Mr. Landor's gentle criticism on Words- of Burns, more animated than the odes of worth. Pindar, "He speaks contemptuously of the Scotch. "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled.' The first time I ever met him, and the only time I ever conversed with him longer than a called on me, and once asked me whether 1 "When Hazlitt was in Tuscany he often few minutes, he spoke contemptuously of had ever seen Wordsworth. I answered in Scott, and violently of Byron. He chattered the negative, and expressed a wish to know about them incoherently and indiscrimi- something of his appearance. Sir,' said nately. In reality, Scott had singularly the Hazlitt, have you ever seen a horse?' power of imagination and of construction; Assuredly. Then, sir, you have seen Byron little of either; but this is what Wordsworth.'-When I met him some years Wordsworth neither said nor knew. His after at a friend's on the lake of Waswater, censure was hardened froth. I praised a I found him extremely civil. There was line of Scott's on the dog of a traveller lost equinity in the lower part of his face in in the snow (if I remember) on Skiddaw. the upper was much of the contemplative, He said it was the only good one in the and no little of the calculating. This poem, and began instantly to recite a whole induced me, when, at a breakfast where one of his own upon the same subject. This induced me afterwards to write as follows on give five shillings for all Southey's poetry,' many were present, he said he would not a fly-leaf in Scott's poems: to tell a friend of his that he might safely make such an investment of his money and throw all his own in." "Ye who have lungs to mount the Muse's hill, Asthmatic Wordsworth, Byron piping-hot, I was thought unfriendly to Scott for one of the friendliest things I ever did toward an author. Having noted all the faults of grammar and expression in two or three of his volumes, I calculated that the number of them, in all, must amount to above a thousand. Mr. Lockhart, who married his daughter, was indignant at this, and announced, at the same time (to prove how very wrong I was) that they were corrected in the next edition. Scott's reading was extensive, but chiefly within the range of Great Britain and France; Wordsworth's lay, almost entirely, between the near grammar-school and Rydal Mount. He would not have scorned, although he might have reviled, the Scotch authors, if he ever had read Archibald Bower, or Hume, or Smollett, or Adam Smith; he would have indeed hated Burns; he would never have forgiven Beattie that incomparable stanza,—- "O how canst thou renounce the boundless Mr. Landor does not appreciate Mackintosh, and gives his no-reasons.— We him? Are there not twenty men and women all the rest? Even the most liberal of them, Surely our Knight is here forgetful of himself and of his order. Is difference of estimate the necessary result of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness? Do we so consider Mr. Landor's abuse of Byron, Goethe, and other poets? What follows is amusing as to the opinion expressed, and, in a different the Works of Alfieri and Metastasio, and way, interesting as to the facts. "How different in features, both personal and poetical, are Goethe and Wordsworth! In the countenance of Goethe there was something of the elevated and august; less of it in his poetry: Wordsworth's physiognomy was entirely rural. With a rambling pen he wrote admirable paragraphs in his longer poem, and sonnets worthy of Milton: for example, "Two voices are there,' &c., which is far above the highest pitch of Goethe. But his unbraced and unbuttoned impudence in presence of our grand historians, Gibbon and Napier, must be reprehended and scouted. Of Gibbon I have delivered my opinion; of Napier, too, on whom I shall add nothing more at present than that he superseded the Duke, who intended to write the history of his campaigns, and who (his nephew Capt. William Wellesley tells me) has left behind him Memoirs.'" A paragraph in a higher key celebrates the person and opinions of Alfieri. Mr. Landor loved and honored the poet, with a thorough knowledge of his greatness. was enthusiastic, as most young men were, Alfieri, you are a very young man ; you are about the French Revolution. Sir," said yet to learn that nothing good ever came out of France, or ever will. The ferocious monsters are about to devour one another; and they can do nothing better. They have always been the curse of Italy; yet we too have fools among us who trust them.' Such were the expressions of the most classical and animated poet existing in the present or past century, of him who could at once be a true patriot and a true gentleman. There was nothing of the ruffianly in his vigor; nothing of the vulgar in his resentment; he could scorn without a scoff; he could deride without a grimace. Had he been living in these latter days, his bitterness would have overflowed, not on France alone, nor Austria in addition, the two beasts that have torn Italy in pieces, and are growling over her bones; but more, and more justly, on those constitutional governments which, by abetting, have aided them in their aggressions and incursions." So warm and buoyant runs the blood of our great prose writer, even in the mellow"I think oftener with Alfieri than with lives, we hope we shall never fail to find on ness of ripest years! While the "tree" any other writer, and quite agree with him that Italy and England are the only counit more last fruit." It is not every day tries worth living in.' The only time I ever that, by putting a hand over the garden saw Alfieri, was just before he left this coun- wall, we can bring back the golden apples of try forever. I accompanied my Italian mas- the Hesperides. ter, Parachinetti, to a bookseller's to order ་ RELICS OF THE STUARTS.