LITERARY CRITICISM.

The Principles of Political Economy; with a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Science. By J. R. M'Culloch, Esq., Professor of Political Economy in the University of London: Second Edition. 8vo. Pp. 563. London: Longman and Co. Edinburgh: William Tait. 1830.

The Quarterly Review. No. LXXXVII. January, 1831.

We have frequently repeated that it is our intention to preserve our columns free from the vulgar disputes of party. We conceive literature and science subjects of so sacred a nature, that they must necessarily be debased the moment that the transient interests of individual politicians are mixed up with their discussion. Amid the fierce contest-the dark storm of contending factions that now lours over our land, we wish our little brochure to remain like an oasis in the arid desert of political strife; a domain where the eternal principles of abstract truth, the graces of imaginative literature, and playful chastisements of individual failings, alone shall be heard. We wish it to be a sort of neutral ground, upon which men of all factions may linger with delight; and recognising, at least, one source of feeling in common with their opponents, evade the danger of forgetting, amid their broils, that they are possessed of one common humanity-children of the same soil. We should despise the man who, in a crisis like the present, could stand still, a tame and inactive looker-on; but into this our sanctum sanctorum, the rude breath of party politics shall never be allowed to

enter.

Price 6d.

necessary for defraying the expenses of government, and the most available method of increasing them. In other words, the great object of the political economist is to devise a plan for securing to government the largest possible share of the available wealth of the nation, in order without crippling, by excessive demands, its productive to defray the expense incurred in maintaining social order,

energies. Such an investigation naturally divides itself into two branches.

The first—the preliminary enquiry—respects the nature of wealth, the source or sources whence it is derived, the natural and necessary mode of its distribution. The scientific enquirer, who has formed to himself clear and definite notions of these points, is prepared to derive from them a series of important corollaries, of which the most prominent is, How individual and national wealth may be most surely increased?

A firm foundation being thus laid, he is ready to proceed to the second-the practical branch of his enquiry:How the supplies desired by government may be most easily and economically levied? How this necessarily disagreeable duty may be performed, with the least possible injury to the springs of that national wealth, from which alone this state income may be supplied?

When thus stated, the limits of this science seem distinct enough, and yet we find them continually misapprehended and overstepped by those who have devoted themselves to its study. In the preliminary branch, we find a continual tendency to diverge from the true question before them into metaphysical disquisitions. Thus :It is necessary to start with clear notions of what is meant by the words value, wealth, &c., and to use them throughout all our investigations in the same distinct sense. But it is sufficient for this purpose that we have the clear, vulgar, common-sense apprehension of them. It is not necessary to bewilder ourselves with dialectical subtleties, such as, Whether there be such an entity as value entering into the composition of an article, or, whether it be a mere figment of our imagination? or, How it comes that man should attribute to himself the power of appropriating external objects? Such mental exercises have their use in sharpening men's wits, but they lie beyond the province of political economy, and are of no direct use in solving any one of its problems.

In accordance with these principles, we should have allowed the attack upon our modern political economists, in the January number of the Quarterly Review, as well as the innumerable sneers at the science with which almost every article in that number is so thickly sown -to pass unnoticed; but that we conceive the Jesuitical attempt to bolster up a cause, by attacking science when it bears against a favourite system, is rather overstepping the not very puritanical latitude which we have been accustomed to concede to political disputants. We enter the field, not against Whig or Tory, but against the desperate sophist, who, finding himself worsted in an Again, in the second branch of the science, we occaargument, seeks to conceal his failure by an attempt to sionally find the professors of political economy stretchperplex the judge's notions of right and wrong. We ing its enquiries to subjects with which it has nothing to have no intention of following out all the shallow, flimsy, do. Political economy alone is incompetent to determine and often-refuted sophistries by which the reviewer the question, What the state expenditure ought to be? attempts to throw an air of ridicule upon the science of It can say no more than that it ought to be confined political economy. It is our intention to lay before our within the narrowest limits that the attainment of the readers a brief popular sketch of the problems which that ends for which government is instituted admits of. But science attempts to solve, and of the truths which it has these ends are determined by investigations of a higher already succeeded in evolving. We wish to place it un-class, which form the sciences of jurisprudence, ethics, exaggerated, undistorted, before their eyes; convinced that if we succeed in our attempt, their own good sense will convince them of its importance.

