The Governor, who appears on all occasions to be an extremely well-dis, osed man, is not quite so conversant in the best wr tings on political economy as we could wish: and indeed (though such knowledge would be extremely serviceable to the interests which this Romulus of the Southern Pole is superintending,) it is rather unfair to exact from a superintendent of pick-pockets, that he should be a philosopher. In the 18th page we have the following information respecting the price of labour : vantage than an advantage; because, as it lies extreme-high eulogiums which have been made on the fertility ly favourable for sea carriage, it may prove to be a of the female sex in the climate of New Holland. cheaper fuel than wood, and thus operate as a discour agement to the clearing of lands. The soil upon the sea coast, has not been found to be very productive, though it improves in partial spots in the interior. The climate is healthy, in spite of the prodigious heat of the summer months, at which period the thermometer has been observed to stand in the shade at 107, and the leaves of garden vegetables to fall into dust, as it they had been consumed with fire. But one of the most insuperable defects in New Holland, considered as the future country of a great people, is, the want of large rivers penetrating very far into the interior, and navigable for small crafts. The Hawkesbury, the largest river, yet discovered, is not accessible to boats for more than twenty miles. The same river occasionally rises above its natural level, to the astonishing height of fifty feet; and has swept away more than once, the labours and the hopes of the new people ex iled to its banks. vernor from the settlers in different parts of the colony, 'Some representations having been made to the Gopurporting that the wages demanded by the free labouring people, whom they had occasion to hire, were so exorbitant as to run away with the greatest part of the profit of their farms, it was recommended to them to appoint quarterly meetings among themselves, to be held in each district, for every different kind of work; that, to this end, a written the purpose of settling the rate of wages to labourers in agreement should be entered into, and subscribed by each The laborious acquisition of any good we have long settler, a breach of which should be punished by a penalty, enjoyed is apt to be forgotten. We walk, and talk, to be fixed by the general opinion, and made recoverable in and run and read, without remembering the long and a court of civil judicature. It was recommended to them to severe labour dedicated to the cultivation of these apply this forfeiture to the common benefit; and they were powers, the formidable obstacles opposed to our pro- with the rate of wages which they should from time to time to transmit to the head-quarters a copy of their agreement, gress, or the infinite satisfaction with which we over-establish, for the Governor's information, holding their first came them. He who lives among a civilized people, meeting as early as possible.' may estimate the labour by which society has been brought into such a state by reading these annals of Botany Bay, the account of a whole nation exerting itself to new floor the government-house, repair the hospital, or build a wooden receptacle for stores. Yet the time may come, when some Botany Bay Tacitus shall record the crimes of an emperor lineally descended from a London pick-pocket, or paint the valour with which he has led his New Hollanders into the heart of China. At that period, when the Grand Lahma is sending to supplicate alliance; when the spice islands are purchasing peace with nutmegs; when enormous tributes of green tea and nankeen are wafted into Ported, Jackson, and landed on the quays of Sydney, who will ever remember that the sawing of a few planks, and the knocking together a few nails, were such a serious trial of the energies and resources of the nation. The Government of the colony, after enjoying some little respite from this kind of labour, has begun to turn its attention to the coarsest and most necessary species of manufactures, for which their wool appears to be well adapted. The state of stock in the whole settlement, in June 1801, was about 7,000 sheep, 1,300 head of cattle, 250 horses, and 5,000 hogs. There were under cultivation at the same time, between 9 and 10,000 acres of corn. Three years and a-half before this, in December 1797, the numbers were as follows:-Sheep, 2,500; cattle, 350; horses, 100; hogs, 4,300; acres of land in cultivation, 4,000. The temptation to salt pork, and sell it for Govern. ment store, is probably the reason why the breed of hogs has been so much kept under. The increase of cultivated lands between the two periods is prodigious. It appears (p. 319,) that the whole number of convicts imported between January 1788 and June 1801 (a period of thirteen years and a half,) has been about 5,000, of whom 1,157 were females. The total amount of the population on the continent, as well as at Norfolk Island, amounted, June 1801, to 6,500 