Kops,) no confraternities were endowed with such rights and privileges. The members were distinguished into heads and chamber-brothers. The first bore the title of Emperor, Prince, Factor, Warden, Finder. There was also a Fiscal, to maintain order and see to every thing, and a banner-bearer who, to the beat of drum, went at the head of the members, when the chamber proceeded to any meeting. The Factor (author, or maker, in the quaint phraseology of the olden times) was generally the most experienced poet of the society. His office was to propose the different subjects for poetry and for representations, as also to distribute their several parts to the performers. Such respect did they bear their prince, that "never, (says the author of The History of the Low German Art of Rhyming), did they close a play, a poem, or even a song, without the bard's addressing the last couplet to this prince, even were the sovereign himself present. And, according to M. Kops, even as most princes were wout, in those times, to keep a court fool for their amusement, so was there a personage of the sort in all these chambers, who, usually dressed in a fool's cap, richly contributed, upon occasion of public representations, to the general delight. The dignity enjoyed by these Rhetoric Chambers, the universal respect payed to them, is not the least remarkable part of their history. M. Visschers tells us : It was not merely in the most considerable persons of the town or the village that they found members and protectors; they were thus honoured and dignified by the princes of the country. These sovereigns offered themselves for acceptance as members of the Rhetoric Chambers. We read that John Duke of Brabant was a member of the Brussels chamber, named The Book; that King Philip, Archduke of Austria, gave its blazonry (as they termed their coat of arms or emblem) to the chamber of the Ghent Balsam, of which he was a member. He so highly esteemed poetry, that he presented a diamond ring to the poet who should best answer in verse the question he proposed. The Emperor Charles V. gave its blazonry to the Amsterdam chamber, entitled, Blossoming in Love. Prince William I. of Orange esteemed it a great honour to be Prince of the Violets at Antwerp. Under such patronage, undoubtedly, these associations must have been encouraged in their literary exercises, and from year to year have flourished more brilliantly. We cannot, of course, dispute this last opinion of the reverend author. The Rhetoric Chambers would flourish, and would be encouraged, and we are ready to admit that they, like the Italian Academies, to which they bear considerable analogy, might be a useful, ay, and a needful spur to literature at its second birth; but the moment that spur ceased to be needful, we conceive that they would, unless sunk into mere toys, injure as much as they had served it. Their "pride, pomp, and circumstance," would inevitably allure many persons wholly alien to the service of the muses to "leave" their "calling for this idle trade," whose incapacity must necessarily lower the tone of poetry. And further, the forms and consequent formality of the thing must introduce pedantic quackery into that which should, originally at least, be all inspiration, how much soever inspiration's self may need the culture of art for its perfection. But without entering more deeply into the question, whether such associations be beneficial or detri mental to literature, we acknowledge the existence as a symptom of national taste for those intellectual pursuits, for that mental cultivation, which tend to exalt and ennoble the nature of man. And under this aspect we are pleased to learn from our author that Rhetoric Chambers or substitutes for them are reviving in Belgium-a fact of which, indeed, we had obtained information from other sources. M. Visschers thus ends his word on this subject. From all this it may be inferred that the Rhetoric Chambers have done much for the Low German language and poetry. In almost all the towns of Brabant and Flanders where they existed, a continuous love of poetry has appeared. In later times, other literary associations have taken their place. Zealous lovers of literature have esteemed it a duty to prosecute that which their forefathers bad so sedulously begun. Thus, at Antwerp, have we seen a Philological and Poetical Society founded in 1803; which, then consisting of only three members, Messrs. J. A. Terbruggen, Arn. Klincko, and A. J. Stips, held its sittings in the house of the first-named gentleman; but in little more than fourteen years had so thriven and increased, that in 1818, it was under the necessity of providing a more spacious place of assembly. In 1821, it was honoured with the title of Royal Society, and had won into its bosom a considerable number of the most learned men of Holland, amongst others Bilderdyk, Wiselius, Tollens, Van Oosterwyk, Bruyn, and Siegenbeek. Since then this society has begun to languish, and has no longer afforded the world those literary fruits, which its active members formerly brought to light. Another