The designation, " Political Economy," admirably indicates the object of the science: it is to ascertain the mode of raising and husbanding such supplies as are

and theology. The necessity of promoting the increase of national wealth, would dictate the reduction of state expenditure to a degree far beneath what is warrantable, when we consider the claims of yet higher interests humanity.

The limits which we have here fixed to the in

gations of political economy may seem narrow, and the objects of its scrutiny none of the most dignified; and yet, on more intimate inspection, they will be found neither empty nor unimportant. The complex state into which society has grown, renders it no easy matter to trace the presence and workings of a principle throughout such varying phenomena. And although mere calculations of profit and loss, of pounds, shillings, and pence, may seem of little consequence in the eyes of fastidious and imaginative individuals, yet it is with nations as with men-inattention to economical details, and consequent embarrassments, not unfrequently lead to immoral conduct and degradation. The observance of economy will not supply the place of moral principle; but moral principle dictates and requires the observance of rigid

economy.

of the nature and source of profit. Another great fault of our author, as an elementary writer, is his tendency to diverge into polemical discussions. There are many passages in this book which would be interesting in the columns of the Scotsman, or the pages of the Edinburgh Review, but which are out of place in an institutional work. Lastly, he is deficient in systematic arrangement. While discussing the elementary principles of value, wealth, &c., he plunges all at once into discussions respecting "gluts," and “chartered banks." This is as bad as if a mathematical teacher were to introduce a treatise on optics between the 47th and 48th propositions of the first book of Euclid. Again, in utter defiance of all satisfactory scientific arrangement, he manages to discuss indirectly in the course of his first book-on the "production and accumulation of wealth,"-every topic which By thus distinctly marking out the end and aim of the belongs to the third and fourth-on the "distribution of science, we get rid at once of the many puny objections wealth," and "consumption of wealth." We have also which have been urged against it in sheer ignorance, or a to complain that Mr M'Culloch frequently indulges in yet worse spirit. It has nothing degrading in it. The long quotations, which contain mere repetitions of what political economist does not look upon man, as is falsely he has already expressed with sufficient perspicuity in his asserted in the Quarterly Review, in the light of a mere own words, and which are, moreover, taken from works machine. He knows as well as his calumniator, that he of sufficiently easy access. has higher powers and a brighter destiny; but, in solving the problem which is proposed to him, he must for the time leave out of view these facts. It is true, that a knowledge of the doctrines of political economy will not of itself constitute a statesman; but it is one of his most indispensable qualifications. It is true, that many false opinions have been maintained by economists, that there is yet great diversity of opinion among them; but the same holds true of moralists, and will the reviewer say that morality is all a fiction-a dream? It is true, that any one presuming to legislate upon the abstract principles of political economy, without an extensive knowledge of the state of society in a nation, would prove himself a presumptuous sciolist; but was it ever objected to the first six books of Euclid, that they did not teach the application of mathematics to physical science? The men who admit that the conclusions of political economy are adverse to their opinions, and then attempt to get rid of these conclusions by such paltry equivocations, give room to suspect that they are conscious of the hollowness of their

cause.

This brief defence of so important a science cannot, we think, be better followed up than by an examination of the value of a book which the Edinburgh Review has characterised as "by much the best manual of political economy that has yet been presented to the world." Of this eulogy, we have only to say, that it is but a poor compliment to the rest. Mr M'Culloch's eminence as a political economist, his merits as a zealous illustrator and propagator of his favourite science, are too generally acknowledged to leave any room to fear that his reputation might suffer by its being generally known that one of his books is a failure: even although it were consistent with our character for impartiality, to evade the question, or although there were any possibility of permanently deceiving the public.