persons; of these 766 were children born at Port Jackson. In the returns from Norfolk Island, children are not discriminated from adults. Let us add to the imported population of 5,000 convicts, 500 free people, which (if we consider that a regiment of soldiers has been kept up there) is certainly a very small allowance; then, in thirteen years and a half, the imported population has increased only by two-thirteenths. If we suppose that something more than a fifth of the free people were women, this will make the total of women 1,270; of whom we may fairly presume that 800 were capable of child-bearing; and if we suppose the children of Norfolk Island to bear the same proportion to the adults as at Port Jackson, their total number at both settlements will be 913-a state of infantine population which certainly does not justify the very B And again, at p. 24, the following arrangements on that head are enacted : In pursuance of the order which was issued in January last recommending the settlers to appoint meetings, at which they should fix the rate of wages that it might be proper to pay for the different kinds of labour which their farms should require, the settlers had submitted to the Governor the several resolutions that they had entered into, by which he was enabled to fix a rate that he conceived to be fair and equitable between the farmer and the labourer. 'The following prices of labour were now establish. viz. Felling forest timber, per acre Breaking up stubble or corn ground, 1 1-4d. ditto ditto Planting Indian corn, ditto Hilling ditto ditto Reaping wheat, ditto Thrashing ditto, per bushel, £ s. d 09 0 0 0 10 6 1 5 1 10 0 1 4 0 0 12 3 70 Pulling and husking Indian corn, per bushel ditto Ditching, per rod, three feet wide and three Carriage of wheat, per bushel, per mile Yearly wages for labour, with board A government-man allowed to officers or Price of an axe • New steeling ditto A new hoe A sickle Hire of a boat to carry grain per day 0000 026 0 0 10 020 006 "The settlers were reminded, that, in order to prevent any kind of dispute between the master and servant, when they should have occasion to hire a man for any length of time, they would find it most convenient to engage him for a quarter, half-year, or year, and to make their agree ment in writing; on which, should any dispute arise, an appeal to the magistrates would settle it. The most prominent advantage which seemed likely to diting of the passage from the Cape of Good Hope to Port accrue to the settlement from this discovery was, the expeJackson; for, although a line drawn from the Cape to 44° of south latitude, and to the longitude of the South Cape of Van Diemen's Land, would not sensibly differ from one drawn to the latitude of 40° to the same longitude; yet it must be allowed, that a ship will be four degrees nearer to Port Jackson in the latter situation than it would be in the former. But there is, perhaps, a greater advantage to be gained by making a passage through the strait, than the mere saving of four degrees of latitude along the coast. The major part of the ships that have arrived at Port Jackson have met with N. E. winds, on opening the sea round the South Cape and Cape Pillar; and have been so much retarded by them, that a fourteen days' passage to the port is reckoned to be a fair one, although the difference of latitude is but ten degrees, and the most prevailing winds at W. S. W. to S. in winter. If, by going through Bass Strait, the latter place are from S. E. to S. in summer, and from these N. E. winds can be avoided, which in many cases would probably be the case, there is no doubt but a week or more would be gained by it; and the expense, with the wear and tear of the ship for one week, are objects to most owners, more especially when freighted with convicts by This is all very bad; and if the Governor had cher- whom the straits have been named, and who was led ished the intention of destroying the colony, he could to a suspicion of their existence by a prodigious swell have done nothing more detrimental to its interests. which he observed to set in from the westward, at the The high price of labour is the very corner-stone on mouth of the opening which he had reached on a which the prosperity of a new colony depends. It voyage of discovery, prosecuted in a common whaleenables the poor man to live with ease; and is the boat. To verify this suspicion, he proceeded afterstrongest incitement to population, by rendering chil- wards in a vessel of 25 tons, accompanied by Mr. dren rather a source of riches than of poverty. If the Flanders, a naval gentleman; and, entering the straits same difficulty of subsistence existed in new countries between the latitudes of 39 and 40° south, actually as in old, it is plain that the progress of population circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land. Mr. Bass's would be equally slow in each. The very circum-ideas of the importance of this discovery, we shall stances which cause the difference are, that, in the give from his narrative, as reported by