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ISAAC TAYLOR.

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A series of works, showing remarkable powers of thought, united to great earnestness in the cause 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 Population 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 pamphlets 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.

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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 Taxation, 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.

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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

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society are excellent compendiums of knowledge; but the general fault of their scientific treatises has been, that they are too technical and abstruse for the working-classes, and are, in point of fact, purchased and read chiefly by those in better stations of life. Another series of works of a higher cast, entitled 'The Library of Entertaining Knowledge,' in four-shilling volumes, has also emanated from this society, as well as a very valuable and extensive series of maps and charts, forming a complete atlas. A collection of portraits, with biographical memoirs, and an improved description of almanac, published yearly, have formed part of the society's operations. Their labours have on the whole been beneficial; and though the demand for cheap literature was rapidly extending, the steady impulse and encouragement given to it by a society possessing ample funds and large influence, must have tended materially to accelerate its progress. It was obvious, however, that the field was not wholly occupied, but that large masses, both in the rural and manufacturing districts, were unable either to purchase or understand many of the treatises of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Under this impression, the publishers of the present work commenced, in February 1832, their weekly periodical, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, consisting of original papers on subjects of ordinary life, science, and literature, and containing in each number a quantity of matter equal to that in a number of the society's works, and sold at one-fourth of the price. The result of this extraordinary cheapness was a circulation soon exceeding fifty thousand weekly, and which has now risen to about ninety thousand. The Penny Magazine, a respectable periodical, and the Penny Cyclopædia, were afterwards commenced by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and attained each a very great circulation. There are numerous other labourers in the same field of humble usefulness; and it is scarcely possible to enter a cottage or workshop without meeting with some of these publications-cheering the leisure moments of the peasant or mechanic, and, by withdrawing him from the operation of the grosser senses, elevating him in the scale of rational beings.

WRITERS ON SCIENCE.

The age has been highly distinguished by a series of scientific writers whose works, being of a popular description, may be said to enter into the circle of general literature. At the head of this class may be placed SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, whose Discourse on Natural Philosophy is perhaps the most perfect work of its kind ever published. SIR DAVID BREWSTER also presents a remarkable union of scientific accomplishments with the grace and spirit of a firstrate litterateur. His Letters on Natural Magic, Life of Newton, History of Optics, and various contributions to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, are equally noted for literary elegance as for profound knowledge. A high place in this walk is due to MR CHARLES BABBAGE, author of the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures; a Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, &c. The latter work is a most ingenious attempt to bring mathematics into the range of sciences which afford proof of divine design in the constitution of the world, and contains, besides, many original and striking thoughts. The works on geology, by DR BUCKLAND, MR MURCHISON, MR CHARLES LYELL, SIR HENRY DELABECHE, and DR MANTELL, are all valuable contributions to the library of modern science.

Perhaps no writer of the present day has shown in his works a more extensive range of knowledge,

united with great powers of expression, than the REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, master of Trinity college, Cambridge. The History of the Inductive Sciences, three volumes, 1837, and the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their History, two volumes, 1840, are amongst the few books of the age which realise to our minds the self-devoting zeal and life-long application of the world's earlier students. Mr Whewell was also the author of that member of the series of Bridgewater Treatises in which astronomy and general physics were brought to the illustration of natural theology. Another modern writer of unusually varied attainments was the late DR JOHN MACCULLOCH, author of a work on the Western Islands of Scotland; a valuable geological one, presenting a classification of rocks; and a posthumous treatise, in three volumes, on the Attributes of the Deity.

The almost infant science of Ethnography has received a powerful illustration from the industrious labours of DR PRITCHARD, whose Inquiries into the Physical History of Man is a book standing almost alone in our literature. It tends to show the acci dental nature of the distinctions of colour and figure amongst races of men, and to establish the unity of the human species. Dr Pritchard's work on the Celts is also one of considerable value, particularly for the light it throws on the history of language.

The Architecture of the Heavens, by PROFESSOR NICHOL of Glasgow, has deservedly attained great popularity as a beautiful exposition of the sublime observations of Sir William Herschel and others respecting the objects beyond the range of the solar system, and of the hypothesis of the nebular cosmogony. It has been followed by a volume of equally eloquent disquisition, under the title of Contemplations on the Solar System. The principles of Natural Philosophy have been illustrated with great success in the language of common life, in the Elements of Physics by DR NEIL ARNOTT.

The various departments of knowledge connected with medicine have been illustrated by several writers of the highest talent, from whom it is almost invidious to single out the few names which we have room to notice. In physiology, the works of BOSTOCK, LAWRENCE, MAYO, ELLIOTSON, ROGET, FLETCHER, and CARPENTER, stand deservedly high, while the popular treatises of DR COMBE are remarkable for their extensive usefulness, due to their singularly lucid and practical character. The Curiosities of Medical Experience by DR MILLINGEN, the treatises of SIR JAMES CLARK on Climate and Consumption, the various tracts of SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR SOUTHwOOD SMITH'S Philosophy of Health, and DR COPELAND'S Dictionary of Practical Medicine, are but a meagre selection from a great range of medical works of talent calculated for general reading.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS.

