crease; our manufactures fail altogether; but there is no doubt that the balance of the corn trade would rapidly become favourable, and a great quantity of wheat (which our labourers, like the cultivators of Poland, would be unable to purchase, and therefore could not consume) would every year, as in the times before England's prosperity began, be exported to the foreign market.

Mr. Benett's proposal for the commutation of Tythe rests entirely on the assumed fact, that agriculture is on the decline, and that the abolition of tythe will cause it permanently to flourish. We have disputed the fact, which is the basis of his theory, we hope successfully. We will abstain from noticing the observations, which are crouded into his little pamphlet, attempting to prove, that, under all circumstances,

"The tythe is a property which, in its nature, is injurious to the interest of the whole State, that it ought to be, and eventually must be, commuted ;"" that it destroys all the respect which we ought to feel for our pastors; that inveterate enmity succeeds; that the whole blame should be attributed to the tythe system; and that this must be so while human minds, hearts, and feelings continue to be formed as they have hitherto been."

It will be enough at present to state our cordial disagreement with Mr. Benett upon all these points. His main argument is derived from the fact, that agriculture is on the decline. That fact he has not proved, and we deny it. We persuade ourselves at the same time, that nothing but the haste of composition has induced Mr. Benett) to publish a statement, which abounds in unwarranted aspersions of the sacred character of our Clergy.

The plan of commutation which he proposes, (if any plan were practicable) is in one view the most objectionable of any that can be imagined. The value of the tythe has been supposed to be in most cases a sixth, in some cases a fifth; and in countries of difficult culture, a fourth, or more, of the rental of the soil. Can any one, without emotion, contemplate the investing the Clergy with a fourth, a fifth, or even a sixth of the whole territorial property of England? The statute of Mortmain would then be an illusion! at least a sixth of the land of England would be withdrawn from the currency of exchange, and permanently attached to life proprietors, who could derive no benefit from extended cultivation, and whose sole object it must be, indifferent to its future condition, instantly to draw from the soil its utmost immediate produce. Precautions against this would be oppressive, and practically evaded. Is this a

scheme

scheme distinguished by "most honourable reward," by a Society founded for the encouragement of agriculture?

But indeed if such a scheme were realised, its detriment to agriculture, and its injury to the State, in fixing for ever, in most rigid entailment, so vast a portion of our territorial property, would be a small part of its evil result; these would be matters of trivial import, compared with the malignity of its moral effects. Our Churchmen are but men, and will continue to be endued "with human minds, hearts, and feelings." If the provision of tythes for their support were not of sacred origin, yet its excellence is most apparent in this; that it commonly excludes them from all the care and labour of temporal concerns, leaves them unfettered by worldly anxieties, and free to the discharge of that important function, on which the salvation of many must depend. If the time should ever come when the whole body of the Clergy shall be immersed in the sordid concerns of property of any kind, if they are to be tempted from their holy office to plough the soil, to reap the harvest, and to barter its produce in the market, if the liberal learning, which now adorns their calling, were to be exchanged for the speculations of husbandry and calculations of agricultural economy, the change would indeed be great. We will avoid the pain of tracing its awful results.

We take our leave of Mr. Benett's pamphlet, not without suggesting that societies established for any purpose become of questionable utility when they presume to speculate in those high matters on which parliament itself will for no mean motive venture to deliberate. The Constitutional and Corresponding Societies of Chalk Farm, the Roman Catholic Convention at Dublin, and the Agricultural Societies which complain of our Ecclesiastical Establishments subsisting by public grievance, are bodies of men unknown in the British Constition, and long may they remain so! We presume to suggest to the country gentlemen of England, that if some of them do not deem it inconsistent with their dignity to do the farmer's business for the farmer's profit, and to sustain their revenues by vending produce in the corn market; yet it will prove inconsistent with their peculiar interest, as it is wholly incompatible with their duty, to excite and to reward speculations on matters of high constitutional doctrine, which are far above their reach and ours. If they assume a right to denounce one provision of the law, other associations of denounce some other. The peculiar privileges of landlords, the game laws, and all manorial royalties, or even the payment of rents may be objected to, on grounds at least as tenable as the objections raised against the rights and property of the Church. The dutiful obedience which we all owe to all the

men may

parts

parts of the Constitution, under the wise supervision of the Legislature, will speedily be lost in vain researches after imaginary improvements, combinations will speedily be formed upon other bases than that of allegiance to the state.

Our minds are tranquillized and refreshed by a perusal of the letter to Mr. Benett, in reply to his Essay, by Archdeacon Coxe.

Mr. Coxe has rendered service to his order and to the commuuity at large, by withdrawing himself a little while from his other literary pursuits, and undertaking the duty of this inportant address; in which the spirit of controversy.appears with meekness and good sense; in which the truth is proclaimed, and the interests of the Church defended, as they always ought to be, with vigour of reasoning, unoștentatious simplicity, and Christian moderation.

