of circulation being already saturated with as much paper as the wants of the country required, the demand for the notes of the Banque Royale was exceedingly small. Then it was Law devised his notorious and gigantic plan of finance. It was concocted between himself and the regent, that the creditors of the state should be paid off in notes of the Royal Bank, and that a tempting scheme of investment should be opened to the public, so as to absorb all the excessive portion of these monstrous emissions of paper, and prevent a demand upon the bank of specie in exchange for its own notes. In other words, as Storch has well expressed it, the regent bought the shares of this new company with the notes of his own bank; he then borrowed these notes of the company, in order to pay off the national creditors; and finally sold the shares as a means of repaying for the loan of the notes. This precious scheme was fairly set on foot in May, 1719, by the consolidation of various trading associations, under the management of Law, and the issue of a new patent to him as chief of the Compagnie des Indes (the Indian Company.) This concern immediately issued 50,000 shares of 500 livres each, payable in specie, but sold to the public at a premium of 10 per cent., or at 550 livres, and realising of course a sum of 27,500,000 livres. These 50,000 shares were sought after with the greatest alacrity, and presently rose to a price very greatly beyond their first cost. The company then created 50,000 more shares of 500 livres each, and took care to profit by the rising market, for this time they fixed the price at 1,000 livres, or 100 per cent. prem. The mania was now advancing rapidly to its climax. As a pretext for the creation of more shares, the company undertook the most extravagant enterprises. They purchased from government the farm of the tobacco revenue. They then undertook the coinage of money, and finally they became the sole farmers-general of the kingdom, upon the condition of lending to the state 1,600 millions of livres, at 3 per cent. per annum. It was then announced that the company would forthwith pay a dividend of 200 livres upon each of these 500 livres shares-in other words, they declared a dividend of 40 per cent. per annum. The shares then mounted rapidly to 5,000 livres each, and that was the moment when the fury of the delusion attained its highest pitch. All France was possessed with the demon of l'agiotago. Crowds of people from the remotest provinces rushed to Paris, to devote themselves to this new pursuit, and probably the excitement, the chicanery, the charlatanism, the delusion, the extravagance, and the debauchery, of which that capital was the focus during the autumn of 1719, have never been equalled in any other place, nor at any other conjuncture. By two further creations, making four creations in all, the number of shares was increased to 624,000; and then it was judged that the proper moment had arrived for the payment of the national debts by notes of the Banque Royale. The issue nearly in a mass of so prodigious a volume of paper money, conspiring with the insanity of the public mind, drove up the price of the shares representing merely a capital of 500 livres in an untried company to the astounding price of 10,000 livres each. Under such circumstances the position of the public creditors thus paid off was unfortunate in the highest degree. A capital of 10,000 livres at 4 per cent. was equal to an annual dividend of 400 livres. This 10,000 livres they suddenly found themselves in a manner compelled to transfer from the form of a state debt, worth 400 livres a year, into the form of a trading adventure, intrinsically worth only 500 livres, and, upon the most extravagant computation, yielding only 200 livres per annum-or just one-half of their former income.

The reaction now set in. The point had been fully gained beyond which the demand for shares could not be extended. The market had exhausted every impetus which could be given to it by the influx of new classes of purchasers, and henceforward the price of these imaginary riches began to decline rapidly, and, as a natural result, excited a corresponding run upon the bank for coin in exchange for notes. The entire system was in imminent