Mr. Collins. datter, there is a competition among the labourers to be employed; and, in the former, a competition among the occupiers of land to obtain labourers. In the one, land is scarce and men plenty; in the other, men are scarce and land is plenty. To disturb this natural order of things (a practice injurious at all times) must be particularly so where the predominant disposition of the colonist is an aversion to labour, produced by a 1ong course of dissolute habits. In such cases the high prices of labour, which the Governor was so desirous of abating, bid fair not only to increase the agricultural prosperity, but to effect the moral reformation of the colony. We observe the same unfortunate ignorance of the elementary principles of commerce in the attempts of the Governor to reduce the prices of the European commodities, by bulletins and authoritative interference, as if there were any other mode of lowering the price of an article (while the demand continues the same) but by increasing its quantity. The avaricious love of gain, which is so feelingly deplored, appears to us a principle which, in able hands, might be guided to the most salutary purposes. The object is to encourage the love of labour, which is best encouraged by the love of money. We have very great doubts on the policy of reserving the best timber on the estates as government timber. Such a reservation would probably operate as a check upon the clearing of lands without attaining the object desired; for the timber, instead of being immediately cleared, would be slowly destroyed, by the neglect or malice of the settlers whose lands it encumbered. Timber is such a drug in new countries, that it is at any time to be purchased for little more than the labour of cutting. To secure a supply of it by vexatious and invidious laws, is surely a work of supererogation and danger. The greatest evil which the government has yet had to contend with is, the inordinate use of spirituous liquors; a passion which puts the interests of agriculture at variance with those of morals: for a dram-drinker will consume as much corn in the form of alcohol, in one day, as would supply him with bread for three; and thus, by his vices, opens an admirable market to the industry of a new settlement. The only mode, we believe, of encountering this evil, is by deriving from it such a revenue as will not admit of smuggling. Beyond this it is almost invincible by authority; and it is probably to be cured only by the progressive refinement of manners. To evince the increasing commerce of the settlement, a list is subjoined of 140 ships, which have arrived there since its first foundation, forty only of which were from England. The colony at Norfolk Island is represented to be in a very deplorable situation, and will most probably be abandoned for one about to be formed on Van Diemen's Land, though the capital defect of the former settlement has been partly obviated, by a discovery of the harbour for small craft. The most important and curious information contained in this volume, is the discovery of straits which separate Van Diemen's Land (hitherto considered as its southern extremity) from New Holland. For this discovery we are indebted to Mr. Bass, a surgeon, after the run. the prevalence of the N. E. and easterly winds off the South This strait likewise presents another advantage. From Cape, many suppose that a passage may be made from thence to the westward, either to the Cape of Good Hope, or to India; but the fear of the great unknown bight be tween the South Cape and the S. W. Cape of Lewen's Land, lying in about 35° south and 113° east, has hitherto prevented the trial being made. Now, the strait removes a should a gale oppose itself to the ship in the first part of the part of this danger, by presenting a certain place of retreat, essay: and should the wind come at S. W. she need not fear making a good stretch to the W. N. W. which course, if made good, is within a few degrees of going clear of all There is, besides, King George the Third's Sound, discovered by Captain Vancouver, situate in the latitude of 35° 30' south, and longitude 118° 12' east; and it is to be hoped, well as the confirmation or futility of the conjecture that a that a few years will disclose many others upon the coast, as still larger than Bass Strait dismembers New Holland.'