The truth is, that Mr M'Culloch's mind is not of the class which is calculated to compose a good elementary treatise upon any science. He is a sagacious, clear-headed person, who generally manages to take a right view of his subject, often illustrates it happily, and always enforces it with vigour and perseverance. But he is deficient in that acuteness which seizes readily, and defines satisfactorily. He is only able, by dint of iteration, by frequently returning to his subject, and setting it in all different kinds of lights, to effect what more happily constituted minds could do at once. He presents his facts under so many forms, that we are at last able to evolve the principle for ourselves, but this he never does for us. His introductory chapter," labour the source of wealth," is a case in point; and still more decidedly that portion of his second chapter which is devoted to the elucidation

Mr M'Culloch's style is in general plain, manly, and unaffected. He unfortunately fails, however, when he attempts ornament. He has no imagination or warmth of feeling, and his figures are cold and commonplace, startling us by their contrast to his usual language, and their inapplicability. His classical quotations are awfully trite.

On the whole, although this book contains, with the exception of the absentee question,* scarcely one doctrine from which we dissent, and although it contains much good, and even powerful, writing, we cannot speak favourably of it as an elementary work. The advanced student will find scattered through it much that is valuable-but it is only calculated to give the science a repulsive aspect to the tyro.

Stories of American Life. By American Writers.
Edited by Mary Russell Mitford.
London. Colburn and Bentley.

In three volumes. 1831.

"In fixing on the different pieces, my principal aim has been to keep the book as national and characteristic as possible. Many a clever essay have I rejected, because it might have been written on this side of the Atlantic; and many a graceful tale has been thrown aside, for no graver fault than that, with an assortment of new names, it might have belonged to France, or Switzerland, or Italy, or any land in Christendom, where love is spoken and tears are shed; whilst I have grasped at the broadest caricature, so that it contained indications of local manners; and clutched the wildest sketch, so that it gave a bold outline of local scenery. I wished to show the Americans as they are; or, rather, to make them show themselves, certain that the more graphic was the portraiture, the more favourable would be the impression.

home, and using none but foreign articles in his establishment, * Mr M'Culloch says,-" If an English gentleman, living at gives the same encouragement to industry that he would do were he to use none but British articles, he must, it is obvious, do the same thing should he go abroad. Whatever he may get from the foreigner when at Paris or Brussels, must be paid for, directly or indirectly, in British articles, quite in the same way as when he resided in London. Nor is it easy to imagine any grounds for pronouncing his expenditure in the latter more beneficial than in the former." The only difference is, that when he resides in Loudon, the goods or cash exported are given to the foreign country, as the purchase-money of some equivalent; when he resides in Paris or Brussels, they are sent as a free gift. It is not enough that a country produce by its labour; it must be able to retain the product, or receive something equally valuable in exchange. By the absentee system the national resources are diminished,

We have heard it objected by some hypercritics, that Miss Mitford's selection is made from sources too generally accessible. There is something exquisitely disin"After this, Morgan continued his mysterious pranks, genuous and coxcombical in this remark. Even admit-ished him, until the squadron were within two or three the sailors talked and wondered, and Captain R punting that the critic knows more of the sources from which days' sail of Gibraltar, admitting the wind continued fair, the lady has selected than she has told him in her preface, as it then was. Morgan had been punished pretty severely how many people are there in England who know any that morning for star-gazing and falling into a swoon on thing about them? This collection of stories is published, his watch the night before, and had solemnly assured his not for the benefit of the half-dozen English readers who messmates, that he intended to jump overboard and drown have a little acquaintance with American literature, but himself the first opportunity. He made his will, dressed He also refor the great mass of our population, which is utterly plenished his tobacco-box, put his allowance of biscuit in himself in his best, and settled all his affairs. ignorant of it. his pocket, and filled a small canteen with water, which he strung about his neck, saying, that perhaps he might take it into his head to live a day or two in the water, before he finally went to the bottom.

Billy Morgan; and so did all his family. The report was again alive on board the frigate, that Billy Morgan's ghost had taken the field once more. Heaven and earth!' cried Captain R, is Billy Morgan's ghost come again? Shall I never get rid of this infernal spectre, or whatever else it may be?'

heard of afterwards. As the chest of clothes inherited from his deceased messmate was found entirely empty, it might have been surmised that Tom had deserted, had not a sailor, who was on the watch, solemnly declared that he saw the ghost of Billy Morgan jump overboard with him in a flame of fire, and that they hissed like a red-hot ploughshare in the water. After this bold feat, the spectre appeared no more."