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peril of exposure, and Law had again recourse to his unscrupulous expedients. The government, by a series of decrees, affected to entertain the most profound contempt || for metallic money, and exhorted all good Frenchmen to avoid it as a needless and costly contrivance. These exhortations not succeeding, they adopted a more stringent policy. All payments in silver above 10 livres, and in gold above 300, were prohibited; and, by a volley of most arbitrary and capricious edicts, the whole system of the coinage was purposely involved in the most perplexing confusion. The livre, for example, was altered first to a 28th, then to a 40th, then to a 60th, then a 80th, then a 120th, then a 70th, and finally to a 65th part of a mark of fine silver. By these flagitious means the government hoped to drive the people into the use of their paper | money. The success, however, was partial; and at last the decree of the 27th February and 11th March, 1720, prohibited the use of metallic money in all cases. Between the 1st January, 1719, and the 1st May, 1720, the bank had issued notes to the extent of 2,235 millions of livres. Of this enormous sum no less than 1,925 millions were issued in the last four months of 1719. The consequences were of course inevitable; coin had totally disappeared from the country, and the prices of all other articles of subsistence, luxury, and possession increased day by day with a frightful rapidity. Law now discovered that at last there was too much of what he called credit; but as he had no means of lessening the quantity of paper by the redemption of it, he again resorted to the Regent, and on the 21st May, 1720, appeared the famous arret, diminishing the nominal value of the paper by one-half. This was the fatal consummation. The world were then entirely undeceived as to the terrible drama which for a twelvemonth had filled all Europe with amazement, and converted almost a majority of the French nation into a fraternity of gamblers.

This portentous arret was recalled six days afterwards, but it was too late. The alarm had become general, and beggary and despair had already taken possession of the crowds hitherto the victims of a frantic intoxication. Government offered to redeem the notes by the creation of rentes, and so frightful was the depreciation, that the conversion of the paper money under this offer took place at between 50 and 100 per cent. under the nominal amount. When all was settled, it was found that by these nefarious and scandalous confiscations the capital of the national debt had been reduced by 8444 millions of livres, and its annual interest by 44 millions. This was the extent of the direct loss to the creditors of the state. What was the amount and the diffusion of the indirect and positive forfeitures of property, position, happiness, and honour, over the rest of the community, it is utterly impossible to describe. Specie there was none; it was buried or exported. Confidence there was none. Industry, as a habit and as an art, was despised and almost forgotten. The national treasury was drained of its final farthing; and as far, probably, as a civilised state can ever descend in one year towards a condition of helpless infancy, France had undergone such a declension.

This then is an outline of this gigantic delusion of paper-money. We have been the more elaborate in our detail of its progress, because its real history is so little known, the authentic sources of that history are not very accessible, and because, at this moment, it is every way desirable that mankind should not forget lessons that have been bought so dearly.'

known stratagem to divert attention from its young. She came running out of a ditch towards him, and threw herself at his feet, at the same time feigning herself hurt, and uttering a shrieking note as of the most poignant distress. He was touchingly affected by this artful device on the part of the poor bird, serving to show her maternal affection and anxiety for the safety of her brood.' Every one must have observed the unusual courage which the domestic hen acquires when she becomes the mother of a brood of chickens, her otherwise mild and timid disposition being changed into fierceness and an almost reckless exposure of her own person. It is the same in all animals; and a similar instinctive change in the human being is thus forcibly described by the great metaphysician Reid: How common it is to see a young woman in the gayest period of life, who has spent her days in mirth and her nights in profound sleep, without solicitude or care, all at once transformed into the careful, the solicitous, the watchful nurse of her dear infant, doing nothing by day but gazing upon it and serving it in the meanest offices, by night depriving herself of sound sleep for months, that it may be safe in her arms. Forgetful of herself, her whole care is centred in this little object.'

In a cold, frosty day in winter we often see a poor robin or other bird, perched on a tree, ruffle out its feathers all around, so as to appear twice its ordinary bulk, and in this state sit for hours together. This is a resource which birds employ to keep themselves warm in intense cold. By ruffling up their feathers they admit the air between them, which is a worse conductor of heat than the feathers themselves, at the same time that it removes further from their bodies the conducting surface by which their natural heat would be carried off, just as a loose cloak about the person is warmer than one which fits closely to it. The conducting surface itself, also, is less effective when the feathers partially stand up than when they are smoothed down, though the feathers radiate more freely under the former condition than under the latter.