(p. 192, 193.) We learn from a note subjoined to this passage, that, in order to verify or refute this conjecture, of the existence of other important inlets on the west coast of New Holland, Captain Flinders has sailed with two ships under his command, and is said to be accompanied by two professional men of considerable ability. Such are the most important contents of Mr. Collins's book, the style of which we very much approve, because it appears to be written by himself; and we must repeat again, that nothing can be more injurious to the opinion the public will form of the authenticity of a book of this kind, than the suspicion that it has been tricked out and embellished by other hands Such men, to be sure, have existed as Julius Cæsar, but, in general, a correct and elegant style is hardly attainable by those who have passed their lives in action: and no one has such a pedantic love of god writing, as to prefer mendacious finery to rough aud ungrammatical truth. The events which Mr. Collins' book records, we have read with great interest. There is a charm in thus seeing villages, and churches, and farms, rising from a wilderness, where civilized man has never set his foot since the creation of the world. The contrast between fertility and barrenness, population and solitude, activity and indolence, fills the mind with the pleasing images of happiness and increase. Man seems to move in his proper sphere while he is thus dedicating the powers of his mind and body to reap those rewards which the bountiful Author of all things has assigned to his industry. Neither is it any common enjoyment, to turn for a while from the memory of those distractions which have so recently agitated the Old World, and to reflect that its very horrors and crimes may have thus prepared a long era of opulence and peace for a people yet involved in the womb of time. J. FIEVEE. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.) Lettres sur l'Angleterre. Par J. Fievée. 1802. Or all the species of travels, that which has moral observation for its object is the most liable to error, and has the greatest difficulties to overcome, before it can arrive at excellence. Stones and roots, and leaves, are subjects which may exercise the understanding without rousing the passions. A mineralogical traveller will hardly fall fouler upon the granite and the feldspar of other countries than his own; a botanist will not conceal its non-descripts; and an agricultural tourist will faithfully detail the average crop per acre; but the traveller who observes on the manners, habits, and institutions of other countries, must have emancipated his mind from the extensive and powerful dominion of association, must have extinguished the agrecable and deceitful feelings of national vanity, and cultivated that patient humility which builds general inferences only upon the repetition of individual facts. Every thing he sees shocks some passion or flatters it; and he is perpetually seduced to distort facts, so as to render them agreeable to his system and his feelings! Books of travels are now pnblished in such vast abundance, that it may not be useless, perhaps, to state a few of the reasons why their value so commonly happens to be in the inverse ratio of their number. and bring back from a residence in foreign countries nothing but the vague and customary notions concerning it, which are carried and brought back for half a century, without verification or change. The most ordinary shape in which this tendency to prejudge makes its appearance among travellers, is by a dispo sition to exalt, or, a still more absurd disposition, to depreciate their native country. They are incapable of considering a foreign people but under one single point of view-the relation in which they stand to their own; and the whole narrative is frequently nothing more than a mere triumph of national vanity, or the ostentation of superiority to so common a failing. But we are wasting our time in giving a theory of the faults of travellers, when we have such ample means of exemplifying them all from the publication now before us, in which Mr. Jacob Fievee, with the most surprising talents for doing wrong, has contrived to condense and agglomerate every species of absurdity that has hitherto been made known, and even to launch out occasionally into new regions of nonsense, with a boldness which well entitles him to the merit of originality in folly, and discovery in impertinence. We consider Mr. Fievée's book as extremely valuable in one point of view. It affords a sort of limit or mindmark, beyond which we conceive it to be impossible in future that pertness and petulance should pass. It is well to be acquainted with the boundaries of our nature on both sides; and to Mr. Fievée we are indebted for this valuable approach to pessimism. The height of knowledge no man has yet scanned; but we have now pretty well fathomed the gulf of ignorance. We must, however, do justice to Mr. Fievée when he deserves it. He evinces, in his preface, a lurking uneasiness at the apprehension of exciting war between the two countries, from the anger to which his letters will give birth in England. He pretends to deny that they will occasion a war; but it is very easy to see he is not convinced by his own arguments; and we confess ourselves extremely pleased by this amiable soli1st, Travels are bad, from a want of opportunity citude at the probable effusion of human blood. We for observation in those who write them. If the sides hope Mr. Fievée is deceived by his philanthropy, and of a building are to be measured, and the number of that no such unhappy consequences will ensue, as he its windows to be counted, a very short space of time really believes, though he affects to deny them. We may suffice for these operations; but to