for episcopal reprehension. We pity the upright benevolent sceptic: but we should prefer him to the Gardiners and Bonnors of former days, and to the haughty self-sufficient bigot, the oppressive man of power, and the litigious contentious neighbour, of any and of all times.

Some readers may recollect the praises bestowed by M. DE LA CROIX, on the constitution by which the ancien regime was superseded; and his lofty tone, and triumphant exultations, when contrasting it with what he was pleased to represent as the superannuated and declining freedom of Britain. We do not refer to these circumstances, with the view of insulting the humiliating situation to which the author and his fellowsubjects are now reduced: we are far from contemplating it with satisfaction: we should envy no people the possession of real genuine liberty; we wish that the French had known how to have realized and maintained it; and we sincerely lament the disservice which their abortive attempt has caused to it. Genuine liberty is accompanied with blessings which are not confined to the circle within which it is acknowleged and adored. Who does not believe that the royal despotism of France was more mild than it otherwise would have been, in consequence of the freedom enjoyed by England? and doubtless, if free states were more numerous than they are, the freedom of each would be more perfect and more secure. It is far from our intention to retaliate on M. DE LA CROIX, for observations which were not well founded, and which certainly were not dictated either by the soundest judgment or the best spirit: but some passages in the volume before us did so strongly call to our recollection, by the force of contrast, those to which we have been just alluding, that we could not avoid the mention of them. Treating of the consular power, the author says, that is truly legitimate authority which, rising out of the ruins of anarchy, is sanctioned by public gratitude. Make me happy, and I will acknowlege you for my master...... This is what a people have always the right to say to the chief who has rescued them from oppression; and if this chief fulfils the condition, who shall have a right to violate this contract?—the most imposing and the most august that can be conceived, because formed between gratitude and courage.'-The futility of these observations is only equalled by their abjectness; they are below confutation; and we give them only as specimens of the language and opinions which French publicists now think it politic to adopt.

In the author's warm panegyric on the excellent and incom parable Montesquieu, we cordially unite; the sketch is highly interesting, equally just, and in a style which is above the usual manner of the Professor.

ART.

ART. VI. De l'Etat de la Culture en France, &c.; i. e. On the State of Cultivation in France, and the Improvements of which it is susceptible. By D. DEPRADT, Member of the Constituent Assembly. 2 Vols. 8vo. Paris. 1802. Imported by De Boffe, London. Price 10s. sewed.

TRANQUILLITY being restored between Great Britain and France, and glory being no longer to be sought by the subjects of either state at the point of the sword or "in the cannon's mouth," they have leisure for commencing a more noble and Christian contest; and it would be happy for both nations, if the energies which have lately been displayed in depopulating the earth were henceforth succeeded by equal exertions for its amelioration. Peace, says Milton, has its victories, not less renowned than war. May this sentiment prevail; and may we and our neighbours be mutually emulous of acquiring the jocund and prolific laurels of peace!

Agriculture, on account of its primary importance, should become the first object of amiable competition; to which end, its actual state in each of the two countries must be attentively considered. We have given to the world a detailed account of British Agriculture in our several county surveys; and, till more ample statements are given, the work before us will serve to convey an idea of the actual and potential culture of France. It is dedicated to our countryman, Mr. Arthur Young, to whose writings M. DEPRADT confesses himself considerably indebted. We are reminded in the advertisement that, however well the new division of France into Departments may be calculated for the political administration, the old division into Provinces was more adapted to details of its climate and productions, and is therefore retained in this publication.

To encourage the French agriculturist in his exertions, and to prompt the French Government to lend him assistance, M. DEPRADT gives the most attractive picture of the Capabilities of France:

It is not here, (he says,) as in many other countries, in which the industry of man, striving with the fixed inclemency of the season and the roughness of the climate, is necessarily circumscribed within certain limits; and in which nature yields only to the combined efforts of wealth and art :-in France, under the smiles of a most genial sun, cultivation seems rather to sport than to exert itself, on a soil endowed with all the attributes of fertility. The territory of France is perhaps the best in Europe, the richest in point of soil, the most varied in respect of productions, and equally removed from the extremes of heat and cold.-There is not in all Europe a track of land of equal size, which can bear a comparison with that which extends from Calais to the Loire, from the heights of Nantes, Orleans, and

Nanci, to Mayence. The part most desirable to inhabit is that which is included between the Loire, the Rhône, the Rhine, and the sea. Its northern districts are not so cold as Sweden, nor so humid as Holland; and its southern provinces are not burit up like those of Spain and Italy. In short, France has been treated by Nature as if she were her eldest daughter, and has been made the most privileged spot on the globe.'

Though the author is thus of opinion that Nature has been all-bountiful to his own country, he does not flatter its inhabitants on the use which they have made of their advantages. He represents the French as very defective both in agricultural science and practice; and his object is to awaken their attention to the cultivation of the soil, and to the improvement of the breeds of those animals which contribute to feed, to clothe, and to abridge the labour of man. His motto is,

Páturage et labourage sont les deux mamelles de l'état ;

which we may translate,

In furrow'd fields and meadows green,

The sustenance of states is seen.

