and a physician should administer copious bleedings, because his door neighbour was dying of a pleurisy.'

The Writer then goes on to shew how, whilst the powe 'the crown has been thus increased by the doctrines, it has be no less augmented by the burdens of the war.' The accessi of patronage, derived from the prodigious augmentation of th revenue and the national debt, is incalculable. The collection o this immense revenue, forms in itself a powerful engine of state influence; upwards of four millions a-year being spent in this necessary service.'

Every year a large book is presented to the House of Commons, containing an account of the augmentation of salaries and superanuations, chiefly in offices of this description. These offices are thus disposed of. The offices of the excise are generally given by the commissioners of excisc appointed by government, a few being reserved for the patronage of the Treasury; i. e. in other words for members of the House of Commons. The offices of the customs are entirely at the disposal of the Treasury; the offices of the stamp and post offices are given by the Treasury, at the recommendation of members of parliament voting with government. The receivers-general of the land tax, whose poundage alone amounts to 78,000l. a year, and whose balances give as much more, are appointed at the recommendation of county members voting with government. In the instance of one county, this office was lately divided into two, to increase the patronage. Where the members for the county both vote with opposition, the appointment is given to the person who the first Lord of the Treasury thinks ought to be member for the county. Thus it is, that the influence of the crown has not only been augmented, but organized, and directed in a manner never before known.'

In proceeding to examine the new securities which liberty. has gained, the Writer admits that the publication of the debates in parliament, and the more general diffusion of political knowledge, form a most important change.

The censor of the Roman republic, however austere in the exercise of his functions, could never equal in minuteness of enquiry, or severity of rebuke, the unseen and irresponsible public of the British Empire. What statesman can hear with unshaken nerves, that voice, which, beginning in the whispers of the metropolis, rises into the loud tone of defiance within the walls of parliament, and is then prolonged by means of the hundred mouths of the press, till its innumerable echoes rebound from the shores of Cornwall, and the mountains of Inverness? What minister, however profligate in his notions, does not, in his parliamentary language, endeavour, in some degree, to conciliate the uncorrupted mind of the multitude?'

The effect of this power is, however, he proceeds to shew, very vaguely estimated, when it is supposed to overbalance the influence the crown derives from the increase of the standing VOL XIV. N.S.

R

army and ministerial patronage. All our most valued institutions, the safeguards of our liberty, suppose that public opinion is not a sufficient counterpoise to power. Besides, the persons who advance such an argument, take it for granted that all the opinion which has been admitted to a share of influence in the state, is in a spirit of inquiry and of control upon the Govern ment. To expose the fallacy of this assumption, the Writer takes a view of the parties into which the public are divided. At the beginning of the late reign, several new parties arose, which are briefly characterised.

A fourth party, are those who are attached to the laws, but are perpetual alarmists. They would use the Constitution as some ladies do a new gown, never put it on for fear it should rain. They are continually reminding us of the necessity of burying party animosities for the sake of the country; by which they mean, suspending the laws, to quiet their own nerves. It is upon these persons, especially, that the very name of French Revolution has the greatest effect; they shut their eyes to every thing that is encouraging, in order to fix their gaze upon the low trash by which a few miserable individuals gain a precarious livelihood. It is upon these timid creatures also that the government press has the most pernicious effect; nothing, it is well known, is so likely to forward the sale of a newspaper, as an account of any news that is by the newsmen called "bloody;" and now that the war is over, there is no way of obtaining such news, but by exaggerating the numbers and the violence of public meetings. This manœuvre was practised to such an extent last year, that the whole nation took the alarm, and Englishmen were ready to cut each other's throats in the surmise of a plot. Unhappily, in one instance, they went farther, and blood was shed in civil commotion. May that day never be repeated!' pp. 154, 155.

The New Party' is next examined at full length, and their mischievous influence ably exposed. The new laws restrictive of the freedom of the Press are then adverted to with becoming indignation, and the words of Burke are recalled to us, in application to the present crisis, that liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen.' The paper concludes with some judicious remarks on Parliamentary Reform.

We have allowed ourselves no room for further disquisition, and we are glad of it. Though this Gentleman has left his lodgings, we dare say we shall hear of him again.

Art. IX. Lays of Affection. By Margaret Brown. Foolscap 8vo. pp. 224. Price 8s. Edinburgh. 1819.

WE E shall perhaps gratify an interesting circle of friends by

our notice of these effusions of friendship; and we can say with truth, that we know of no worthier purpose that Verse can answer, than to be the vehicle and the record of feelings and

sentiments such as in this instance it has been employed to express. But beyond the circle of those friends for whose gratification, no doubt, the fairly written, hot pressed manuscript was entrusted to the black hands of the compositor, such a volume can scarcely be expected to excite a permanent interest. Political economists tell us that the real price of a thing always represents the quantity of labour exerted in its production. This remark will in a qualified sense apply very generally to literary productions; for it is men of the greatest genius that take the greatest pains, and whose works are, in fact, as estimated by the labour bestowed upon them, the most costly. The poems in the collection before us, appear to have severally occupied as much pains or mental labour as the occasion demanded; and the result bears a fair proportion to the pains: if, then, the price set upon them by the indifferent reader be but adequate to the cost of production, and their value be estimated by the greater or less facility with which they might be replaced by a fresh supply of a similar article, the Writer will have no reason to complain. In order to favour her interests in this respect as much as possible, we shall make room for two short extracts, in the selection of which we do her no injustice.