"Captain R―immediately ordered his barge, waited on the governor, explained the situation of his crew, and begged his assistance in apprehending the ghost of Billy Morgan, or Billy himself, as the case might be. That night It is scarcely fair to destroy such a fine piece of the the governor caused the strictest search to be made in every marvellous, by telling our readers that Captain R hole and corner of the little town of La Vallette; but in afterwards found Billy, still in the body, and resident in vain. No one had seen that remarkable being, corporeal or a log hut; and that he obtained from the delinquent a spiritual; and the landlord of the house where the spectre confession of all his knaveries. appeared, together with all his family, utterly denied any hint, from an irresistible propensity to gossip-rede, we But having given this knowledge of such a person or thing. It is little to be won-close our oracular jaws, and tell them no more. dered at, that the search proved ineffectual; for that very night, Billy took a fancy to appear on board the frigate, where he again accosted his old friend Tom, to whom he had bequeathed all his goods and chattels. But Tom had The Quarterly Review. No. LXXXVIII. February, no mind for a confidential communication with the ghost, and roared out so lustily, as usual, that it glided away, and disappeared as before, without being intercepted in the confusion which followed.

"Captain R― was in despair; never was man so persecuted by a ghost in this world before. The ship's crew were in a state of terror and dismay, insomuch, that had an Algerine come across them, they might peradventure have surrendered at discretion. They signed a round robin, drawn up by one of Billy Morgan's old messmates, representing to Captain Rthe propriety of running the ship ashore, and abandoning her entirely to the ghost, which now appeared almost every night, sometimes between decks; at others, on the end of the bowsprit; and at others, cutting capers on the yards and top-gallant mast. spread into the town of La Vallette, and nothing was The story talked of but the ghost of Billy Morgan, which now began to appear occasionally to the sentinels of the fort, one of whom had the courage to fire at it, by which he alarmed the whole island, and made matters ten times worse than ever."

1831.

THE return of a comet before its allotted time, the rise of the sun about an hour after midnight, could scarcely have given greater surprise than the anomaly of "The Quarterly Review published monthly." If all tales be true, this new contravention of the regular laws of nature, no less than those legendary and time-hallowed ones to which we have alluded, forebodes troublous times, strife and discord, heart-burnings and alienations among good friends, and all those withering ills which wait upon civil discord. So be it! We are told that such things must come, although woe is denounced upon him through whom they come-woe as well upon him who cloaks his unyielding self-will with the robe of firm adherence to a divine decree, as upon him who seeks to wreak his personal sufferings upon the established order of society. Old Daniel has well described the line of conduct which befits a wise man in such times, in verses which our readers

His final disappearance is as terrific as the end of a will thank us for making them acquainted with. melo-drama.

"From Malta, the squadron, after making a cruise of a few weeks, proceeded to Syracuse, with the intention of remaining some time. They were obliged to perform a long quarantine; the ships were strictly examined by the health officers, and fumigated with brimstone, to the great satisfaction of the crew of the frigate, who were in great hopes this would drive away Billy Morgan's ghost. These hopes were strengthened, by their seeing no more of that troublesome visitor during the whole time the quarantine continued. The very next night after the expiration of the quarantine, Billy again visited his old messmate and heir, Tom Brown, lank, lean, and dripping wet, as usual; and after giving him a rousing shake, whispered, Hush, Tom; I want to speak to you about my watch and chest of clothes.' But Tom had no inclination to converse with his old friend, and cried out 'murder' with all his might; when the ghost vanished as before, muttering, as Tom swore, You bloody infernal lubber.'

"In addition to the vexation arising from this persevering and diabolical persecution of Billy's ghost, various other strange and unaccountable things happened almost every day on board the frigate. Tobacco-boxes were emptied in the most mysterious manner, and in the dead of the night; sailors would sometimes be missing a whole day, and return again, without being able to give any account of themselves; and not a few of them were overtaken with liquor, without their being ever the wiser for it; for they all swore they had not drunk a drop beyond their allowance. Sometimes, on going ashore on leave, for a limited time, the sailors would be decoyed, as they solemnly assured the captain, by some unaccountable influence, into strange out-of-the-way places, where they could not find their road back; and where they were found by their officers in a state of mysterious stupefaction, though not one had tasted a drop of liquor. On these occasions, they always saw the ghost of Billy Morgan, either flying through the air, or dancing on the tops of the steeples, with a fiery tail, like a comet. Wonder grew upon wonder every day; until the wonder transcended the bounds of human credulity.