-A correspondent of the Daily News writes from Rome: "A collection of antique jewels and arms, interesting from their intrinsic value and artistic merit, but still more from the circumstance of their having belonged at different periods to various members of the royal house of Stuart, has just been purchased in this city for Lord John Scott, from the late Cardinal York's gentiluomo, to which officer of his household his Eminence bequeathed these family relics. The collection, for which the purchaser has paid about £600, comprises the ring worn by the Pretender, entitled here James III., on his marriage here with the Princess Clementina Sobieski, and the marriage-ring of his son, Prince Charles Edward, inclosing a beautiful little miniature; a gold ring, with a white rose in enamel, worn by King James II. and James III.; a ring, with a cameo portrait in ivory of James II.; a ring, with a miniature portrait of Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, when young; a ring, with a cameo portrait, by the celebrated engraver Pickler, of James Sobieski, great uncle of the Pretender's wife; a ring, with a cameo portrait by the same artist, of the wife of Prince Charles Edward; a ring, with a cameo portrait of Prince Charles Edward; a ring, with a cameo portrait of the Duchess of Albany; a ring, containing a lock of hair of the Duchess of Albany; an antique emerald seal, formerly belonging to James III.; a chalcedony seal, with the Order of St. Andrew; Charles Stuart's watch-seal; seal, with the motto, Chacun à son tour;' Cardinal York's seal, with the royal arms; an enamelled medallion of the Order of St. George, formerly worn by King Charles I.; the blade of John Sobieski's sword; a jasper-handled dagger, taken by Sobieski from the tent of a Turkish bey at the siege of Vienna; a pair of richly ornamented pistols belonging to the Sobieski family; a portrait of the Duchess of Albany's mother; a dial and compass, mounted in silver, formerly belonging to Charles Stuart. These articles are now being carefully packed, and will be shortly forwarded to England." From The Examiner. thirds of the interest of the national debt THE GOLD OF CALIFORNIA AND AUS- were to have been paid off in a depreciated TRALIA. money. No such effect has followed. The additional supply of the precious metals has stimulated the industry of the world, and in fact produced an amount of wealth, in representing which they have been themselves, as it were, absorbed. It is true there has been a rise, often a large one, in the cost of many articles, but in no case to the enormous amount which the public dreaded. When a rise has taken place it is easily traceable to special causes, generally to the supply not keeping pace with that demand which the increased power of the consumer The gold mines of California began to be worked effectively in 1848; those of Australia in 1851, and both together are believed to have furnished the world with a supply, up to the present time, of one hundred and twenty-five millions sterling, each of them yielding annually to the value of about twelve millions. It would appear at first sight, that, contrary to what took place on the discovery of the American mines in the 16th century, the world has been replenished of late years with gold alone, but this is not the case, for the production of gold has caused a nearly corresponding produc--the joint result of gold and free trade→→ tion of silver. This fact is sufficiently proved has given rise to. In every kind of corn by the two metals having preserved very there has been a large increase of price, nearly their previous relative values of about caused by a series of bad or indifferent harfifteen to one, the difference in favor of vests throughout Europe, as well as by insilver not exceeding five per cent. This dif- creased consumption. In animal food there ference, of course, acts as a premium for its has been an increase of price of at least fifty production. That premium would certainly per cent., and this in the face of an importnot have been adequate, had not a new sup- ation of upwards of a quarter of a million ply of quicksilver been furnished by Califor-head of live animals in 1855, a supply which nia, almost at the same time with its gold. hardly existed at all before the gold discov The production of silver in the most fertile eries. mines is effected by amalgamation, and the quantity yielded depends almost wholly on the price of mercury, and so productive and free are the mines of California in this metal, that the old monopoly price of about 4s. 6d. a pound has fallen to 1s. 4d. Deducting the small amount of five per cent., it is certain, then, that the produce of silver has kept pace with that of gold, and consequently that for the last eight years the world has been furnished with an additional supply of the precious metals to the value of about £243,750,000. What, then, has been the effect of this vast and also sudden increase of the precious metals on the industry of the world? Judging from what was supposed to have taken place from the influx of American gold in the 16th century, their value ought to have fallen to not less than one-third part of their previous value, while every object they represented ought to have risen to three times their former price. That was certainly the apprehension entertained on the first announcement of the Californian gold. The annuitant was to have received in real value only 6s. 8d. for his pound, and two In cotton wool, the increase of price from 1848 to 1856 has been twenty per cent.; in flax, thirty per cent.; in coffee, above fifty per cent.; but in Russian hemp only four and a half per cent.; and in tea, notwithstanding the civil war that rages in the producing country, no more than twelve per cent. The price of Chinese silk has risen no less than seventy per cent., the special and acknowledged cause of which is the failure in the silk crops of France and Italy. At the same time, in some other staple articles, in which, from their nature, the supply has been quickly able to meet the demand, there has been either no increase of price at all, or a positive decline. Thus, the price of English bar iron is exactly the same now as it was in 1848, while sugar has declined sixteen per cent., and Australian wool twenty per cent. The wealth of the world must have vastly increased for the last eight years to keep pace, as it evidently has done, with the vast increase in the precious metals. Some evidence of this is easily produced. Our own exports have been doubled, or increased from the value of £50,000,000 to £100,000,000. But The difference in this case alone would ac- [not exceed a million and a half, while our count for more than one-fifth of all the imports from it exceeded nine millions! addition which has been made to the pro- The influx of Californian and Australian duce of the precious metals. But there gold, then, has hitherto produced no deprehas been an equal increase in the trade of ciation of the precious metals; but it may Anglo-Saxon America, and a large one in be said that eight years are not time sufficient that of France. The most remarkable in- to produce such an effect as the influx of crease is, of course, afforded by the gold-American gold is alleged to have done in the producing countries themselves. Thus in sixteenth century. Adam Smith states that 1849, two years before the discovery of gold the effect of that influx was not felt in Engin Australia, our exports to that country land until about the year 1570, some twenty were of the value of about £2,500,000, years after the discovery of the mines of whereas in 1854 they rose to nearly £13,- Potosi. We may safely aver that, in the 500,000, or had increased by 550 per cent. present mode of carrying on the intercourse Some unnecessary alarm has been ex- of nations, eight years are at the least equal perienced from what appears an incessant to twenty of the sixteenth century. and innate export of silver to the East, most the produce of Californian and Australian of it to Hindostan, but a considerable part gold, as well as that of silver which has also to China. Since the commencement of accompanied it, is likely to go on, and it the gold discoveries a sum probably not ex- may be asked if this must not in course of ceeding the value of £3,000,000 a year has time produce a depreciation. We think it had this destination, a sum which does not certainly is not likely to do so. If, suddenly after all appear an extravagant one for poured upon a market unprepared for it, it countries containing half the human race, has produced no depreciation, it is highly without silver mines (China excepted), with- improbable it should do so when the supply out paper money, without banks, and ad- is regular and expected. On the contrary, dicted to hoarding. If the present supply it will surely be absorbed by increasing for Hindostan exceeds the usual amount, it wealth and population as fast as it is prois to be accounted for by the Indians duced. The only danger would arise from furnishing to us more of their own produce the gold mines being arrested in production than they take of our goods in return, producing the necessity on our part of paying in silver, by custom if not by law the universal currency of the stereotyped East. China in a still larger degree than India furnishes us with more of her goods than So much, then, for the wonders wrought she takes of ours. In 1849 we took from by the joint and happy effects of free trade that country tea to the value of about £3,- and gold. The late Mr. Huskisson was the 000,000 only, but in 1854 to that of £5,379,- well-known practical apostle of the first, but 892. In the first of these years China it is less known that he predicted what would furnished us with raw silk, of which the be the certain consequence of an increase of value did not exceed £1,200,000; but in the last; and in justice to his prescience and 1854 it rose to £3,318,112. In the present sagacity we quote the opinion he expressed year it is tolerably certain that the value of on this subject, as it is reported by Mr. this article will not be short of £8,000,000,| Jacob in his learned and elaborate work on which will far exceed the value of