Ode written when the French subjugated Holland, Switzerland, and Geneva.

'Tis holy ground ye tread

Why o'er the peaceful, wave the gory spear?
Why, scorn the Sufferer in your proud career?
How are their fond hopes fled,

Who late, in praises to the LORD OF ALL,
Hail'd, with exulting heart, the liberty of Gaul!
Come is thy day of woe,

Batavia! whose renown o'er many a Land
Was spread for ages. Erst thy patriot Band

Appall'd the tyrant Foe.

Their armour Faith, resistless as the sway

Of Ocean rous'd by Storms, they rush'd their fateful way.

City of equal Laws!

City of Science, and of Lore divine!

Who will not mourn, that Bulwarks such as thine

No more the Spoiler awes?

Nameless among the Nations! who shall trace
Where Calvin's wisdom rear'd his chosen holy place?
Thy Vales, thy Mountains wild.
Helvetia! Freedom roam'd with jocund heart,
And little thought she from the Scenes to part,
Where she so long had smil'd.

Ah! rush'd the Foe-thy Sons, thy Daughters pour ;
Heroic deeds are done;-but Freedom smiles no more.

Why could not Pity spare,

Wide grasping Gaul! the Scenes by love endear'd?
Couldst thou detest the generous toils that rear'd
All that was lovely there?

Even round the dread Volcano smile the Vales;
Around thee ruthless Gaul! wide-wasted Nature wails.
Is Hope forever fled ?

Shall Freedom never to her haunts return?
Nations! by all your wrongs indignant burn,
For you your Sires have bled.

"Strong in the Lord," like them, undaunted rise,
Nor longer pour your souls in unavailing sighs.'

On hearing, when confined by indisposition, the bell ring for Public
Worship.

'THO' not to me these solemn tones repeat
The oft loved warning to the Holy Place,
My heart will joy, while others happier meet,
Mingling their wishes at the Throne of Grace
In lowliness of soul. On my fixed ear,
Loud as "the voice of many waters," roll
The halleluiahs. O! propitious hear,

Thou Holiest and each earthly wish control,
Which Sin, insidious to betray, inspires

Even in thy hallowed Courts. O! put to shame
Her impious counsels, and her dark desires;

For where Thy Chosen gather in Thy name;

Hast Thou not promis'd, Lord! to meet them there,
"And make them joyful in Thy House of Prayer?" '

Art. X. Remarks on the present System of Road Making; with Observations, deduced from Practice and Experience, with a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of making, repairing, and preserving Roads, and defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Third edition. with Additions. By John Loudon Mc Adam, Esq. General Surveyor of the Roads in the Bristol District. 8vo. pp. 196. London. 1820.

DR.

R. Johnson, if we recollect right, thought that the acme of positive gratification was, being whirled along in a post chaise and four. If it be so, it were easy to shew how much of human happiness must depend on the state of the Roads, and how much gratitude is consequently due to the professor-or, should we say the discoverer of the infant science of road-making. To a person of Dr. Johnson's sluggish flow of spirits and iron nerves, however, it is possible that no small part of the vigorous excitement which formed the essence of the pleasure, would be supplied by the very circumstances that Mr. Mc Adam has so benevolently stepped forward to obviate: it was the pleasant

jolt and rattle occasioned by the resistance of a loose and rough road, or the still more vivacious movement produced by what was once in a country town a pavement, together with the perpetual indefinite expectation of some adventure worthy of being journalized, by which were kept alive a complacent sense of conrage in braving the ever present danger, and that pleasing terror which is so nearly allied to the sublime,-it was, we take it, the stimulating agitation arising from all this put together, that made the great Moralist so happy; happy as a child in a round-about, happy as a well-partnered lass in a country dance, or, as a Parisian taking the gentle exercise of the Montagnes Russes. But Mr. M'Adam is for destroying much of this pleasure. He would have a road to be an artificial flooring composed of a strong, smooth, solid surface, over which carriages may pass without any impediment; he would have no barrelled roads that keep a carriage upon an agreeable slope,deeming a fall of three inches in a road thirty feet wide quite sufficient for the purpose of draining it; he would have no ruts, no gridironed roads, as they term, in some parts, such as have been cut into longitudinal furrows; he would have no heaps of loose, unsifted gravel thrown on the top of a road already too convex, for the purpose of exercising the dexterity of the coachman and the muscles of his cattle in crossing and quartering, while the wheels grate horrible music:-in fact, he is for reducing the pleasures of travelling to the common-place qualities of safety and expedition. To fathers of families, indeed, to plain, plodding men of business, to all persons of weak nerves and physical irritability, to coach proprietors, who naturally wish their horses to last three years on the average if possible, as well as to all persons who were in favour of Lord Erskine's bill against cruelty to animals,-finally, to all those who grumble at paying a high toll for the privilege of travelling on a bad road, Mr. M'Adam's labours may not appear wholly unimportant and uninteresting; and to them we very strongly recommend the perusal of the remarks and documents contained in the present volume. Next in importance to the consideration which relates to their personal safety and that of their families, and the wear and tear of their property, will appear to them the economical bearings of Mr. M'Adam's scheme. The gross abuses arising both from ignorance and peculation which have long been suffered to exist in the application of the tolls, form one subject to which Mr. M'A. forcibly invites the attention of the Legislature: the waste of public money in this way, is estimated at one eighth of the road revenue of the kingdom at large, the proportion near London being much greater. The volume is, in fact, replete with very valuable information.