from one watering-place to another, in search of pleasure and preferment.

But if it is thought dangerous or impolitic to carry these principles into effect, yet surely the clergy ought no longer to be suffered to engross any part of the national income. In the reign of queen Anne, a popular cry was raised in favour of the church, of which a party in opposition took advantage to overturn the administration of the day; and, in recompence thereof, an act was passed, by the influence of the new ministers, in consequence of which the first fruits and tenths, a part of the revenue of the crown, were taken from the public, and appropriated to the augmentation of the smaller clerical benefices. This branch of the revenue amounted to about £14000 per annum; and on the first of January 1735, the governors of that charity possessed besides, from savings and private be nefactions, the sum of £152,500 of Old South Sea Annuities, and £4,857: 2: 11, of cash in the hands of their treasurer. * Whatever the state of that fund may now be, yet surely, if the small livings of the church required to be augmented, it is not from the revenue belonging to the crown, and to the public, but from the church itself, where its emoluments are confessedly too great, that the addition ought to be demanded.”·

A third project, more practicable than praise-worthy, is the hide-tax recommended at page 257. The tax on leather already subsisting is too heavy, and compels poor children to go unshod; this practice brings on diseases of the foot and ankles, and disablement for military service. We should prefer a total repeal of the tax on leather to any additional assess ment; and we presume that much more leather could be exported from this country, if hides both came and stayed free of duty.

• Another important hint is thrown out in the following passage:

"When the revenue arising from the first fruits and tenths, was originally appropriated

* See Lords' Journals, vol. xxiv. p. 665, lume folio.

for ecclesiastical uses, various means adopted that might incite private individual to devote some part of their property to t purpose; and it is an important circumstanc to mention, that in the space of about thirtee years and a half, commencing anno 1714, 10 less a sum than 135,2617. was bequeathed by different persons for augmenting small living in Englandt. That was at the rate of abu 10,000l. per annum; and such a suim op rat on a 4 per cent. stock, would have paid : the space of a hundred years the sum 12,370,000l.

"But it is not the church alone that y

been benefited by such contributions. The is hardly a town in Great Britain of any o siderable importance; there is not a chart. foundation of any kind; nay, hardly as.t parish in England, to which some beque have not been made, which, were they o mulated into one sum for any particular a ject, would be productive of astonishing fects. The charitable donations for the w nefit of the poor, in England and W alone, exceed 250,000l. per annum. Ex that sum, operating upon à 4 per cent. stor., would have accumulated, in the space it a century, to the amount of 309,000,000/ and consequently our debts, heavy as to y are, might have been actually discharged béfore this time, by voluntary contributies, had such a system been properly unders and encouraged at the revolution.

"Nay, the particular idea above hinted at. has not been neglected. Anno 1733, Richa Norton, Esq. of Southwick, in the ne and estates to parliament to pay the pa bourhood of Portsmouth, left his property debts. Sir Joseph Jekyl, master of the ro in the reign of George II. who died an 1738, bequeathed effects to the amount of about 26,000l. to the sinking fund¶. D parliament was afterwards prevailed upon. reverse the will of that public-spirited citizen: yet that very sum would have bought, in the space of forty-five years, the sum of 103,0 of 4 per cent. stock; and at the conclus of a century sir Joseph Jekyl would hat been recorded as a benefactor to the pubá, to the amount of 1,255,000!. Such a sprit

The return was printed anno 1736, in one vo

it been encouraged, would have soon ead. The author of this work, having disorted among his friends, a small tract remending such an idea, was happy to find met with the warmest approbation; some by whom it was perused, expressed strongest anxiety, that the necessary laws at purpose might be enacted without dethat they might have an opportunity of wing, how sincerely desirous they were, of moting the interests, by voluntarily conating to diminish the heavy burdens to ich their fellow-citizens were subject.

As a strong and useful incitement to such blic benefactions, it might be enacted, that y sum thus given, should be accumulated compound interest in the name of the doand the politic regulation that was deed in regard to the augmentation of the aller livings of the clergy, ought to be apted, by which a sum equal to the money towed, should be taken from the general ed, and appropriated to the same purpose. consequences of such a regulation may easily supposed from this, that there is tly a citizen in this country, who by great dustry and minute attention might not acculate 1000l. in the space of a few years. If t sun were laid out in 4 per cent. stock, in course of a century it would purchase 001. of stock; and if an equal sum e taken from the sinking fund, at the end a hundred years he would appear a benetor to the state to the amount of half a alhon, at the conclusion of which period a tue should be erected to his memory in Westminster-abbey, or some other conspicusedaice, as a mark of the public gratitude. Thus might a private individual, acquire imortal honour, by means perfectly practicable and easy."