the tea the precious metals, published sixteen years we get from the same country, a result before the discovery of the gold of California: which no one expected ever to see when it is" He saw," says Mr. Jacob, "that an remembered that under the monopoly the increase in the production of the mines might value never exceeded £200,000. Between 1849 and 1854 the increase in the value of these two staples only was close on £5,000,000, and no wonder we are called on to send silver to China, when our whole exports from the United Kingdom to it in 1854 did or exhausted, whence a serious depression in the price of all commodities represented by gold would certainly follow; but the risk of such a catastrophe does not seem very imminent. act as a stimulus to excite industry, invention, and energy, whilst a decline in their produce might have the contrary tendency." In another paper we shall return to this subject, and endeavor to explain the source of the mistake which led to the erroneous belief that an enormous depreciation of the | and which has also raised the price of all precious metals was the consequence of the articles which could be used as substitutes. influx of them from America in the sixteenth Thus, in a great variety of ways, has the century. vine disease afflicted not only the immediate countries which suffered from it, but also From The Economist. the rest of Europe. The chief, and perhaps THF WINE DISEASE AND ITS CURE. the most serious consequence, as it affects THE failure of the wine crop for two or other countries, has yet, however, to be three years in succession has proved to be a mentioned. The demand in this country for misfortune, the effects of which have ex- spirit for export has until very recently been tended far beyond the countries of its of a most trivial character. The low brangrowth. And it would be a great mistake dies of France, the gin of Holland, and the to suppose that it is only the luxuries of the rum of the sugar colonies, were produced in rich that have been interfered with by that such large quantities and at such low prices calamity. In the first place, the laboring that the export of British spirits was conpopulation of those countries which have fined to a very small quantity to some of our been chiefly affected have suffered severely own colonies. But during the last two by being deprived of that labor upon which years, this has entirely changed:-for the alone they depend for subsistence, in the first time England has become a large case of Madeira amounting to an actual exporting country of spirits, and that, too, famine in its severest form;-and in the chiefly, to those countries which we have next place, the whole laboring population always regarded as rivals with whom our and humbler classes in the wine-producing distillers could not compete, and against countries have suffered all the misfortunes whom, therefore, our laws had raised up a which attend a scarcity, and, consequently, a high barrier of discriminating and protective high price of one of the chief articles of duties. Our distillers have been largely entheir nourishment. But the mischief has gaged in working for France, Spain, and not ended there. The failure of the vine Portugal; and inferior wines, which were has called into extensive requisition other formerly made up for the British market with articles the production of the same countries low brandies, have latterly been "fortified," for the purpose of distillation. In France as it is called, or "made up" with the spirit the consumption of grain for that purpose shipped from this country. The British was likely to be so large that the Govern- spirit exported in the last five years was as ment stept in and prohibited its use; but in follows: other countries, where so objectionable, and, as it has proved, so futile a course was not taken, a large consumption of grain has taken place to replace the deficient wine. Again, in France a very extensive distillation of spirits has taken place from beet-Ten months in 1856. root, which has been accordingly diverted from sugar-making; the deficiency of home- Thus, while the average quantity exported produced sugar has been made good by a in the four years preceding 1855 was about larger importation of foreign sugar, and 500,000 gallons a year, it reached in 1855 a which in its turn has contributed to the de- quantity no less than 3,840,000 gallons, and ficient supplies of that article to other coun- in the present year it will exceed 4,000,000 tries, and consequently to its high price. gallons. Now, when we come to consider Again, so far as the produce of the vine has the enormous quantity of grain that has been converted into dried fruit in the shape thus been called into requisition to supply of currants and raisins, the disease which an entirely new demand caused by the failwas at an early period and most severely ex-ure of the grape, and when we consider that perienced in the Ionian Islands and other this is all in addition to the quantity of parts of the Mediterranean, has created a spirits ordinarily made for home use, we great scarcity and a very high price, which can well understand at least one impor has been severely felt in all parts of Europe, cause which exists for the high pric 1851 : 1852. 1853. 1854. 1855. Gallons. 229,650 323,719 827,913 680,564 3,840,691 3,708,901 |