"At length, Tom Brown, the night after receiving a visit from Billy Morgan's ghost, disappeared and was never

"Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of Tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;
Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

"Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the distressed state
Of troublous and distressed Mortality
That thus make way into the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon Imbecility:

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

"And whilst distraught Ambition compasses,
And is encompassed; while, as Craft deceives,
And is deceived; whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' inheritance of Desolation leaves
To great expecting Hopes: he looks thereon
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in Impiety."

Reform that this extra number of the Quarterly has been
It is solely on account of the concluding article upon
published; and yet, in what regards its literary contents,
The editor has been exerting himself to gild the political
we have not for a long time found it more agreeable.
pill he has been obliged to co-operate in thrusting down
his readers' throats; and he has succeeded.
We fancy
There is an amusing review of " A Year in Spain, by a
we find more frequent traces of his own haud than usual.
young American;” a beautiful sketch of Oberlin, an
Alsatian clergyman, who united the good qualities of the
more amiable and gentle German mystics to those of
Mackenzie's La Roche; and a masterly dissertation upon
the comedy of Aristophanes. The writer devotes his
attention more especially to the Frogs of that author—

which of all his comedies is, with the exception of the Clouds, our favourite. The following extract may serve as a specimen of the manner in which the subject is treated:

"What was the real chorus of this powerful drama, (and with what singular propriety and ingenuity it was selected, supposing our theory to be correct,) the reader has already seen it is one, however, of a very different description, which has given a title to the drama itself. One of the temples or theatres appropriated to the service of Bacchus in Athens, and in which the scenic performances of the old Greeks took place, was situated near a part of that metropolis usually called The Marshes;' and those who know by experience what tenants such places commonly harbour in more southern climates, will think it not impossible that the representations of the stage, and more particularly in theatres which were generally without a roof, were occasionally disturbed, to the great annoyance of the dramatists, by the noisy vociferations of these more ancient and legitimate Lords of the Marshes. One of them, at all events, was a man not to be offended with impunity by biped or quadruped; and, wherever the foes of Aristophanes were to be found-above ground or below-on land or waterhe had shafts both able and willing to reach them. In his descent to the lower world, the patron of the stage is accordingly made to encounter a band of most pertinacious and invincible frogs, and the gradations through which the mind of Bacchus runs, after the first moments of irritation have subsided-from coaxing to bullying-from affected indifference to downright force, are probably a mere transcript of the poet's own feelings under similar annoyances. We never, of course, dreamed of applying the strict rules of translation to an author, whose writings set all ordinary

rules at defiance; but we confess that we feel less than ordinarily anxious to have the following version tried by any of the old copies, and still less by a text, which the sound and excellent scholarship of Dindorf has brought, we are persuaded, as nearly to the state under which it first left its author's hands, as existing MSS. can now possibly bring it. We are not at present breathing the air either of Christ Church meadow or Trinity gardens; and if our version of a piece of mere pleasantry, which involves nothing in it beyond a moment's laugh, should be so happy as to satisfy the general reader,' we shall affect, 'for the nonce,' to know nothing of the objections which more scientific persons, the students of the brilliant Hermann, and acute Reisigius, might be disposed to make to our arrangement of this little extravaganza.

"Scene, the Acherusian Lake. Bacchus at the oar in Charon's boat; Charon;-Chorus of Frogs; in the background a view of Bacchus's Temple or Theatre, from which are heard the sounds of a scenical entertainment. Semi-chorus. Croak, croak, croak!

Semi-chorus. Croak, croak, croak!

(In answer, and with the musician octave lower.) Full Chorus. Croak, croak, croak!

Leader of the Chorus. When flagons were foaming,
And roisterers were roaming,

And bards flung about them their gibe and their joke ;

The holiest song

Still was found to belong

To the sons of the marsh, with their

Full Chorus.