The sale of the crown-lands is advised with convincing arguments at page 294. Some reserve of timber-ground for naval supply has been pleaded for; but we believe that private interest and private luxury will always provide the requisite stores. Besides, if ship-building should become too dear, the laws which privilege British-built ships can be repealed. Some scanty hints occur at page 303 concerning the availability of our East Indian conquests. Local loans might there be made, funded, and provided for.

Among the papers included in sir John Sinclair's appendix may be distinguished the first, entitled an analysis of the sources of public revenue. It compiles a vast mass of fact and reference concerning taxation in different ages and countries; and marshals in convenient arrangement the various forms of tribute. One of the less complete chapters is the third, which treats of public revenue from buildings,

without noticing those rent-taxes by which our poor's-rate is assessed, or those window-taxes and hearth-monies, which are burdens: both these are taxes on buildso conspicuous in the catalogue of our ings. Edifices form a very productive and a very expedient source of revenue their utility to the country is not at all diminished by any tax, however heavy on the rental: only their capital value, their selling price, is affected, which facilitates transfer. It would beexpedient to window-tax places of worship and empty houses; this would prompt a demolition of deserted and su perfluous buildings, and accelerate the reduction of rents, when the country is overstocked with shelter.

In a section of the second chapter of the third book of this meritorious analysis, (which ought to have been published apart as a separate work, for it has no connexion with the history of the revenue) sir John Sinclair lays down the axiom that taxes ought to be in proportion to the property which each individual possesses.' This appears to us paradoxical. Property usefully employed ought never to be driven from its destination by the persecutions of the tax-gatherer. Property mischievously employed ought to be driven from its destination by the inroads of the tax-gatherer. The purest title to property, as Mr. Burke observes, is the wise employment; aud this is the title which the taxer ought to respect. He is not to burden equal property equally in the hands of idleness and of industry. The idler, who lives a useless life, on the rent of his acres, houses, bonds and funds, ought to pay more in proportion, than the farmer, manufacturer, or trader, who renders these lands, or buildings, or capitals, productive. The fatigued labourer must not be blooded so often as the pampered feaster; nor ought the political physician to amerce alike the earnings of industry and the squanderings of luxury.

A second appendix enumerates the various books extant on the subject of finance in our language: we wish it had been a critical catalogue; and that those works had been shortly characterized, which it is worth while to read or to reprint.

This copious history of the revenue abounds with curious details; it displays an enviable command of library and a meritorious range of research; but it has not all the compression of materials, the neatness of redaction, the stematic distribution and proporti which an artist bookmak

ntrived to

attain. The instruction bestowed is various and important, but desultory and diffuse it wanders, like a bank-note, from the merchant to the land-owner, from England to Ireland, from the excise-office to the treasury.

Sir John Sinclair displays much industry and much talent; he excels perhaps more in compilation of fact than in felicity

of inference, in antiquarian than in criti cal investigation, and is rather the statist than the statesman. Yet he has this of greatness, that his object is utility not display; that he is exempt from servility to party or to power; and that he offers up his toil and his wisdom to the public ser vice with the unreserve of patriotisin and the calmness of disinterest.

THERE is a good book on Roman antiquities by Alexander Adam of Edinburgh this John Adams is not a writer of equal learning, research, a condensation but he has performed with convenient propriety and less ambitious task; and has abridged for the use of schools and of young people, into an inconsiderable volume, the whole Roman history down to the taking of Constantinople..

The earlier portions of the narrative are more completely given than the later. We should have preferred a severer condensation of the first book. The current fables concerning the Roman origins must be learned, because they are often alluded to: but it was not necessary to dilate so much on the marvellous anecdotes of the primæval kings and champions.

The first historians of Rome were poets. Ennius wrote metrical annals of the kings; and Nævius a metrical chronicle of the first Punic war; but the foriner of these two bards could have no authentic sources of intelligence; he did not, like Nævius, relate events of which he was a great part. Romulus and Remus, Numa and Egeria, class with the kings and nymphs of the Polyalbion.

The priesthood are stated annually to have written on a white board, which was exposed to the inspection of the few who could read, a short register of the magistrates and events of the year. These agreed notices of public occurrences were afterwards transcribed and preserved in the archives, and are quoted as the funda

mental documents of Roman history, Now these archives down to the year 300 perished totally during the conflagration of Rome by the Gauls. Fasti, and other collections of precedents for laws and pub lic rites, were afterwards compiled, and ascribed to the traditional fathers of the country; but there is no trust-worthy history before Camillus.