gain such a dare to say the dignity of this country will be satis knowledge of their prevalent opinions and propensi-fied. if the publication in question is disowned by the ties, as will enable a stranger to comprehend (what is French government, or, at most, if the author is given commonly called) the genius of people, requires a long up. At all events, we have no scruple to say, that to residence among them, a familiar acquaintance with sacrifice twenty thousand lives, and a hundred millions their language, and an easy circulation among their of money, to resent Mr. Fievée's book, would be an various societies. The society into which a transient unjustifiable waste of blood and treasure; and that to stranger gains the most easy access in any country, is take him off privately by assassination, would be an not often that which ought to stamp the national cha- undertaking hardly compatible with the dignity of a racter; and no criterion can be more fallible, in a peo- great empire. ple so reserved and inaccessible as the British, who (even when they open their doors to letters of introduction) cannot for years overcome the awkward timidity of their nature. The same expressions are of so different a value in different countries, the same actions proceed from such different causes, and produce such different effects, that a judgment of foreign nations, founded on rapid observation, is almost certainly a mere tissue of ludicrous and disgraceful mistakes; and yet a residence of a month or two seems to entitle a traveller to present the world with a picture of manners in London, Paris, or Vienna, and even to dogmatize upon the political, religious, and legal institutions, as if it were one and the same thing to speak of the abstract effects of such institutions, and of their effects combined with all the peculiar circumstances in which any nation may be placed. 2dly, An affectation of quickness in observation, an mtuitive glance that requires only a moment, and a part, to judge of a perpetuity and a whole. The late Mr. Petion, who was sent over into this country to acquire a knowledge of our criminal law, is said to have declared himself thoroughly informed upon the subject, after remaining precisely two and thirty minutes In the Old Bailey. 3dly, The tendency to found observation on a system, rather than a system upon observation. The fact is, there are very few original eyes and ears. The great mass see and hear as they are directed by others, To show, however, the magnitude of the provocation, we shall specify a few of the charges which he makes against the English: that they do not understand fireworks as well as the French; that they charge a shilling for admission to the exhibition; that they have the misfortune of being incommoded by a certain disgraceful privilege, called the liberty of the press; that the opera band plays out of tune; that the English are so fond of drinking, that they get drunk with a certain air called the gas of Paradise; that the privilege of electing members of parliament is so burthensome, that cities sometimes petition to be exempted from it; that the great obstacle to a parlia mentary reform is the mob; that women sometimes have titles distinct from those of their husbands-although, in England, any body can sell his wife at market, with a rope about her neck. To these complaints he adds-that the English are so far from enjoying that equality of which their partisans boast, that none but the servants of the higher nobility can carry canes behind a carriage; that the power which the French kings had of pardoning before trial, is much the same thing as the English mode of pardon ing after trial; that he should conceive it to be a good reason for rejecting any measure in France, that it was imitated from the English, who have no family affections, and who love money so much, that their first question, in an inquiry concerning the character of any man, is, as to his degree of fortune. Lastly Mr. Fievée alleges against the English, that they have great pleasure in contemplating the spectacle of men deprived of their reason. And indeed we must have the candour to allow, that the hospitality which Mr. Fievée experienced, seems to afford some pretext for this assertion. One of the principal objects of Mr. Fievée's book, is to combat the Anglomania, which has raged so long among his countrymen, and which prevailed at Paris to such an excess, that even Mr. Neckar, a foreigner (incredible as it may seem) after having been twice minister of France, retained a considerable share of admiration for the English government. This is quite inexplicable. But this is nothing to the treason of the Encyclopedists, who, instead of attributing the merit of the experimental philosophy and the reasoning by induction to a Frenchman, have shown themselves so lost to all sense of duty which they owed to their country, that they have attributed it to an Englishman, of the name of Bacon, and this for no better reason, than that he really was the author of it. The whole of this passage, is written so entirely in