Croak, croak!

Bacchus (mimicking.) Croak, croak! by the gods I shall
choke,

If you pester and bore my ears any more
With your croak, croak, croak!
Leader. Rude companion and vain,
Thus to carp at my strain;

(To Chorus.) But keep in the vein,
And attack him again

With a croak, croak, croak!
Chorus (crescendo.) Croak, croak, croak!
Bacchus (mimicking.) Croak, croak! vapour and smoke!
Never think it, old Huff,

That I care for such stuff,

As your croak, croak, croak!

Chorus (fortissimo.) Croak, croak, croak!
Bacchus. Now fires light on thee,

And waters soak;

And March winds catch thee
Without any cloak!

For within and without,

From the tail to the snout,

Thou'rt nothing but croak, croak, croak!

Leader. And what else, captious Newcomer, say, should
I be?

(With

But you know not to whom you are talking, I see:
dignity.) I'm the friend of the Muses, and Pan,
with his pipe,

Holds me dearer by far than a cherry that's ripe :
For the reed and the cane which his music supply,
Who gives them their tone and their moisture but 1?
And therefore for ever I'll utter my cry
Of-

Chorus.

Croak, croak, croak!
Bacchus. I'm blister'd, I'm fluster'd, I'm sick, I'm ill-
Chorus.
Croak, croak!
Bacchus. My dear little bull-frog, do prithee be still!
'Tis a sorry vocation-that reiteration,

(I speak, on my honour, most musical nation,)
Of croak, croak!

Leader (maestoso.) When the sun rides in glory and makes a bright day,

'Mid lilies and plants of the water I stray;

Or when the sky darkens with tempest and rain,

I sink like a pearl in my watery domain :

Yet, sinking or swimming, I lift up a song,

Or I drive a gay dance with my eloquent throng—
Then hey bubble, bubble!

For a knave's petty trouble,

Shall I my high charter and birth-right revoke?

Nay, my efforts I'll double,

And drive him like stubble

Before me, with

Chorus.

Croak, croak, croak!

Bacchus. I'm ribs of steel, I'm heart of oak!

Let us see if a note

May be found in this throat
To answer their croak, croak, croak!

Leader. Poor vanity's son !

And dost think me outdone,
With a clamour no bigger
Than a maiden's first snigger?

He shall not forget soon

(Croaks loudly.)

The comic performances of the Athenians were usually brought out at a festival of Bacchus, which lasted for three days. The first of these was devoted to the tapping of their wine-casks; the second to boundless jollity, (Plato specifies a town, but not Athens, every single inhabitant of which was found in a state of intoxication on one of these festivals ;) and the third to theatrical exhibitions in the temple of the patron of the feast. In this state of excitement, (To Chorus.) But strike up a tune, it will be easily imagined, that some coarser ingredients were required by the clever but licentious rabble of Athens, to whom these representations were more particularly addressed, besides the better commodities of rich poetry and wit; and hence the defor mities which have been so much complained of in the writings of Aristophanes. Let us not, however, be unjust to the poet. That he saw and lamented these demands upon his better feelings-that he abridged them in his own dramas, and censured their excess in his predecessors and contemporaries, abundant evidence has been left us in his few surviving comedies. After all, deep as these offences were, an English reader, who is not thoroughly acquainted with his own dramatic literature even as it existed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, will perhaps be surprised to hear that the offences of Aristophanes, under his many circumstances of extenuation, hardly exceed, in quality or quantity, those exhibited by Christian writers, with no palliation but such as the human pas sions are pleased to make for themselves, and for which Popery, we ought perhaps to add, had previously shown, as it over does show, too easy an indulgence,

Of our croak, croak, croak!

Chorus. (Croak, with a discordant crash of music.)
Bacchus. I'm cinder, I'm coke,

I have had my death-stroke;
O, that ever I woke

To be gall'd by the yoke

Of this croak, croak, croak, croak!

Leader. Friend, friend, I may not be still:
My destinies high I must needs fulfil,

And the march of creation-despite reprobation-
Must proceed with-(To Chor.) my lads, must I
make application

For a

Chorus

Croak, croak, croak!