Yet this portion of history fills ten chapters of the volume before us; whereas the whole period from 476 to 1453, occupies but nine chapters.

The archæological matter concerning the arts, manners, games, coins, religion, and constitution of heathen Rome, is too extensive for a work professedly historical. On the contrary, there is a deficiency of geographical matter: without a map of the Roman world, containing the antient names of places, it is not easy for young people to follow an annalist of their af fairs.

The mention of those moderns, who flourished before the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, might have been forborne. A long catalogue of names occurs from page 249 to page 256, which have nothing to do with Roman history; they must be leaves of some other work sown in by mistake.

We have no doubt this book will be found sufficiently useful to invite a second edition, when we trust a more proportionate distribution of materials will be attained.

THE chief cause of prosperity among the numerous classes in Great Britain is that spirit of emigration, which happily

is a national affection. There is no country in which so large a proportion of the people have travelled; none, in which so

many are constantly employed in migratory occupations, as carriers, drivers, wherry-men, and sailors: none, in which the tombs of the natives are so distant from their cradles. To die rich, or to die abroad, is the avowed system of commercial enterprize. Discontent with every situation which can be bettered is the me. ritorious profession of all ranks. A lub. ber, a stay-at-home, is with us a term of abuse. This is rational. He who expatriates himself confers a benefit on his remaining fellow-citizens: he bequeaths while alive to another the form of subsistence in which he was engaged; he contributes to cheapen food and to raise the wages of labour, by withdrawing competition, and thus to facilitate at home early marriage and the consequent purity of domestic morals. His industry, wherever it is employed, will be exchanged for some of the productions of his mother-country, whose manufactures are sure to profit by his consumption during absence. If eminently prosperous, he will return at last, and bring back the glorious recompence of his industry; if but ordinarily success. ful, he will have still contributed to make the commerce, the language, and the power of Great Britain pervade the distant provinces.

A society for the encouragement of emigration should be founded. It should keep lists of poor families willing to be exported, and of the districts to which they would contentedly be carried. When a sufficient cargo is ready for Botany-bay, or Pulo Fenang; for the Cape, or Bulama; for Trinidad, or Upper Canada; let the requisite arrangements be taken by the society to secure a proper reception, and to convey gratuitously the colonists. The expence of crossing the sea is the chief impediment to the speedy population of the British settlements. Many persons, especially from Wales and Ireland, in order to conquer this difficulty, sell themselves for a given term of years to the American captains at Liverpool, and re resold to the highest bidder on their arrival at Baltimore, or New York. This white-slave trade is carried on under the forms of the laws concerning apprentices: and there is reason to believe that, by successive advances of money or necessaries to the bondsman, such prolongations of his slavery, beyond the seven years of the original agreement, are brought to bear, as entirely assimilate the condition of the British emigrant, in the pretendedly free ptates of North-America, to that of a Ro

man citizen sold into perpetual slavery by a harsh creditor. It would be an act of humanity, as well as of patriotism, to warn these rash rovers against contracts so oppressive and tyrannical; and to facilitate their landing in freedom on territories not less likely to offer an easy maintenance than the provinces of the United States,, During peace, a proper employment for the ships of government would be to carry out passengers freight-free, in all directions, to the British settlements; during war, the superfluous population naturally finds another course.

Among the persons to whom a society for the encouragement of emigration would eagerly allot its honorary medals is the present earl of Selkirk. He visited Canada; he fixed on a spot in Prince Edward's Island as the field of colonization; he provided ships, stores, medical attendance, instruments of labour; he superintended the allotment of the lands, and in a single year established a considerable community, independent of external or foreign aid for subsistence and shelter. To Cecilius lord Baltimore, the founder of the prosperity of Maryland, the grandchildren of his patronage justly ascribe a high rank among the benefactors of society, and the worthies of the human race, The future islanders of Prince Edward's land, will preserve a similar gratitude for the memory of the earl of Selkirk. His narrative is simple, interesting, instruc

tive.

"This island of Prince Edward is situated

in lat. 46° and 47° in the Gulph of St. Lau rence, near the coast of Nova Scotia-it is about 120 miles long, and much intersected by arms of the sea, along which is a thinly scattered population, estimated at about 7 or 8000, The lands of this island were granted in the year 1767, in several large lots, of which a great proportion fell into the hands of persons who have entirely neglected their inprovement, and in consequence of this many The settlement I had in view was to be fixed yery extensive tracts are totally uninhabited. in one of these, where, for upwards of thirty miles along the coast, there was not a single habitation. The spot selected for the princi pal establishment was separated by an arm of the sea, and an interval of several miles, from any older settlement. Those that were in the vicinity were of inconsiderable amount, and with them; so that the emigrants who arrived little benefit was derived from any intercourse on this occasion were placed in circumstances scarcely more favourable than if the island had been completely desert.