House-martens have a singular practice throughout the breeding season, and particularly towards the latter part of it, of flying up against the walls of buildings, just below the eaves, and daubing them with mud, apparently without any intention of constructing a nest. The birds seem more inclined to this practice in some states of the weather than in others. A damp, cloudy day, especially if also warm, seems to call them most to this employment, during which they appear actuated by some feeling or excitement which it is difficult to explain. Mr Jenyns shrewdly supposes that it may be the young broods of birds but lately fledged whose innate building instincts thus begin to operate before they are actually wanted.

Bees, and especially the humble bee,' in the latter end of autumn, are frequently found lying in a state of stupor upon the blossoms of some plants. Is this in consequence of the diminished temperature of that season benumbing their energies, or from the narcotic nature of the plants? It is said that the dahlia's blossom contains a narcotic principle fatal to bees. Mr Jenyns says that he has watched bees entering the flowers of these plants, for the purpose of sucking the nectarium, or collecting the pollen, when they were obviously soon seized with a sort of torpor, in which state, if not speedily removed, they often died. Where hive-bees are kept, therefore, dahlias should not be cultivated. A writer in the Gardener's Chronicle' says that for many years he was very successful with his bees, having upwards of twenty hives; but from the time that he commenced growing dahlias the bees declined, and he had at last to give them up altogether. They became intoxicated by feeding on the flower, and many of them were found dead on the blossoms, or lying on the ground below. It has always appeared to us one of the most singular things in nature that animals (parasites) should be found living, and dwelling, and feeding on the bodies of other animals. From the highest to almost the lowest, or least, this is the case. Thus every animal has its own specific louse, with which its skin is infested; yet the size of the parasite is not always proportioned to the size of the ani

mal on which it is located. The louse of the swine is as large as the louse of the ox; the louse of the eagle is not larger than that of the rook, while the louse of the great snowy owl scarcely exceeds that of the tiny gold-crested wren; the louse of the sparrow-hawk does not measure more than three-quarters of a line in length, while that of the hobby is among the most gigantic of its race, and exceeds a quarter of an inch. While animals are in good health, they can afford a certain portion of their juices to their parasites, and the number of them, too, seems to be generally, by various means, kept within due bounds, and perhaps they serve some good purpose in the animal's economy; but should the animal's health fail in any way, then the parasites increase prodigiously, in many cases appearing the cause of death. Birds are particularly liable to be infested with lice; the common crow and buzzard especially so. According to Mr Jenyns, the heron is remarkably free from these animals; and he attributes this to the mealy dust with which the feathers and skin of that bird are always covered. Our common domestic poultry are much infested by parasites, aud, to destroy these, resort to the practice of rolling in the dust.

Not only do parasites infest the skin of animals, but certain kinds are found in the internal parts of their bodies-in the stomach, intestines, liver, brain, and even in the blood-vessels. Thus the liver-fluke is an intestinal worm found sometimes in great numbers in the liver of the sheep, and gives rise to the disease called rot in that animal. Wet seasons, and especially wet grass in marshy pastures, are found to bring on this disease; and it has been conjectured that the liver-fluke may be bred in the water, and adhering, in the egg or larva state, to aquatic grasses, may thus be swallowed by sheep feeding on such. The following circumstance, recorded by Dr Watson, in Reports on the Progress of Zoology and Botany,' would seem to sanction this opinion: A healthy flock of sheep were driven through a considerable tract of country, and one of them on the way broke its leg, and had to be carried on horseback. For one night the flock, with the exception of the maimed one, rested in a marshy meadow, and every individual was seized with the rot but itself-it escaped the disease, and had no liver-fluke. May it not be assumed,' adds Dr Watson, that the flock swallowed the eggs of the fluke with the fodder they cropped from the moist meadow?'

