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In all free countries taxes are regarded as voluntary donations from the people to the government. This was the opinion expressed by Lord Chatham in his great speech on the just complaints of the American colonists; it is also the opinion of Blackstone, Adam Smith, and many other authorities equally distinguished. But would any intelligent people agree to a tax which they knew would have a tendency to check intellectual activity and prevent the diffusion of knowledge?

It is the duty of every liberal government-indeed, of all governments worthy of the name-to avoid as much as possible taxing what is calculated to exercise great influence on the wealth and character of the nation. This principle was recognized so early as the time of Solomon, and those who violated it did not do so with impunity. We learn from the best authority that Aaron was stoned to death for exacting unjust tribute; and that at the commencement of the reign of Solomon's son the ten tribes seceded for a similar reason.

The republican Athenians paid no direct taxes, except when convicted of crimes; the government was supported not by taxes on the necessaries of life, on books, on paintings, or on statues, but chiefly by levies on the lands of the Republic. The common people, far from paying an y taxes, except whatever duties they had to pay indirectly for foreing commodities that could not be produced at home, received large appropriations annually from the state for public games and spectacles. Be it remembered that at these games and spectacles the noblest productions of the Athenian intellect were read by their authors and subsequently commented upon by critics, while the best painters and sculptors exhibited their works in a similar manner. Thus the government of the small and not very fertile state of Athens gave the people money to enable them to gain information and improve their minds, as well as to amuse and entertain themselves, instead of making knowledge and information so dear as to place them beyond their reach.

Nor would Rome have been so long the mistress of the world had she pursued a different course; she certainly would not had she pursued that of our politicians. During the Republic foreigners had to pay four-fifths of the expenses of government. Instead of imposing heavy taxes on the people, large donations of land were made to them periodically. At other times money and corn were distributed to them alternately. Even the great Cæsar found it necessary

to pursue this course when his power was at its climax and the world acknowledged his sway; he did not dare, fond as he was of money, to impose taxes on the necessaries and rational pleasures of life much less on those productions whose influence distinguishes man from the brute.

After Cæsar's time it was, indeed, different. Although it was he who founded the empire, he was too wise a statesman to lay any heavy pecuniary burdens on the Romans. But his followers pursued the opposite course just in proportion as they are known to posterity as tyrants. Caligula and Nero were adepts in the work of taxation, both direct and indirect. These, indeed, taxed knowledge and everything else that was good. But even they did not do so to such an extent as the legislators of the model Republic of the nineteenth century. Bad as Nero was, no Roman citizen had to go to a foreign country to manufacture Roman necessaries which could not be manufactured at Rome on account of heavy taxes imposed on the materials of which they were composed.

As for republics, ancient or modern, we may search their histories in vain for a parallel to the condition of affairs to which we are reduced ourselves in the manner indicated. The nearest approach to it we find in the Republic of Venice. But we do not read in the darkest of her chronicles that any Venitian bookseller had to go to Paris, London, or Madrid, to manufacture books or other commodities for the use of his fellow-citizens. In other respects we should be sorry to compare the Republic of the United States to the Republic of Venice. The former, indeed, is not stained with so many crimes as the latter, and we trust never will. We make the comparison only so far as taxes on knowledge and intelligence and the encouragement or discouragement of intellectual progress are concerned; and in this respect the Venetians had undoubtedly the advantage of us, notwithstanding the best we can say of our public schools.

Our politicians are very fond of comparing this country to England in regard to freedom and intellectual advantages of all kinds. We do not deny that England deserves to be regarded as a model in many respects; on the contrary, it always affords us pleasure to give prominence to the truth. But is it not a humiliating reflection that while England makes progress in rational intellectual liberty we retrograde? Let this be denied as it may, it is nevertheless a fact-one that admits of the clearest proof. Even in the department of newspapers, how much more liberal is the British Parlia

ment than the Congress of the United States? Prior to 1855, English newspapers were subject to a stamp duty of one penny each; the stamp may now be put on or not, at the option of the publisher; but if it is put on it exempts the paper from postage; and a dozen persons may send it about to each other through the mails without any cost whatever. How different is the fact with us! If we sent the same paper as often as it is sent in England it would often cost us the price of a book, even at the high rate at which a book is sold in this country.

Still more liberally, if possible, is the circulation of periodicals and books encouraged by the British Parliament. But what encouragement does Congress give in this respect? How much does it cost to send a book, or even a periodical, from one city of the Republic to another? Those Englishmen who are most prejudiced against republics, and against our Republic in particular, can hardly believe that we are so heavily taxed in this matter.