It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Coxe through the tract of his reasoning, in which we think he successfully combats every argument which he opposes. He contends, that our agriculture is not on the decline; and that, therefore, the commutation of tythe is not wanted for its support. With respect to the enmity occasioned by the tythe system, he declares in behalf of the body

-"of which he has the honour to be a member, that for the sake of gaining the love and esteem of their flocks, they would cheerfully forego any advantage which they can forego, without serious injury to themselves, and to those for whom they consider themselves as the trustees."

But that any great portion of the dissent from the Church is caused by the operation of tythes, he shews to be a mistaken judgement.

"The very situation of Dissenters disproves the assertion. In villages and country districts, however populous, where the tythe system extends, they are comparatively few; and a greater majority of the farmers are attached to the Church, than any other class of society. On the contrary, they are more numerous in towns, where the maintenance of the Clergyman is drawn from another

source."

With a manliness which becomes the cause in which he is engaged,

"He trusts that no one will suspect him of disaffection for suggesting, that the right of the Church of England to its property of every denomination, is not derived from the concession of Parliaments or the favour of princes; but is at least as ancient,

and

and deduced from a principle at least as sacred as any other right enjoyed or exercised in this country. Nor ought we to infer, that because Parliament, in permiting the enclosure of a common, has established in land connected with that common some commutation for tythe by the previous consent of all interested parties, a general commutation of all tythe may be enforced, not only without the consent, but in defiance of the Clergy, It should be remembered, that their right to tythe is founded on prescription an terior even to the state, and is at least, by adoption, made a principle of the Constitution. It is fundamental in the Church, which subsists not only by alliance with the State, but is identified with it. The Clergy of the present day have but the usufruct, and are incompetent, even if they were willing, to dispose of the inheritance of their order. They can neither be bribed nor compelled to consent for their successors in all future ages, whom they do not represent; nor exchange a right, which is prescriptive and fundamental, for property of any kind, which can only be ensured to them by the validity of recent convention.”

We anxiously recommend to all our readers, who, like us, are firm friends of the Constitution in Church and State, to peruse and to study Mr. Coxe's Letter.

ART. II. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. By Adam Smith, LL.D. &c. &c. with Notes, and an additional Volume, by David Buchanan. Svo. 4 vols. 21. 8s. Oliphant and Co., Edinburgh; Murray, London.

UPON reading the above title-page, our indignation was excited in no ordinary degree at the profane and presumptuous attempt which it seems to announce to the public. An additional volume to the Wealth of Nations-Why then should not the Iliad be extended to thirty cantos in the true modern style, and Herodotus brought down to the present times? What should. prevent some juvenile author, of boundless ambition, and irrepressible impudence, from giving us a few additional chapters to the Principia of Newton, or from making his debut in the literary world with notes and a fresh volume to the lives of the English Poets! Nor was the study which we bestowed upon the back-title, calculated to remove our fears or to diminish our anger. Smith's Wealth of Nations, Buchanan's edition, in four volumes, price 21. Ss. in boards," is a form of words,

which we had never before seen applied to that distinguished work; while the increase in the price and in the number of volumes, left no doubt upon our minds, that something very bad had occurred which ought not to remain unexposed, and that no time was to be lost with the view of bringing to condign punishment the contrivers and perpetrators of such heinous sacrilege. Upon turning, however, to the fourth volume which rather inconsistently bears on the back, "Smith's Wealth of Nations, Vol. IV." we were rejoiced to find that its real title and import is nothing worse than "Observations on the Subjects treated of in Dr. Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by David Buchanan."

It is well known that Dr. Smith spent the greater part of a long life, and employed the undivided strength of a most vigorous and well stored mind, in composing his immortal work, the Wealth of Nations; and so diffident was he of his abilities, and so anxious to produce something worthy of the attention of an enlightened age, that he retired from the world ten years, in order to prepare his book for the press. Nor is it less generally known, that the publication of his work introduced a new era in the commercial policy of all European states; while, at the present day, Adam Smith is held the oracle of political wisdom, and referred to as the highest authority on all subjects of trade, in Russia, Germany, Italy, and France. But Mr. Buchanan says, Dr. Smith did not publish a "perfect work;" and he informs us, that the object of his own performauce is "to rectify what is amiss in that author; to supply omissions; to give his reasonings an application to modern times; and to exhibit, as far as he is qualified, a complete system of political economy." It was, no doubt, patriotic and generous in Mr. B. to lend his endeavours in the great cause which so materially affects the interests and happiness of all civilized people; but it would certainly have been more judicious as well as less trying to his reputation as an author, had he brought forward his discoveries, and communicated his new lights, in a separate publication. It seems to argue a want of modesty in a young man-for we cannot allow ourselves to think that Mr. Buchanan has finished his academical studies-to make his first appearance among grown-up people, avowing the Herculean task of writing notes on the Wealth of Nations, and of exhibiting a "complete system of political economy.

As it is not our intention to review the original work of Dr. Smith, our labour in this article will be confined to a short account of the notes in the first place, and secondly, of the additional volume. We may remark, however, that this formal

division