6

It has been long taken for granted that all our so-called varieties of dogs have been produced from one species, and the same with our domestic cats, poultry, &c.; but more stringent investigations, and new facts daily occurring, rather tend to prove that several species of animals very nearly allied in physical constitution may intermingle and produce hybrids, or mixed progeny. With regard to domestic poultry, Dr Morton, of Philadelphia, remarks,* 'The variation of size, form, and plumage, so remarkable among the different breeds of domestic fowls, has been usually attributed to the action of physical agents (food, climate, &c.) on a single original species. This supposition, however, is now found to be untenable; for the best ornithologists have succeeded in tracing this family of birds to at least ten different species. The tailless fowl has been triumphantly quoted as an evidence of the power of climate and locality to produce changes, not only of plumage, but of anatomical conformation. This bird is deficient in the last dorsal vertebræ, and consequently has no tail. But it was asserted, even by some naturalists, that this fowl was originally possessed of a tail, but lost it on being sent from England to Virginia, and domesticated in the latter country. More recent investigations, however, have proved that this is a wild native species of Ceylon. The fowl with rumpled or inverted feathers, which was long regarded as a mere accidental variety, is now believed to be a distinct species, and a native of Guiana. It breeds with all the other domestic fowls, and the offspring is prolific without end.' The same author mentions hybrids between the domestic fowl and the

* Edinburgh Journal of Science. 1847.

Guinea fowl, the pheasant and domestic fowl, the wild and tame goose, the swan and goose, and several others. Mr Charles Waterton thus describes hybrids between the Canada goose and wild Barnacle goose: They are elegantly shaped, but are not so large as the Canada mother, nor so small as the father-their plumage partaking in colour with that of both parents.' Mr St John, in his very amusing and interesting Wild Sports in the Highlands,' mentions that his domestic ducks are now all of a hybrid breed between the wild and domestic ducks. He took the eggs of the wild species and placed them under the domestic duck, by whom they were hatched. The first brood partook of the wild and rambling nature of their progenitors, but the subsequent crosses in the poultry-yard produced a tame and elegant-looking race of birds, and of superior flavour for the table.

The following is an interesting account of a tame owl, given by Mr Jenyns in his amusing volume already quoted: A friend of mine has sent me the following particulars respecting a tame white owl, which was taken when young from a nest in the woods of Dilstone, near Hexham, in Northumberland, and given by a lady to her children, who brought it up. Great pains appear to have been taken to domesticate this owl, in consequence of which it became very familiar. In imitation of its own call, it received the name of Keevie, to which it would readily answer when within hearing, following the sound from whatever part of the premises it might happen to be in. Its usual place of repose during the day was under the branches of an old Scotch fir, which grew down a steep inaccessible bank, where it would sit, apparently asleep, but sufficiently awake to endeavour to attract the notice of any one who passed, by its usual cry of keevie keevie. If the passenger stopped and aroused it, it immediately scrambled up the boughs of the fir, till it brought itself to a level with the walk above, in hopes of being fed; but if he went on again, unheeding its solicitations, it returned to its former place and resumed its slumbers. One of the most striking peculiarities in this tame owl is said to have been its fondness for music. It would often come into the drawing-room of an evening, on the shoulder of one of the children, and, on hearing the tones of the piano, would stand with its eyes fixed on the instrument, and its head on one side, in an attitude of attention, when, suddenly spreading his wings, he would alight on the keys, and, making a dart at the performer's fingers with its beak, would continue hopping about, as if pleased with the execution. After a while, the flights of this owl into the woods became longer, and he only returned at dark to receive his usual supper from the person who was in the habit of feeding him, and whom he readily permitted at such times to take him up, and carry him into the house for this purpose. By and by, it was observed that he did not devour his meal in the kitchen as formerly, but fled along the passage, dragging the meat after him, till he reached the garden-door, when he flew with it to a part of the shrubbery. On being followed, it was discovered that he had brought with him a companion, who, not having courage to accompany him the whole way, remained at a respectful distance to receive his bounty. After having served his visiter in this manner, he returned to the kitchen, and leisurely devoured his own. This practice was continued for some months, till at length one evening he was missed, and nowhere to be found. His companion, it is said, continued to visit the spot alone for several weeks, uttering doleful cries, but could never be persuaded to come nearer to be fed. It proved in the end that the favourite had been killed, and its stuffed skin was one day, alas! recognised in a woodman's hut by the children who had so assiduously nurtured and brought it up.' If birds delight in music, why may they not trip it on the light fantastic toe?' That very beautiful bird, the cockof-the-rock, or rock-manakin (Rupicolo elegans), so common in British Guiana, often indulges in the amusement of dancing. It is generally the male birds that thus exhibit, in order to excite the admiration and win the affections of the females. 'Hearing,' says M. Schomburgk, the twittering noise so peculiar to this bird, I cautiously stole