the genius of Mr. Fievée, and so completely exemplifies that very caricature species of Frenchmen from which our gross and popular notions of the whole people are taken, that we shall give the whole passage at full length, cautiously abstaining from the sin of translating it." ་ Quand je reproche aux philosophes d'avoir vanté l' Angleterre, par haine pour les institutions qui soutenoient la France, je ne hasarde rien, et je fournirai une nouvelle preuve de cette assertion, en citan les encyclopédistes, chefs avoués de la philosophie moderne. en Comment nous ont-ils présenté l'Encyclopédie? Comme un monument immortel, comme le dépôt précieux de toutes les connoissances humains. Sous quel patronage l'ont-ils élevé ce monument immortel? Est ce sous l'égide des écrivains dont la France s'honoroit? Non, ils ont choisi pour maitre et pour idole un Anglais, Bacon; ils lui on fait dire tout ce qu'ils ont voulu, parce que cet auteur extraordinairement volumineux, n'étoit pas connu France, et ne l'est guère en Angleterre que de quelques hommes studieux; mais les philosophes sentoient que leur succès, pour introduire des nouveautés, tenoit à faire croire qu'elles n'étoient pas neures pour les grands esprits; et comme les grands esprits Français, trop connus, ne ce prêtoient pas à un pareil dessein, les philosophes ont eu recours à l'Angleterre. Ainsi, un ouvrage fait en France, et offert à l'admiration de l'Europe comme l'ouvrage par excellence, fut mis par des Français sous la protection du génie Anglais, O honte! Et les philosophes se sont dit patriotes, et la France, peur prix de sa dégradation, leur a élevé des statues! La siècle qui commence, plus juste, parce qu'il a le sentiment de la véritable grandeur, liassera ces statues et l'Encyclopédie s'ensevelir sous la méme poussière.' When to this are added the commendations that have been bestowed upon Newton, the magnitude and the originality of the discoveries which have been attributed to him, the admiration which the words of Locke have excited, and the homage that has been paid to Milton and Shakspeare, the treason which lurks at the bottom of it all will not escape the penetrating glance of Mr. Fievée; and he will discern that same cause, from which every good Frenchman knows the defeat of Aboukir and of the first of June to have proceeded the monster Pitt, and his English guineas. a walk: he moves on for ten yards on the straight road, with surprising perseverance; then sets out after a butterfly, looks for a bird's nest, or jumps back. wards and forwards over a ditch. In the same man. ner, this nimble and digressive gentleman is away after every object which crosses his mind. If you leave him at the end of a comma, in a steady pursuit of his subject, you are sure to find him, before the next full stop, a hundred yards to the right or left, frisking, capering, and grinning in a high paroxysm of merriment and agility. Mr. Edgeworth seems to possess the sentiments of an accomplished gentleman, the information of a scholar, and the vivacity of a first-rate harlequin. He is fuddled with animal spirits, giddy with constitutional joy; in such a state he must have written on, or burst. A discharge of ink was an evacuation absolutely necessary, to avoid fatal and plethoric congestion. The object of the book is to prove, that the practice of making bulls is not more imputable to the Irish than to any other people; and the manner in which he sets about it, is to quote examples of bulls produced in other countries. But this is surely a singular way of reasoning the question: for there are goitres out of Valais, extortioners who do not worship Moses, oat cakes out of the Tweed, and balm beyond the precincts of Gilead. If nothing can be said to exist preeminently and emphatically in one country, which exists at all in another, then Frenchmen are not gay, nor Spaniards grave, nor are gentlemen of the Milesian race remarkable for their disinterested contempt of wealth in their connubial relations. It is probable there is some foundation for a character so generally diffused; though it is also probable that such foundation is extremely enlarged by fame. If there were no foundation for the common opinion, We must suppose national characters formed by chance; and that the Irish might, by accident, have been laughed at as bashful and sheepish, which is impossible. The author puzzles himself a good deal about the nature of bulls, without coming to any decision about the matter. Though the ques tion is not a very easy one, we shall venture to say, that a bull is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity, of ideas, suddenly discovered. And if this account of bulls be just, they are (as might have been supposed) the very reverse of wit; for as wit discovers real relations, that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar, in which we suspect no similarity. The pleasure arising from balls proceeds from discovering two things to be dissimilar, in which a resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit, and to bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from