ART. VI.-1. An Attempt to Estimate the Effects of Protecting Duties on the Profits of Agriculture. By Messrs. NORTON and TRIMMER. London: Ridgway. 1845.

2. England in 1815 and 1845, on a Sufficient and a Contracted Currency. By ARCHIBALD ALISON. Blackwood. 1845.

THE task of a reviewer differs from that of a journalist—he has a concern with politics, but it differs from that of the writer in a newspaper; the one must take the events as they pass him, and pronounce his daily judgment upon them-in the thousand incidents which float on the moving stream of our concerns, he must steer his way, and from the urgency of the call upon him, and the rapidity of his decisions, it would be more than human nature if they were not sometimes in fault. Still the daily press of England is a remarkable monument of the integrity and the vigour of public opinion; it enlists the talents, and exhibits the powers, which in the days of Queen Anne were concentrated in the wits who wrote the pamphlets which have immortalized Swift, Bolingbroke, Addison, and Steele. The reviewer's task is of a less urgent, and in this respect, more easy kind; he is not called upon to pronounce every day, or every week, upon public events, he has time allowed him for a more general, and therefore a more easy review-where they are complex and obscure, he may suspend his judgment; he may give his pages to works of letters and, escape to literature from the haze of politics. Then when the haze has cleared off, he may step forward and record his judgment; but on that account his judgment ought to be more careful: he is deeply responsible for it. He addresses also a different class of readers, more select, perhaps more thoughtful; if he attempts to mislead them for the interests of a party, if he seeks for this end to blind their judgments, he is gravely culpable. But the task of a reviewer, while it differs from the journalist, is distinct also from that of the constitutional lawyer, or the political philosopher. These writers treat of the constitutions of states, or of the science of political economy; they handle these as abstract truths, without reference to the circumstances or opinions of their own generation; they have to present the principles and deductions of science, and then to leave them; these deductions may not be received in their

own day, may not be admitted into legislation for centuries. Adam Smith was so far fortunate, that during his life-time a great practical statesman, Mr. Pitt, carried out some of his opinions; but many of them have not been adopted till our own time, perhaps are not adopted now. That is not his concern; he drops the germ for after-ages. But the reviewer's position is different; it would be a waste of his own time and that of his readers if he were to bring forward truths which have no application to the events of his day; he is writing for his own generation, for the year in which that generation finds itself; and as his object is practical good, he must take men and circumstances as he finds them; it is idle for him to sit down, wring his hands, and wish matters were changed. There they are; his business is to look at them, and to deal with them; for it is practical wisdom to use the materials you have, and build with them the best fabric you may. The constitutional reasoner, were he living in New York, might feel it his duty to condemn a republic, and to give a preference to monarchy; but this would be folly in a reviewer who must make the best of the United States government as he finds it, and address his maxims to its republican citizens. So in our own case, the opinions which grow out of the circumstances of society are those with which we have to deal; they may not contain the most perfect truth: we must use them as far as we can, to work out the nearest approach to it. For instance, we may not agree in the maxim, that it is wise in the state to assist the education of various sects; we may hold this to be in many respects erroneous; to us it appears far better, that in the education of the child, as in that of the adult, the state should support one school, connected with one Church. This is the system of the Scottish nation, and it has worked well. But sects having grown up among us by the state's neglect, they have multiplied: their demands have been urgent, they have prevailed; the state has deliberately set up a system of educational grants to various sects; we think it an improper system; but instead of refusing to act under it, it seems our duty to deal with it, and to develope under it to the best of our power the energies of our Church. This has been the course of the Church of England in fact, and we justify it in the Church as the course of practical wisdom.

It may be objected that these views are latitudinarian; that they would justify us in giving our assent to error. The architect who can find for his buildings nothing but brick or wood, will make the best of these materials; if, indeed, he were to assert that they were better than stone, it would be false; but to employ them is wise.

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For constitutional structures let us use the same judgment which guides the builder. And let us be allowed earnestly to address the moral to many who appear to forget it. Life and society have claims upon us : let us not refuse to answer them, because we cannot meet them exactly as we could desire. Roman Catholic Emancipation says one, Parliamentary Reform says another, have subverted the English constitution. They have violated its material, and altered its balance-be it so! let us work as we can with the material which we find. England used to be governed by the wisdom of the few, say some. It is now tossed ungovernable in democratic agitation—be it so! But with increased difficulties and with new elements, it is still our duty to shape the wisest course. We must still guide, not forsake the helm. We detest popular agitation, says another, the government of associations is odious, Liberal or Conservative, the League or Repeal, all these clubs appear to us fundamentally wrong. We refuse to take part in them. If you do, you refuse to use the only material at your hand. You refuse to live in London because it is not built of stone, or because it is filled with smoke. The days of individual action are past; we live in the days of associated movement. We may long for individuality, we may see its preference and its power for truth and character, but we must work in association, and where it is the implement of force, use it on the side of truth. This is common sense and the dictate of homely wisdom. We urge We urge it upon the friends of the constitution and of the Church. Instead of lamenting over our social evils, instead of condemning the popular powers, let them take what they find and use them for good ends. They will thus do much in their generation, and leave useful results behind them. These maxims which we recommend to others we adopt for ourselves. In discharging the duties of political reviewers, we decline the maxims of remote and unattainable theory. We have no intention of trying public men by an exaggerated standard. We do not expect to find them, and we do not wish to find them, Don Quixotes in legislation. We do not call upon them to present to parliament schemes which are visionary, plans which, abstractedly right, are inapplicable to the circumstances, because not countenanced by the opinions of the day. Our only wish is, that they should use the material they have, and guide men, such as they find them, to the best practical course of policy. This is the only standard by which we mean to try public men, and to this standard no one can reasonably object.