near, with two of my guides, towards a small spot, secluded from the path, which appeared to have been cleared of every blade of grass, and smoothel as by human hands. There we saw a cock-of-the-rock capering, to the apparent delight of several others—now spreading its wings, throwing up its head, or opening its tail like a fan-now strutting about and scratching the ground; all accompanied by a hopping gait, until tired, when it gabbled some kind of note, and another relieved him. Thus three of them successively took the field, and then, with self-approbation, withdrew to rest on one of the low branches near the scene of action. We had counted ten cocks and two hens of the party, when the crackling of some wood, on which I had unfortunately placed my foot, alarmed and dispersed the company. The Indian, in order to obtain their beautiful skins, looks out for these places of diversion, which are very common. There he hides himself, and, armed with [ his blow-pipe and poisoned arrows, awaits the arrival of the dancing party. He does not fire till they are so eagerly engaged in their sport as to allow him to bring down four or five successively before the rest take alarm and disperse.'*

THE ONLY TRUE AND ENDURING OPINION. WE have histories of almost everything that the earth ¦ contains, or ever has contained-of kings, and bloody battles (almost inseparable from kings); of republics, and domestic anarchy (inseparable from republics); of laws, rents, prices (Tooke has despatched prices); of churches, sects, religions; of society-that grand, strange, unaccountable compound of evil and good, where men's vices and virtues, ever at war, are made mutually to counteract each other, and bring about an equilibrium balanced on a || hair-always vibrating, sometimes terribly deranged, but ever returning to its poise. But, thank Heaven! we have not absolutely histories of everything; and, amongst others, we have not a history of opinion. The world, however, is a strange place; the men and women in it strange creatures; || and the man who would sit down to write a true history of opinions, showing how baseless are those most fondly clung to, how absurd are those most reverently followed, how wicked are some of those esteemed most holy, would, in any country, and in any age, be pursued and persecuted till he were as dead as the carrion on which the crow feeds, nay, long after his miserable bones were as white as an egg-shell. I am even afraid of the very assertion; for the world is too vain, and too cowardly, to hear that any of its opinions are wrong; and we must swim with the stream, if we would swim at all. There is one thing, indeed, to be said which justifies the world, although it is not the ground on which the world acts-that he who would upset the opinions established, were he ten times wiser than Solon, or Solomon either, would produce a thousand evils where he removed one. It is an old coat that will not bear mending; and the wearer is, perhaps, right to fly at every one who would peck at it. Moreover, there is, prima facie, very little cause to suppose that he who would overthrow the notions which have been entertained, with slight modifications, by thousands of human beings through thousands of years, is a bit more wise, enlightened, true, or virtuous than the rest; and I will fairly confess, that I have never yet seen one of these moral knights-errant who did not replace error by error, folly by folly, contradiction by contradiction, the absurdities of others by absurdities of his own. Nay, more; amongst all who have started up to work a radical change in the opinions of mankind, I have never heard of but one, the universal adoption of whose views, in their entirety, would have made the whole race wiser, better, and happier. Men crucified him; and, lest the imperishable truth should condemn them, set to work to corrupt his words and pervert his doctrines, within a century after he had passed from earth. Gnostics, monks, priests, saints, fathers, all added or took away; and then they closed the book, and sealed it with a brazen clasp.-A Whim and its Consequences.

* Travels in British Guiana

SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS.