association, denominated School Instructors' (masters) Society, arose about the same time, which, to the present day, flourishes, zealously occupying itself with the general prosperity of education. This society has, between the years 1824 and 1834, given to the world its philological, poetic, and literary fruits, under the title of Netherlandish contributions. Such have been the endeavours to foster a taste for the Low German language and poetry. At the present day, it is further cherished by literary societies, already brilliantly flourishing at Brussels, Louvain, Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges. Yet more, there is a literary society, for the advancement of Low German philology and literature, already established in Brussels, of which those above-mentioned are mere sections, and whose object is designed to be the energetic encouragement of the culture of compatriot letters. Further, our Belgian government, convinced of the necessity of maintaining our mother tongue, has shewn itself disposed to support, by judicious measures, the noble endeavours of this society. May this society flourish, may literary associations regain in our old Belgium the lustre they enjoyed among our forefathers; may our beautiful mother tongue henceforth come boldly forward, and overthrow the mean prejudices against her that have, for a long period of time, but too deeply penetrated into Belgium! Then shall the zeal and the exertions of those who cling with heart and soul to the Low German language be gloriously crowned! We need not repeat our satisfaction in these patriotic endeayours to revive the Low German language, literature, and nationality of Belgium; but we may be permitted to add that, to our mind, M. Willems's Belgic Museum is likely to be an agent in advancing the desired end, to the full as efficient as societies. They, and even the influence of the royal Mecanas, will, probably, do more real good by patronizing this and other valuable publications, and thus rendering both their existence possible and themselves fashionable, than by any more ostensible and active interference. MORAL POLICE AND ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS. Les Filles publiques de Paris, et la Police qui les regit. (The Prostitutes of Paris and the Police Regulations respecting them.) By M. F. A. Béraud, Ex-Commissioner of Police in Paris. 2 vols. 8vo. 1839. Paris and Leipzig, Desforges and Co. Unpopular and repulsive as were the courses of study pursued by the founders of medical science, labours still more exposed to calumny, and still more painful in themselves, must be endured by those who investigate the moral economy of society. To find remedies for the physical evils of humanity, it was necessary to visit the pest-house and the charnel-house, to search the gangrened limb, to scrutinize the ulcerated sore, and to struggle against decay for the possession of the corpse, in the very chambers of death. No public honours, no breathings of popular applause, cheered the weary course of those who first ventured on the cultivation of anatomical science; on the contrary, prejudice marked them as her own, the finger of scorn was pointed at them, they were hooted as violators of the hallowed sanctuary of the grave, and even now, when the results of their labours have considerably added to the average duration of human life, they are viewed, if not with hatred, at least with suspicion, and thousands still maintain that the dissection of the dead is scarcely a less crime than the cutting and maiming of the living. But the moral anatomy of society, the examination of " the shameful parts" of the living and moving world, are even more perilous and more exposed to misrepresentation; that there are moral diseases in society, that general humanity has its gangrened limbs and leprous spots, nobody will deny; nay, some will assert, in the nervous language of the prophet, that "the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores; they have not been closed, nor bound up, nor mollified with oint ment." Are we to sit down contented with these evils? shall the gangrene be allowed to increase, and the cancer to extend? Or, at best, we should rather say at worst, is the cure to be entrusted to empirics and quacks, to guesses made at random, and remedies proposed in utter ignorance of the disease? Such, assuredly, must be the state of things, until moral economy assumes the rank of a science; that is, until it is based on facts cautiously collected and carefully examined. The Rev. Dr. Edgar of Belfast has shown a noble example of intrepidity, by publishing an address on the opening of the Ulster Female Penitentiary in that town, briefly but ably examining the causes and consequences of prostitution; he has not escaped the pitiful sneer of the ignorant, the unmeaning taunt of the prejudiced, and the scurrile jest of those "who cannot teach and will not learn;" but he has been more than compensated by the honest approbation of genuine philanthropy and enlightened benevolence; and, while following his example of anatomising the most prominent moral