No man of candour can deny that great changes have occurred in public life. The political world of England is not as it once

was. The elements which move its atmosphere in the reign of Queen Victoria, differ materially from those which stirred it in the days of Queen Anne. The state of public feeling in the reigns of George IV. and William IV. differed from that which existed when George III., a stripling, ascended the throne. The balance of power has moved into different hands from the days when Lord Bute rallied the king's friends, and Lord Chatham's gouty chair was set down at the door of St. James's, to the days when Leagues thunder in Manchester, and agitators muster thousands in Covent Garden or Conciliation Hall. It is idle to expect that with such a change in the forces, there can be the same course in the government; that Lord Melbourne should manage like Lord North, or Sir Robert Peel adopt the tactics of Sir Robert Walpole. Each must use the materials at his command. The country cannot be managed as it was when the Pelhams consulted the junto of the Whigs, or the first Fox gave bribes from the treasury to members of parliament. There has been a great change. We incline to hope that in some things that change is for the better. We do not think that the intrigues of juntos are the best government for a great nation, or that the exclusion of the middle classes of the people from power is salutary either to the governed or the governors. It has, in truth, been the characteristic of England, that its government has always been in some measure influenced by the opinions of the people. Mr. Hallam has shown that this was the case even in early days. It became more remarkably so in the progress of our history. The growth of public opinion was manifest before the Tudors ceased to reign. Henry VIII., though hardly conscious of it, appealed to it when he confronted the papacy. Elizabeth struggled with it during her reign. Charles I. met it and was overthrown by it. Charles II. tried alternately to coerce, to coax, and to corrupt it; but he always feared it, and he often gave way to it. Its power was established under his successor. Its increase was felt by William III. whom it often mortified, by Anne, who sacrificed to it her personal predilections, and by the line of Hanover, who were thwarted by it in their foreign connexions. It was reserved for the reign of George III. to show it in a new aspect, wider in its sphere, and enlarged in its power. Adam Smith, who wrote in that reign, developed the laws which regulate the accumulation of wealth. It was left to our history to develope the effects which the progress of our wealth has both upon our manners and our politics.

The last thirty years of the last century brought forth in Great Britain a notable change. The half of the present century which is passed has carried it out, and brought its effects into

view. Before that period wealth was in a great degree confined to the products of the soil; merchandise placed a portion in the hands of the towns; the national debt produced a moneyed class, whose influence began to appear in politics. Our colonial connexions followed, and merchants to the East and West Indies began to gather fortunes and to represent boroughs: London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow, spoke through these the sentiments of mercantile and colonial fortunes. But still the agricultural influence greatly preponderated, and was only checked by the influence of great landowners, who possessing family boroughs, could rally a force in parliament which governed the ministry. It was with these great families that the minister of the day had to deal. Their desertion could upset the administration of Lord Chatham, and could maintain in power for many years the incapacity of the Duke of Newcastle. Mr. Pitt leaned partly on these, and partly on the country gentlemen; Lord Sidmouth's administration was maintained (we mention it to his honour) by the influence of the latter. But during these struggles of sections of the agricultural interest, which absorbed all the attention of statesmen, a new interest was growing up unperceived. The products of foreign soils were received in the course of our mercantile exchange, and were used to the production of the textile fabrics which soon formed the dress of all classes. The manufacture of the cotton, the flax, and the silk, soon exceeded the domestic manufacture of woollen. Fabrics multiplied, the soil of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Lanarkshire, was covered. Hordes of new population were poured into wastes; hamlets rose, villages swelled into towns, new sounds of strange labour covered the face of the country. Invention was taxed, science was called in to guide art. The treasures of our own soil, its earths, and its minerals, were extracted to form and to move the machinery which Arkwright invented, and which the science of Watt impelled. While the farmers slowly followed in improvements, the possessor of the fabric caught every new invention. The one dealing with a precarious trade, often disturbed by changes of natural elements, made scanty profits; the other, commanding his own atmosphere, and making wind and water obedient, sprang at once to fortune: factories rose, chimneys smoked, furnaces glared, collieries sprang up, in thousands, over the soil both of England and Scotland. The country was covered with a new population, and presented the spectacle of new fortunes. It was impossible that such changes should not affect our political course; they had altered the face of the country, they were sure to alter its politics. Felt in half the counties of Great Britain, they must at last be felt within the