WE confess ourselves to be lovers of revolutions. We have always admired them since we first awoke to a consciousness of the dignity of our grandmother's spinning-wheel, and listened to the whirr of a jenny.' The concurrent hands of the electric clock have indicated to our mind high conditions of revolutionary capacity, and the electric telegraph has written upon our consciousness noble corroborations of revolutionary glory. We love your soft, quiet, almost unseen revolutions that take place beneath the surface of nations, which, although not visible, are nevertheless real-which, although latent, are notwithstanding efficacious-which you can sit in your parlour and digest with your muffins-and which, like healthy food to a healthy constitution, add to the strength and progress of the world, without filling its veins with the fever and its head with the delirium attendant upon revolutions of a more ostensible, terrible, and dangerously experimental kind. The last thirty years have been continent of revolutions-revolutions of opinions, ideas, governments, nationalities, steam-paddles, clocks, machines of new creation, and screws of old mechanical celebrity. Velocipedes and rotund coach-drivers have revolved with their vehicles into the shade; and those diligences so famous in the memoirs of Jonathan Oldbuck and in the travels of the sage Mr Yorick, are likely to be soon forgotten even in genus. Superseded by the light and spanking stage, the stage itself has been exorcised from the stage of action by the snort and scream of the terrible ironhorse, which mocks the pigeon in its flight, and laughs at the name of toil. Nothing, we think, can illustrate the certain progress of healthy revolutionary influences more than the frequent invasions which are now taking place in England and Scotland. Five hundred years ago the reciprocal invasions of these countries were terrible things; and the application of the word 'invasion' to the visits of hosts of men from either country anterior to a very recent period, means something very serious. But revolutions in ideas revolutionise vocabularies, and we hope soon to see the word invasion enjoying a fame as extensive, gentle, and pleasant as its literal synonym visit. We believe the signification of the term to be in revolution, as we know the fact to be so; and if we could detract from its warlike and add to its peaceful fame, we would esteem ourselves as conducing in some respects to a universally and devoutly-to-bewished-for, though somewhat wordy, revolution. People quarrel with one another generally because they do not know each other. The more that people know of one another they are the less inclined to fall out; and we believe that all the wars and hatreds that have disgraced and destroyed mankind have been the result of isolation. There are jealousies and despites existing now, not only between the peoples of the countries of the British empire, but they are active in counties to this day; and it is only by the extension of knowledge and a more general intercommunion of people that these little jealousies will be obliterated. The great iron hexaped is being and will be the most active and untiring agent in this noble work of friendly fusion, and we wish him speed in his proud and inspiring mission.

We had the pleasure of meeting a party of English invaders on the 6th of June in our good city, through the revolutionary medium of the rails; and as the circumstances and character of the invasion and invaders present rather a novel feature in our social economy, and are worthy of recapitulation and general imitation, we shall succinctly present them to our readers.

The visiters were J. D. Carr, Esq., of Carlisle, and the workmen and other individuals connected with his baking establishment, which, for extent as a bread manufactory, and in regard to other collateral arrangements, is perhaps not to be paralleled in Great Britain. Mr Carr, the enlightened proprietor of this great bakery, which employs about one hundred men and boys, saw that, in addition to the mere relation of employer and employed, there might be other and nobler relations established between himself

and his workmen. He felt that one hundred men and boys, brought together by unity of profession, and connected to him by the mere accidents of trade, might, through his agency, become elevated to a higher social, moral, and intellectual status, and united to him not only by a bond of trade but by a bond of brotherhood, and he determined to make the experiment. He began and accomplished in his own sphere, without difficulty and with abundant success, what has engaged the hopes and aspirations of moral reformers for ages. As the basis of all profitable action, he rendered it imperative that the workmen should abstain, as he did, from all intoxicating drinks. Sobriety in the workmen was a positive assurance a priori that there would be success in his endeavours for their improvement; it inspired the experimentalist with confidence, and it ensured the self-respect of the labourers. As a guarantee of their capacity for intellectual improvement, it was necessary that the men should be able to read and write-no matter if they did so imperfectly. It was deemed indispensable that they should, as well as being sober, possess the rudimentary means of intellectual improvement, and upon these bases Mr Carr began his plans of melioration. You must not force a man to be sober,' says Mr Carr, you must persuade him to be so; and you must not persuade him theoretically but practically. You must not only convince his reason that it is good for him to abstain, but you must supply the void caused by this abstinence.' In order to do so, this philanthropic gentleman established a school, a reading-room, and baths; and offered facilities for those frequent social re-unions so likely to conduce to the harmony and kindly feeling of all engaged in his establishment. For fifteen years there has existed the best of relations between this gentleman and his work-people; all the pecuniary sacrifices which he has made for their comfort and improvement have, he is assured, been to his advantage. His men labour with a cheerful alacrity not to be met with in the ignorant and drunken, and he can place implicit confidence in their attention to business. They obtain a high name in the city of Carlisle for morality and respectability; and as a remarkable instance of their general frugality and spirit, not one of them for fifteen years has applied for parish relief. While other workmen have been draining the treasury of the workhouse during periods of sickness or destitution, the prudence and mutual benevolence of his men have preserved them from this necessity. In addition to the facilities offered to them for improvement at home, Mr Carr gives all his people an annual summer's jaunt to some remarkable place, interesting from its scenic beauty or grandeur, and its historical associations.