an apparent relation between two actions, which more correct understandings immediately perceive to have no relation at all. Louis XIV. being extremely harrassed by the repeated solicitations of a veteran officer for promotion, Isaid one day, loud enough to be heard, That gentle. man is the most troublesome officer I have in my service.' That is precisely the charge (said the old EDGEWORTH ON BULLS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, man) which your Majesty's enemies bring against 1803.) Essay on Irish Bulls. By Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth. London, 1802. WE hardly know what to say about this rambling, scrambling book; but that we are quite sure the author, when he began any sentence in it, had not the smallest suspicion of what it was about to contain. We say the author; because, in spite of the mixture of sexes in the title-page, we are strongly inclined to suspect that the male contributions exceed the female in a very great degree. The essay on Bulls is written much with the same mind, and in the same manner, as a schoolboy takes *Gaul was conquered by a person of the name of Julius Caesar,' is the first phrase in one of Mr. Newberry's little books me." 'An English gentleman,' (says Mr. Edgeworth, in a story cited from Joe Millar,) was writing a letter in a coffeehouse; and perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty which Parmenio used with his friend Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the curious impertinent, the English gentleman thought proper to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with poetical justice. He concluded writing his letter in these words: "I would say more, but a damned tall Irishman is reading over my shoulder every word I write." "You lie, you scoundrel," said the self-convicted Hiber nian.'-(p. 29.) The pleasure derived from the first of these stories, proceeds from the discovery of the relation that subsists between the object he had in view, and the assent of the officer to an observation so unfriendly to that end. In the first rapid glance which the mind throws upon his words, he appears, by his acquiescence, to be pleading against himself. There seems to be no relation be tween what he says, and what he wishes to effect by speaking. In the second story, the pleasure is directly the reverse. The lie given was apparently the readiest means of proving his innocence, and really the most actual way of establishing his guilt. There seems for a moment to be a strong relation between the means and the object; while, in fact, no irrelation can be so complete. What connection is there between pelting stones at monkeys, and gathering cocoa-nuts from lofty trees? Apparently none. But monkeys sit upon cocon-nuttrees; monkeys are imitative animals; and if you pelt a monkey with a stone, he pelts you with a cocoanut in return. This scheme of gathering cocoa-nuts is very witty, and would be more so if it did not appear useful for the idea of utility is always inimical to the idea of wit. There appears, on the contrary, to be some relation between the revenge of the Irish rebels against a banker, and the means which they took to gratify it, by burning all his notes wherever they found them; whereas, they could not have rendered him a more essential service. In both these cases of bulls, the one verbal, the other practical, there is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity of ideas. In both the cases of wit, there is an apparent incongruity and a real relation. It is clear that a bull cannot depend upon mere incongruity alone; for if a man were to say that he would ride to London upon a cocked hat, or that he would cut his throat with a pound of pickled salmon, this, though completely incongruous, would not be to make bulls, but to talk nonsense. The stronger the apparent connection, and the more complete the real disconnection of the ideas, the greater the surprise, and the better the bull. The less apparent, and the more complete the relations established by wit, the higher gratification does it afford. A great deal of the pleasure experienced from bulls, proceeds from the sense of superiority in ourselves. Bulls which we invented, or knew to be invented, might please, but in a less degree, for want of this addition al zest. his own; Whether the Irish make more bulls than their neighbours, is, as we have before remarked, not a point of much importance; but it is of considerable importance that the character of a nation should not be degraded; and Mr. Edgeworth has great merit in his very benevolent intention of doing justice to the excellent qualities of the Irish. It is not possible to read his book without feeling a strong and new disposition in their favour. Whether the imitation of the Irish manner be correct in his little stories, we can not determine; but we feel the same confidence in the accuracy of the imitation, that is often felt in the resemblance of a portrait, of which we have never seen the original. It is no very high compliment to Mr. Edgeworth's