"These people, amounting to about eight hundred persons of all ages, reached the island

in three ships, on the 7th, 9th, and 27th of August 1803. It had been my intention to come to the island some time before any of the settlers, in order that every requisite preparation might be made. In this, however, a number of untoward circumstances concurred to disappoint me; and on my arrival at the capital of the island, I learned that the ship of most importance had just arrived, and the passengers were landing at a place previously appointed for the purpose.

"I lost no time in proceeding to the spot, where I found that the people had already lodged themselves in temporary wigwams, constructed after the fashion of the Indians, by setting up a number of poles in a couical form, tied together at top, and covered with boughs of trees. Those of the spruce fir were preferred, and, when disposed in regular layers of sufficient thickness, formed a very substantial thatch, giving a shelter not inferior to that of a tent.

"The settlers had spread themselves along the shore for the distance of about half a mile, upon the site of an old French village, which had been destroyed and abandoned after the capture of the island by the British in 1758 The land, which had formerly been cleared of wood, was overgrown again with thickets of young trees, interspersed with grassy glades. These open spots, though of inconsiderable extent with a view to cultivation, afforded a convenient situation for the encampment: indeed the only convenient place that could have been found, for all the rest of the coast was covered with thick wood, to the very edge of

the water.

"I arrived at the place late in the evening, and it had then a very striking appearance. Each family had kindled a large fire near their wigwam, and round these were assembled groupes of figures, whose peculiar national dress added to the singularity of the surrounding scene. Confused heaps of baggage were every where piled together beside their wild habitations; and by the number of fires the whole woods were illuminated. At the end of this line of encampment I pitched my own tent, and was surrounded in the morning by a mumerous assemblage of people, whose behaviour indicated that they looked to nothing less than a restoration of the happy days of Clanship.

"After our first meeting, I had to occupy myself in examining the lands, and laying them out in small lots for the settlers. In this business I soon began to feel the inconvenience of not having arrived at the time I had intended. The plans which had formerly been made of the land, were too inaccurate to be of much use: a new survey could not be completed sufficiently soon; but some measurements were indispensable; and even this little took up time that could ill be spared. From this cause, combined with some of those errors from which a first experiment is rarely exempt, it happened that three or four weeks elapsed before the settlers could have their in

dividual allotments pointed out to them; and during all this time they were under the aecessity of remaining in their first encampment.

"These hardy people thought little of the inconvenience they felt from the slightness of the shelter they had put up for themselves; but in other respects the delay was of very pernicious tendency. There are few parts of America where there are not people ready to practise on the ignorance of new-comers, and by representations, true or false, to entice them to fix on some place where the officious adviser has an interest to promote. Sorae altempts of this kind were made, and, though not ultimately successful, gave much trouble The contidence of the settlers seemed to be shaken; and from their absolute ignorance of the country, argument had no effect in reinoving any unreasonable fancy. The terms upon which lands were offered to them were scarcely equivalent to one half of the current rate of the island; yet they acceded to them with much hesitation, and a long time elapsed be fore they became sensible of the upcommon degree of favour they had experi enced.

At one period, indeed, there seemed to be a probability of the settlement breaking up entirely. As long as the people remained tgether in their encampment, they partook in some degree of the versatility of a mob. was not till they had dispersed to their sep rate lots, till by working upon them they h begun to form a local attachment, and to view their property with a sort of paternal fondness, that I could reckon the settlement as fairly begun.

"In this interval an alarming contagion fever broke out, and gave no small degreve di anxiety, by its progress among the settlers. My apprehensions, however, were relieved by the presence and assistance of a medical gentleman, whom I was fortunate enough to have as my companion, and whose professional skill was equalled only by his amiable and humane attention to every class of patients. Through his assiduous and unremitted exertions, the disease was soon alleviated; and few fatal cases occurred. There were not many of the settlers, however, that escaped the contagion altogether: it was difficult to intercept it among people living in such close vicinity, and in a continual intercourse, which no means could be found for preventing. This fever had been occasioned by some accidental importation, and certainly not by the climate, which is remarkably healthy. The disease was nearly eradicated, when the people began to disperse to their separate lots, upon which they had all begun to work be fore the middle of September.

"I could not but regret the time which had been lost; but I had satisfaction in reflecting, that the settlers had begun the cultivation of their farms, with their little capitals unimpaired. The principal expence they had to incur was for provisions to support them