The progress of ENCYCLOPEDIAS, or alphabetical digests of knowledge, is a remarkable feature in the literature of modern times. The first was the Cyclopædia of Ephraim Chambers, published in 1728, in two large folio volumes, of which five editions were published within eighteen years. As the work of one individual, the Cyclopædia of Chambers is highly honourable to his taste, industry, and knowledge. The proprietors of this work in 1776 engaged Dr Abraham Rees, a dissenting clergyman (1743-1825), to superintend a new and enlarged edition of it, which appeared in 1785, and was well received. They then agreed with the same gentleman to undertake a new and magnificent work of a similar nature; and in 1802 the first volume of Rees's Cyclopædia was issued, with illustrations in

was found in the late Dr James Browne, a man of varied and extensive learning. New and valuable articles were contributed by Sir David Brewster, by Mr Galloway, Dr Traill, Dr Roget, Dr John Thomson, Mr Tytler, Professor Spalding, Mr Moir, &c. This great national work-for such it may justly be entitled-was completed in 1842, in twenty-one volumes.

a style of engraving never surpassed in this country. This splendid work extended to forty-five volumes. In 1751-54 appeared Barrow's New and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, and in 1766 another Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled by the Rev. H. Croker, Dr Thomas Williams, and Mr Samuel Clerk. The celebrated French Encyclopédie was published between the years 1751 and 1765. Among the various schemes of Goldsmith, was A Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, for which he wrote a prospectus (unfortunately lost), and to which the most eminent British writers were to be contributors. The premature death of Goldsmith frustrated this plan. In 1771 the Encyclopædia Britannica, edited by Mr William Smellie, was published in four volumes quarto, presenting a novel and important improvement upon its predecessors: 'it treated each science completely in a systematic form, under its proper denomination; the technical terms and subordinate heads being also explained alphabetically, when anything more than a reference to the general treatise was required.' The second edition of this work, commenced in 1776, was enlarged to ten volumes, and embraced biography and history. The third edition, completed in 1797, amounted to eighteen volumes, and was enriched with valuable treatises on grammar and metaphysics, by the Rev. Dr Gleig; with profound articles on mythology, mysteries, and philology, by Dr Doig; and with an elaborate view of the philosophy of induction and contributions in physical science, by Professor Robison. Two supplementary volumes were afterwards added to this work. A fourth edition was issued under the superintendence of Dr James Miller, and completed in 1810; it was enriched with some admirable scientific treatises from the pen of Professor Wallace. Two other editions, merely nominal, of this Encyclopædia were published; and a supplement to the work was projected by the late Mr Constable, and was placed under the charge of Professor Macvey Napier. To this supplement Constable attracted the greatest names both in Britain and France: it contained contributions from Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Jameson, Leslie, Mackintosh, Dr Thomas Thomson, Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, Ricar-merce, and another on geography; Dr Ure on arts do, Malthus, Mill, Professor Wallace, Dr Thomas Young, M. Biot, M. Arago, &c. The supplement was completed in 1824, in six volumes. Six years afterwards, when the property had fallen into the hands of Messrs Adam and Charles Black, a new edition of the whole was commenced, incorporating all the articles in the supplement, with such modifications and additions as were necessary to adjust them to the later views and information applicable to their subjects. Mr Napier was chosen editor, and an assistant in the work of revision and addition

In the interval between the different editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, two other important works of the same kind were in progress. The Edinburgh Encyclopædia, under the superintendence of Sir David Brewster, was commenced in 1808, and completed in 1830, in eighteen quarto volumes. The scientific department of the work, under such an editor, could not fail to be rich and valuable, and it is still highly prized. The Encyclopædia Metropolitana was begun in 1815, and presented this difference from its rivals, that it departed from the alphabetical arrangement (certainly the most convenient), and arranged its articles in what the conductors considered their natural order. Coleridge was one of the writers in this work; some of its philological articles are ingenious. The London Encyclopædia, in twenty volumes royal 8vo., is a useful compendium, and includes the whole of Johnson's Dictionary, with its citations. Lardner's Cyclopædia is a collection of different works on natural philosophy, arts, and manufactures, history, biography, &c. published in 131 small 8vo. volumes, issued monthly. The series embraces some valuable works: Sir James Mackintosh contributed part of a popular history of England, Sir Walter Scott and Mr Moore histories of Scotland and Ireland, and M. Sismondi one of the Italian republics. Sir John Herschel wrote for it the Discourse on Natural Philosophy, already alluded to, and a treatise on Astronomy; and Sir David Brewster contributed the history of Optics. In natural history and other departments this Cyclopædia is also valuable, but as a whole it is very defective. Popular Cyclopædias, in one large volume each, have been published, condensing a large amount of information. Of these Mr M'Culloch is author of one on comand manufactures; Mr Brande on science, literature, and art; Mr Blaine on rural sports. There is also a series of Cyclopædias on a larger scale, devoted to the various departments of medical science; namely, the Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine, edited by Drs Forbes, Tweedie, and Conolly; the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, edited by Dr A. T. Thomson; and the Cyclopædia of Surgery, edited by Dr Costello; each being in four massive volumes, and composed of papers by the first men of the profession in the country.

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Aspatia, Grief of, for the Marriage
of Amintor and Evadne, i.
Aspirations After the Infinite-
[Pleasures of the Imagination], ii.

Bawn, Hamilton's-[The Grand

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Question Debated], i.

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BAXTER, RICHARD, i.

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44 Baxter's Judgment of his Writings, i. 454

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