In the first of these chapters, which treats of the advantage of Agriculture in general, M. DEPRADT reminds his readers that he employs the term not in a confined but in an extensive sense, as including all that respects the cultivation and produce of the earth. Before he states what is now doing or may be done, he looks backwards to consider the progress of moral improvement in France during the last century. Here he remarks that

The population of France, a hundred years ago, did not exceed eighteen millions; and that, at the commencement of the Revolution, it reached twenty-five millions. The different accounts taken at different epochs have manifested a gradual increase of her population; and, to be convinced of this fact, we need not take the trouble of examining registers or searching parochial records; we need only observe the growth of her towns and cities, which, since the commencement of the past century, are become more large and more populous; better built and better inhabited. It is not an age since the people of our towns, which then resembled prisons rather than collections of dwelling houses, disgusted with the gothic abodes and frightful inclosures of their ancestors, surrounded them with beautiful suburbs, the population of which equalled and in some instances surpassed that within the walls. Thus, in the course of a century, have ar sen the fauxbourgs of St. Germain and of St. Honoré, the elegant chaussée of Antin, and all that string of elegant edifices which skirt the boatvards of Paris. The population and size of this metropolis are double their former extent. The same augmentation has taken place at Lyons, Marseilles, Bourdeaux, Nantes, Rouen, and in towns of

all ranks; so that they could not now be recognized by those who had not seen them for a hundred years. Moreover, France has not only changed her external appearance, but also her manner of living. The Frenchman, being richer and more comfortably lodged, lives better, and consumes more than he did. This country has not only maintained seven millions more of inhabitants than it subsisted a century past, but has also supported them more abundantly and ele gantly. Country seats and houses of entertainment have sprung up, to which the citizen repairs at stated seasons for his recreation; and this is so different from the antient manners, that if the former be termed the Age of Cities, the present may be called the Age of the Country; and if France has increased her population and her con sumption in a ftill greater proportion by her more luxurious mode of life, a correspondent improvement of culture must have taken place.'

This picture has nothing singular in it. London, during the same period, has increased much more than Paris; and as to the general amelioration of the face of the country, France is far, very far, behind England. These improvements may be traced in both countries to the growing spirit of commerce, which diffuses general energy. Artificial meadows, the improved fruit-garden, and public roads regularly formed and sustained, are the work of the past century.

Having contemplated the advantages which the present race of Frenchmen derive from the exertions of their ancestors, the author passes to estimate, in the following chapter, The Influence of the Revolution on Agriculture. Here, as in other respects, the consequences of the revolution must be painted in gloomy colours. It is stated that, by its attack on population, by its having interrupted consumption, and diminished internal trade and external commerce; by its ruin of the colonies, by the blow which people of great fortunes received, and by the disappearance of all splendid living; it must have operated banefully on agriculture: but that which M. DEPRADT deems the worst consequence of the revolution is the destruction of the great proprietors, with the division and subdivision of the land into small portions, owing to the repeal of the law of primogeniture; for the wisdom of which law, in a political view, he is a strenuous advocate. Indeed, for his partiality to the old system he offers his reasons. Large estates, in the hands of seigneurs, he maintains to be preferable to their being parcelled out among a number of cultivating proprictors, because he thinks that property in their hands melts imperceptibly away and at last becomes absolutely lost.

As this writer is an enemy to the subdivision of landed-property, the question so much agitated respecting large and small farms is decided by him, in the next chapter, in favour of the former; and he places the subject, if not in a convincing, at

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least

least in a striking, point of view. Farming on a large scale is necessary to answer the demands of population on a large scale; so that if in a country there be many large cities, there must be many large farms. The families belonging to little farmers. consume most of what they grow, and have little to bring to market; they are moreover generally poor; whereas large farmers have much to sell, and grow rich.-This subject is resumed in the sequel.

Whether the Culture of France be sufficient to supply her Wants? is the topic of Chapter v.; one extract from which will suffi ciently develope the author's sentiments:

France at this moment presents a spectacle which merits par ticular attention. Her rival (England), with the riches of the world flowing into her lap, is dying with famine, and, like Midas, starves in the midst of her gold; while France, without abounding in money, overflows with provisions. This is the country in which bread and the necessaries of life are the cheapest and best in Europe. The purchases and clamours of England propagate famine on the continent: France holds her tongue, and supports herself abundantly in silence. She has undergone a trial, which will not be repeated: for her government has the good sense to see that it ought not to interfere in matters of this kind. Hence every thing is become abundant. In the midst of a prolonged and destructive war, which has taken an infinite number of hands from agriculture; after a multitude of heavy losses and trials; France finds in her own bosom abundant and easy means of subsistence. This new fact is sufficient to settle the ques tion, and to demonstrate that she possesses a fertility equal to the or dinary wants of her inhabitants; or, in other words, that she can grow bread enough for her own consumption.'

In Chap. vi. we come to a view of the actual State of Agri culture in France, or rather of France in her former state; for the reader is warned that the author's account in this place respects the antient state, and that his statistical table is copied from Mr. Arthur Young: but for its accuracy he does not pledge himself.

France, it is remarked, presents three zones of culture, marked by differences of climate. The first comprehends those provinces which produce olives and silk, together with maize and wine; the second includes those which yield maize and wine, but neither silk nor olives; and the third, those districts which grow corn, and whose inhabitants drink beer and cider. To this part, succeeds a review of the several provinces of France, marking their distinguishing features of soil and produce: but, though it is amusing, our limited space protests against its insertion. The general result is that, of the 48 parts into which France may be divided, 17 are good, and 31 middling or bad. It is moreover stated that one half of the French territory is

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arable;