Railway extension is daily offering a wider field of observation for such visiters, so that this year Edinburgh was determined upon as the point of attraction. The large Calton Convening Room had been previously engaged as a place in which all might breakfast, and from which the members of the party might go forth to visit the city, and to which they might return at any time for refreshments, which they had brought abundantly with them. Upwards of a hundred visiters-men, women, and children-sat down to breakfast at ten o'clock, and afterwards breaking up into parties, they proceeded, under the direction of leaders, to explore the beauties and antiquated wonders of our own romantic town, leaving Edinburgh by the Caledonian Railway, after having enjoyed twelve hours' sojourn in the city.

Blithe be the hearts of such merry English invaders, say we; and hopeful be their returning! May the youths of Sherwood Forest don their holiday suits of Lincoln green, and come cheerily over the border to the north country! We give them joyful greeting, and a thousand welcomes. These intercommunions are pleasing illustrations of the spirit of the times. Under the apparent aspect of national convulsions and storms, the social tide is flowing unswervingly onward. While systems and empires are being torn and dashed asunder, cities and towns are being welded and linked together; and while legislators are debating and

quarrelling about systems of social improvement, the spontaneous efforts of Mr Carr and men of a kindred spirit are certainly inducing a higher social, mental, and moral status for individuals, and presenting a national example. Such efficient, elevating, and earnest revolutions in national antipathies and the condition of the operative are worthy of the sympathies of all men, no matter how much these men may be artificially divided into classes; and to our mind they shine in healthful lustre amidst the darkness of national commotions and strifes. They are indeed something more than eruptions-they are revolutions, in fact.

QUOTATION.

WHEN we first began to dip into general literature, it was a matter of some surprise to us to find the page occasionally studded over with little tailed dots. On curiously inquir ing into the reason, we were informed that these said dots were what was called marks of quotation,' and intended to indicate that certain passages were not the author's, but taken from somebody else. In our then state of ignorance regarding literary matters this seemed very strange. What!' we exclaimed, do authors borrow from each other as they choose, and does nobody complain? Here is a whole essay made up of bits from somebody or other; and is there no law to protect the property of these people, and prevent it being eaten up at pleasure by any one who chooses?'-Oh! you must know,' replied our mentor, when a writer becomes celebrated by saying good things, these sayings are looked upon as a sort of common property-they become what we call household words'-and we make no scruple of using them as we think fit in our own productions. Why,' continued our friend, so far from it being thought improper to make use of these expressions, you will find as you continue to read that some writers acquire considerable celebrity as learned men by the facility of being good quoters.' Well, thought we, this must be one of those odd ways of the world of which we have been told so much. If a man produce a certain article by the labour either of hands or head, he is surely entitled to call it his own; and any one who borrows it from him without his leave, seems to be no better than a common pilferer. We began to ask ourselves-Would the plea of acknowledgment be accepted in the ordinary affairs of life? If a person purloined, say a book or a tea-kettle from his neighbour, and put it to his own use, would he be excused for the theft on the plea that he made it no secret to his friends who the articles really belonged to? But as we widened the circle of our reading we discovered what we took to be an explanation of the anomaly, and it was this: That the practice of stealing had become so universal amongst authors, that, like other practices extensively indulged in, it had ceased to be disreputable, and was even reckoned respectable. The alarming fact thus dawned upon us, that authors generally were no better than a set of cannibals, who were perpetually engaged in devouring each other.

