "WINIFRED CLINKER." When the ladies had put on their cloaks, and were waiting for their carriages, we could not but remark how well Sophia Western-(we family and one of those fastidious and over-refined personages, who, The book in general is soon described: Tremaine, a man of high like to call her by her old name)--looked in any dress and position. like Voltaire's signor Pococurante, possesses so much genius that She was all ease and goodnature, and had a charming shape. Lady nothing in the world can please them; annoyed with the possession of Grandison was a regular beauty, but did not become a cloak. She was best in full dress. Pamela was a little soft-looking thing, who a large fortune, and fatigued with eternal disgust and disappointment at first sight seemed "as if butter would not melt in her mouth." world adieu, and go to one of his country seats to philosophise. Iu in consequence of his overtrained delicacy, determines to bid the But she had something in the corner of her eye, which told you you the description of this factitions state of mind, the author is not unhad better take care how you behaved yourself. She would look all round her at every man in the room, and hardly one of them be the successful; and the humour of flying into solitude to do nothing is wiser. Pamela was not so splendidly dressed as her friend Lady ably ridiculed. It happens, however, that our stricken deer is a Grandison, but her clothes were as costly. The Miss Howe's, Lady sceptic, which, of course, adds materially to the weight of his other G.'s, and others of that class, were loud, bright-eyed, raw-boned lives and flourishes a former College friend, somewhat older than afflictions. Happily, however, in his immediate neighbourhood people, who tossed on their cloaks without assistance, or commanded your help with a sarcasm. Camilla, Cecilia, and Evelina, were all himself, in the form of a village rector, possessed of a handsome very handsome and agreeable. We prefer, from what we recollect of independent fortune, and what is more, of a beautiful, well-informed them, Camilla and Evelina; but they say Cecilia is the most interest- and ingenuous daughter, of the delightful age of eighteen. The iming. Louisa Mildmay might have been taken for a pale beauty; but mediate consequence may be anticipated: the father, a man of great her paleness was not natural to her, and she was resuming her colour. energy both of body and mind, and a confirmed disputant, assails the Her figure was luxuriant; and her eyes, we thought, had a depth in pococurantism of our sickly philosopher with raillery, and his sceptithem beyond those of any person's in the room. We did not see much cism with argument, while the daughter operates, still more forcibly, in Narcisa and Emila Gauntlett, but they were both good jolly damsels by the way of sap. Thus beset, the fate of the poor hero (in his enough. Of Amelia we have spoken already. We have a recollec-eight and thirtieth year, by the bye) is sealed towards the close of the tion that Hermsprong's wife (a Miss Campionet, we think) was a love. Now comes the tug of war: he cannot possibly be accepted second volume; his incredulity is shaken, and he is desperately in pleasant girl; but somehow she had got out of our sight. The while tainted with heresy and doubt; and the whole third volume, for daughters of the Vicar of Wakefield were fine girls, especially Sophia; his especial improvement, is dedicated in the first place to a controfor whom, being of her husband Sir William's age, we felt a particular versy on the 'Origin of Evil,' showing, in contradiction to Epicurus of tenderness. Our heart would certainly have been in a bad way old, and all his followers, its perfect compatibility with omnipotence, between her, and Sophia Western, and Fanny, and Louisa Mildmay; omniscience, and benevolence; secondly, to a dissertation on the but the fact was, that all which we had to spare of it, had already nature and reality of Free-will,' in opposition to what is generally been lost among our Country Neighbours to a future companion of called Philosophical Necessity, in which it is proved as clear as noontheirs of the name of Blanche. tide, that although man cannot command either circumstances or motives, he can act independently of them; just as an individual on the brink of a precipice, if pushed over, can fall upwards instead of downwards, if he please! Lastly, to the infinite advantage of the argument for the benevolent existence of evil, the particular agency of Providence is proved, in contradiction to all presumed general law or pre-arrangement. All these positions being clearly established, Tremaine, who defends his previous opinions with infinite keeping, that is to say, exceedingly like a man in love, marries the beautiful Georgina, and of course is in future to be as felicitous as love and orthodoxy can make him; it being taken for granted, that as the strong general holds of infidelity have been carried, Paley will We will not assail our be sufficient for revelation and all the rest. readers with remarks on the force or ability of this third volume of controversy; the writer is evidently skilled in the usual scholastic manner of handling these subjects, and seems to have read most that has been written on them. We need not say, that the philosophers and sceptics are treated by the argumentative doctor with the usual urbanity. Voltaire, for instance, is called a liar and an atrocious ruffian, some few pages before, it is found out that Lord Bolingbroke was not the complete gentleman he is described to have been by Chesterfield, for calling Wollaston a whining philosopher. LITERARY NOTICE. Tremaine; or, the Man of Refinement. 3 vols. EVER Since Mrs. HANNAH MOORE took upon herself the pleasing task of inculcating vital Christianity by her Calebs in search of a Wife, the novel-reading public have from time to time been assailed with similar attempts to insinuate religious systems through the medium of amusement. Of the effect produced by these theological tales we know little; but judging of them with great impartiality, in all their variety, we guess that they produce little effect upon anybody but the partisans of the respective opinions inculcated. This is not wonderful; for the authors, with the natural feelings of controversialists, allow so little ability to the representatives of the arguments or sentiments which they are anxious to put down, that every reader, who is not of their party, detects the fallacy, and throws down the book. The operation upon the remainder may be readily calculated; it affords prattle for the religious tea-table, and teaches serious boys and girls to pause upon the most judicious mode of mixing up the love of heaven and of each other. The exact quantity of ultimate good produced, as we have already observed, we pretend not to determine; but we half suspect In the two volumes preceding the formal set-to, there is some op of very ludicrous airs and graces may originate in these | amusing sketching; for although the author is not distinguished for |