creative powers, to say, he could not have formed anything, which was not real, so like reality; but such a remark only robs Peter to pay Paul; and gives everything to his powers of observation which it takes from those of his imagination. In truth, nothing can be better than his imitation of the Irish manner: it is first-rate painting. Edgeworth and Co. have another faculty in great perfection. They are eminently masters of the pathos. The Firm drew tears from us in the stories of little Dominick, and of the Irish beggar who killed his sweetheart: Never was any grief more natural or simple. The first, however, ends in a very foolish way; -formosa superne Desinit in piscem. We are extremely glad that our avocation did not call us from Bath to London on the day that the Bath coach-conversation took place. We except from this wish the story with which the conversation terminates; for as soon as Mr. Edgeworth enters upon a story he excels. We must confess we have been much more pleased with Mr. Edgeworth in his laughing and in his pathe. tic, than in his grave and reasoning moods. He meant, perhaps, that we should; and it certainly is not very necessary that a writer should be profound on the book, they are, in our estimation, amply atoned for by subject of bulls. Whatever be the deficiencies of the its merits; by none more than that lively feeling of compassion which pervades it for the distresses of the wild, kind-hearted, blundering poor of Ireland. TRIMMER AND LANCASTER.* (EDINBURGH A Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr. Joseph Lancaster, in his Tracts concerning the Instruction of the Children of the Labouring Part of the Community; and of the System of Christian Education founded by our pious Forefathers for the Initiation of the Young Members of the Established Church in the Principles of the Reformed Religion. By Mrs. Trimmer. 1805. As there must be apparent connection, and real recongruity, it is seldom that a man of sense and education finds any form of words by which he is conscious that he might have been deceived into a bull. To conceive how the person has been deceived, he must suppose a degree of information very different from, and a species of character very heterogeneous to, a process which diminishes surprise, and consequently pleasure. In the above-mentioned story of the Irishman overlooking the man writing, no person of ordinary sagacity can suppose himself betrayed into such a mistake; but he can easily represent to himself a kind of character that might have been so betrayed. There are some bulls so extremely fallaTHIS is a book written by a lady who has gained cious, that any man may imagine himself to have considerable reputation at the Corner of St. Paul's been betrayed into them, but these are rare: and, in Churchyard; who flames in the van of Mr. Newbury's general, it is a poor, contemptible species of amuse-shop; and is, upon the whole, dearer to mothers and ment, a delight in which evinces a very bad taste in wit. into the mouths of babes and sucklings. Tired at last aunts than any other who pours the milk of science It must be observed, that all the great passions, and of scribbling for children, and getting ripe in ambition, many other feelings, extinguish the relish for wit. Thus she has now written a book for grown-up people, aud yapha pudica Deum vidit et erebuit, would be witty, were it selected for her antagonist as stiff a controversialist as not bordering on the sublime. The re-emblance between the whole field of dispute could well have supplied. the sandal tree imparting (while it falls) its aromantic fla- Her opponent is Mr. Lancaster, a Quaker, who has vour to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man re- lately given to the world new and striking lights upon warding evil with good, would be witty, did it not excite the subject of Education, and come forward to the virtuous emotions. There are many mechanical contrivances which excite sensations very similar to wit; but the notice of his country by spreading order, knowledge, attention is absorbed by their utility. Some of Merlin's and innocence among the lowest of mankind. machines, which have no utility at all, are quite similar to wit. A small model of a steam-engine, or mere squirt, is wit to a child. A man speculates on the causes of the first, or in its consequences, and so loses the feelings of wit: with the latter, he is too familiar to be surprised. In short, the essence of every species of wit is surprise; which vi termini, must be sudden; and the sensations which wit has a tendency to excite, are impaired or destroyed as often as they are mingled with much thought or passion. Mr. Lancaster, she says, wants method in his book; * Lancaster invented the new method of education. The Church was sorely vexed at his success, endeavoured to set up Dr. Bell as the discoverer, and to run down poor Lan caster. George the Third was irritated by this shabby con duct, and always protected Lancaster. He was delighted with this Review, and made Sir Herbert Taylor read it a second time to him |