disease that scourges human society, we shall be well contented to bear the load of censure, while we are cheered by a prospect of the same reward. The word Prostitution expresses every thing that is most abject and degraded, an utter absence of self-respect, a condition, than which none can be more vile or despicable. The beggar in his rags sees the luxury of the prostitute without envy, and those whose heart is most open to the melting influence of charity too often view her misery without pity. Nay, those who have led her to crime, the seducer, by whose arts she has been precipitated into the abyss of infamy, refuses to aid in raising her from the dread depth, and jests at the ruin he has made. The Rev. Dr. Edgar relates an anecdote, calculated to make the blood boil with indig nation. "Female virtue lost, all is lost: wo to the hapless being who commits herself to the tender mercies of a heartless seducer. In my course of begging for the New Ulster Female Penitentiary, I called, by way of experiment, on a rich reprobate, infamous, on account of the extreme youth of those who have become his victims: yet, though he would need a Penitentiary to himself to receive the fruits of his individual seduction, I could not wring from his remorseless heart one poor shilling as a compensation to female virtue for the nameless wrongs which cry to God for vengeance." It is to be regretted that the reverend philanthropist has withheld the name of this reprobate, compared with whom the robber is innocent, and the assassin virtuous; it should have been suspended for ever to the gibbet of infamy, and immortalised by the execration of all future generations. In the midst of his wealth let the wretch tremble; exposure, like the sword of Damocles, is suspended over his head, and, when this page meets his eye, let him remember that the pen and the press are commissioned agents of retribution. We have yet many advances to make in civilisa tion; the seducer is still permitted to roam about unbranded, the young men of various ranks, who practise their ruinous arts on unsuspecting and unprotected innocence in the country, who bring their victims to the metropolis, and, when their appetites are palled, abandon them, without regret or remorse, to inevitable misery, are yet unpunished by law, and scarcely stigmatised by society. Let us, at the very opening of this examination, state how much evil is caused by the class of seducers, how much crime is created by criminals who escape with impunity. Out of 5183 prostitutes, examined by Parent Duchatelet, there were Seduced in the provinces, and coming to Paris for concealment Brought to Paris by their seducers, and abandoned Total victims of seduction 280 or 5 per cent. 404 or 8 per cent. 289 or 5 per cent. 1425 or 27 per cent. We make no observations on this table; the lesson it inculcates is sufficiently evident; if a cause, producing nearly one half of the evil, is suffered to remain intact, all subsequent checks must be unavailing. Society must punish the seducer as well as the victim, or else be contented to let the gangrene prey upon its vitals. Next to the seducers in number, but even beyond them in iniquity, come the tribes of procurers and procuresses, of whom Dr. Edgar gives the following vivid description; a description which is so far from being exaggerated, that we could easily add to its horrors, were we to adduce some of the facts furnished by the police reports to the Home Office. The most accomplished agents in the work of seduction are procuresses; and it is a melancholy picture of fallen humanity, not merely that female victims of seduction retaliate with terrible vengeance on the other sex, by making victims in their turn, but that the female sex itself produces, in the persons of procuresses, the most ruthless and unspairing destroyers of feinale virtue. These insidious vipers earn a livelihood by trepanning innocence, and pandering to unlawful passion; they watch stagecoaches, prowl about bazars and milliners' shops, and even go to workhouses and similar establishments to hire female servants; and whatever unfortunate innocent falls into their fiendish grasp, they sell to ruin. Not only do those of the metropolis travel seventy miles, perhaps, into the country, and no expence is spared for accomplishing their diabolical purpose, but a regular trade is kept up with the continent, and young and unsuspecting creatures are brought over, in the expectation of high wages and abundant means of earning an honest livelihood. The infamous house of Marie Aubrey, in Bryanstone Square, London, which was lately broken up, had a medical practitioner connected with it, who, acting as agent for the establishment, went frequently to country villages, to France and Italy, to procure females; and engaged servants, who shortly after their coming to the house were ruined. There are in London alone four hundred trepanners; and not less than 7,400 Jews in London are living on profits derived from the degradation and ruin of Christian females. It inust be added, that the victims of these snares live in a |