Then compare the postage on letters. One penny takes a letter from any point in the British Islands to another, from the extreme south of Ireland to the extreme north of Scotland; but the least we can send a letter for beyond the precincts of the city or town in which we write is three cents. This, however, gives no idea of the difference in the cost. We have to pay at least three times as much for good letter or note paper as the English have. Can we say, then, that epistolary correspondence is as much encouraged by the Republican Congress as it is by the Royal Parliament; nay, must we not admit that as compared with the latter the former discourages it? And who will deny that epistolary correspondence is a means of intellectual improvement and culture? How many have become distinguished as authors who tell us themselves that it was by corresponding with their friends they learned to write with facility and elegance? But no such testimony is necessary, since every intelligent person is aware that there is no information or knowledge, however important or profound, which may not be communicated in the epistolary form. Is it not, in a word, the form in which the most valuable discoveries and inventions have first been communicated to the world? But, as we have seen, our politicians lay a double, treble-nay, quadruple-tax upon it, since they raise the price of paper, pens, ink, &c., and finally charge us three cents postage if we only want to send a line from New York to Brooklyn; two cents if we only want to send it to the next street in our own city.

Without entering into any particulars relative to French taxation we may say, in general terms, that the people are less heavily taxed than those of England or the United States. We are well aware that the reverse is what is generally believed in this country; but it is not so. The French, like the ancient Romans, make foreign nations, to whom they furnish so much of the products of their industry, pay a large proportion of the expenses of government; and the greater part of the remainder is derived from the land. But it is sufficient for our purpose that, let what may be taxed in France, no one can justly say that there is a tax upon knowledge in that country, or that its goverment discourages intellectual progress. Her literary and scientific institutions. are too famous for their superior excellence to render any demonstration of this fact necessary. Not only the French Academy, the Institute, the Academy of Sciences, and the Jardin des Plantes, receive large annual contributions from the public treasury; the University of France, and the College of France-two other great institutions-are equally favored and protected. If all this is not evidence that the development of the intellect is not discouraged in France, that French taxation does not place beyond the reach of Frenchmen even the noblest productions of the human intellect, we have only to remember how incredibly cheap books of all kinds are sold throughout France. Everyone who has visited that country and taken any interest in the subject under consideration has been surprised to see books sold for about twenty-five cents of our money which, if printed in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, would cost from a dollar and a half to two dollars. The books which are sold in Paris for a few sous would cost at least half a dollar or seventy-five cents if published in this country. And if we take a Paris book that costs five sous and compare it with a New York book that costs fifty or seventy-five cents, our surprise will be increased rather than diminished; for we shall find not only that the paper of the former is much better than that of the latter, but, also, that it is more correctly and more legibly printed.

We certainly do not speak from personal feeling in this matter; we have no complaint to make on our own part. Others may upbraid the nation with want of appreciation of their labors, and mourn that the age in which they live lags so slowly behind them; but we can make no such pretensions. It paper, printing, &c., are excessively dear in this

country, the liberal patronage which we receive enables us to meet the cost without much difficulty, and we never had any ambition for accumulating money for its own sake. We treat the subject, then, as we do any other in which the public has an interest. There is no good reason why all the materials necessary for the publication of books and the diffusion of knowledge should be nearly twice as expensive in this country as they are in France. England, and Germany-some of them three times as expensive. We regret that bad legislation is the cause of it, and that nothing reflects more discredit on the Republic. In a word, as long as the present state of things continues, as we have indicated-as long as our publishers find it more profitable to get their books manufactured in Europe than at home-instead of boasting of our selfgovernment, we should indignantly protest against this penny-wise-and-pound-foolish policy of our legislators; for, however harsh or incredible it may seem to those who do not bestow much thought on the subject, certain it is that the tendency of a certain portion of our laws is to impede the acquisition of knowledge.

ART. VII.-Laus Veneris and other Poems and Ballads. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. 12mo, pp. 328. New York: Carleton, 1866.

It is often difficult to distinguish a depraved taste as a cause from unprincipled avarice. We cannot undertake to determine to which should we attribute the selection of this book for republication in this country; but there can be no question among those who examine it and are capable of forming an intelligent opinion of its character that it has resulted from one defect or the other. We wish the reader to judge the publisher as dispassionately and fairly as possible, remembering that sometimes one cannot help having a depraved taste. This is the case when not only has his education been neglected, but he has been placed in circumstances in which his natural taste, if he had any, has been vitiated by "evil communications."

It is none of our business to inquire whether Mr. Carleton should be placed in this category or not; we have nothing to do with any one's private affairs; we have a right to criticise only what he does in his public capacity, and we have no wish to do more. In the present instance this,

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