But surely there was a time when a better system was acknowledged-when authors were virtuous, and behaved themselves like decent people? We know not. If there was, it must have been in the Golden Age-which was not (and, if we may believe themselves, never was) the age of authors! According to our theory, the process of cannibalism would begin as soon as scope existed for its exercise. We cannot speak for ancient times or for other countries, but in our own we date the beginning of the savage period particularly from the time of Shakspeare, Gentle Will' (who himself set a bad example in this way) was no sooner in his grave than his brethren of the quill began the tearing of his body to pieces-a process which has been continued, we are sorry to observe, up even to our own times. Authors steal his plots, his characters, his expressions-everything that is his. Not to speak of the more heinous sin of copying plot or character, have we not been bored to death with- Curses, not loud, but deep,' the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth,'

'a custom more honoured in the breach than the observ ance,' a countenance more in sorrow than in anger, golden opinions from all sorts of people,' the vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself,'-and so on? The novelist, in sketching his hero, must some time or other make him chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancies,' and represent him as possessing Hyperion curls, the front of Jove himself:' and as being, besides, the glass of fashion and the mould of form.' In the incidental reflections it is impossible to avoid such lines as—

'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.'

Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!'
'My way of life

Has fallen into the sere and yellow leaf."

For the last two centuries certain things are said to 'come like shadows, so depart;' and on every doubtful appearance the following comes up as a matter of course:

For the visited has had

Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee *

same period, every celebrated person who has
that bourne from whence no traveller returns,'
pronounced over him—-

'He was a man, take him for all and all,

I shall not look upon his like again;'

and if said to be noted for more than ordinary goodness, another motto is ready for his tombstone

'His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up And say to all the world-This was a man.' Every book containing matter not easily credited must soften the dose by informing its readers that

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Every violent comparison is necessarily Hyperion to a satyr;' somebody or other is snuffed out, and must pale his uneffectual fires;' if a man's hair stands on end (a phenomenon we should like to see), it must do so like quills upon the fretful porcupine.' No author can institute a comparison between funds and good fame but he must introduce, Who steals my purse, steals trash,' &c.; or make a person perform a mean action without pleading, My poverty, but not my will, consents.' Was there ever a poet spoken of who did not give to airy nothings a local habitation and a name-who had not thick-coming fancies'-or whose eye was not occasionally in a fine frenzy rolling?'

A class of newspaper censors advise a minister of state to assume a virtue, if you have it not;' insinuate that, but for being forbid to tell the secrets of his prison-house,' he could a tale unfold,' &c.; caution him oracularly not to lay that flattering unction to his soul;' and hint his resemblance to those 'juggling fiends' that

6

'Keep the word of promise to the ear,

And break it to the hope.'

We might extend the list (to use another favourite quotation from Shakspeare) to the crack o' doom;' but our extensive nature of the pilferings from our great dramapurpose being simply to furnish some indication of the tist,' and by no means to make up a complete catalogue, we pass on to notice a few other matters of a like nature. While we wonder at the variety and richness of some minds, there is as much reason to feel annoyed at the poverty of others, and these, we fear, the greater portion of the author class. They are imitators, appropriatorsanything but inventors. They live within a circle of cant and hackneyed phrases. For example, anything supposed to be irrevocable has from time immemorial been likened to the laws of the Medes and Persians; a persou more than usually distinguished by benevolence is said to possess much of the milk of human kindness;' the expres

* A quotation almost invariably misunderstood. It is taken in the sense of an equivocal appearance, whereas the reverse is expressly meant by Shakspeare: Thou comest in such a conversable, or familiar, style, that I will speak,' &c.