36

REVIEW.-The Practice of Tenancy, &c.

"It is impossible for any state to become great and powerful within itself by means of commerce alone: all history proves that where trade alone was depended upon, though considerable wealth might be accumulated, yet, when the hour of danger came, the state was found to be nerveless and powerless." P. 52.

Holland and the Hanse towns prove this position.

On the other hand it may be affirmed, that commerce generates a monied capital, which the other does not, and that it makes an estate out of mere industry, and the arts of civilization; and that this monied capital causes a mere petty tax to supersede a requisition; and detracts an immense population from the sole support of the land.

In reality, both agriculture and commerce are "hens that lay golden eggs," and neither should be oppressed. But it is evident that there is a jealousy entertained of the far inferior profits of the former.

For our own parts, we know that, although there may not exist any revolutionary measure, in a direct form, yet that most efficient mode of effecting that result, by annihilation of the natural consequence and rank of the landowners, and indeed of rendering plebeianism supreme, does exist in an indirect mode. We consider as traps, laid for Government to fall into, certain popular bubbles of the day, because they have an operation similar to that of Parliamentary Reform (though not so obvious), and because men may be killed by poison as well as the sword. If by free trade and anti-corn bills, competition be introduced, then is Peter only robbed to pay Paul; and if, as political economy says, the foreign commodities can only be purchased by manufactures, and therefore no loss is sustained, it is not the fact, for, as our authors justly say, the farmer has only the home market for his goods, while the manufacturer has both that and the foreign also, and of course the latter has an undue preference. But we must come to figures. The general number of persons in a square mile in 1811 was 175, in the agricultural population only 36. Taking the food of each person to require the produce of three acres, the former wants 58 acres, the latter only 12. And by deducting 36 from 175, it is evident that 139 persons obtained a maintenance

[Jan.

distinct from the agricultural class. According to Capt. Pittman (Polit. Econ. pt. i. p. 21.) the average annual cost of food per head for every individual is 91. 4s.; but, taking it at 97. the annual amount in an agricultural population of 36 persons, is 3241. for a square mile, or 640 acres, out of which only twelve are required for support of the population, at 3 acres per head. It is probable therefore that sixty persons at least are taken off the agricultural population by trade in every square mile, which, taking the whole number of square miles in the kingdom to be about 58,000, makes the population removed to be 3,480,000. Multiply this number by gl. the annual cost of food per head is 31,320,000l. Deduct eight millions for poor's rates (supposing that they are wholly paid by agriculturists), the result is that the agricultural population is eased by trade of 23,320,000l. annually. Of course the balance is greatly in their (the agriculturists') favour, which could not ensue if the profits of trade were not far superior to that of land; for, if the surplus population were not thus taken off, an Irish potatoe system must ensue.

Add to this that trade alone enables us to man our fleets, furnish an enormous portion of our revenue, and save the agriculturists from bearing the whole expences of the state.

In short, if estates are saleable at so low an interest of capital as two and a half per cent, it is evident that nothing but cheapness of money, i. e. a monied capital, could be the means of their obtaining a high price. Subject to the entire burden of the population, and of the expences of the state, what would they be worth? Nothing at all, as a source of independent income or livelihood from rent. People would be content with sufficient lands for family use, and the country be filled with petty proprietors.

Through the gross partiality of our authors for the agricultural system, exclusively, we have thus been obliged to strike a balance. But in so doing we are far from supporting current popular notions; it being our opinion that the home trade should not be discouraged. For let it be remembered that under a free trade, if goods must be created to purchase the imports, it is at the cost of a diminution of profits, a consequent increase of pauperism, and a subjection to the caprice of foreigners. The old

1829.]

REVIEW.-The Practice of Tenancy, &c.

rule used to be, exchange for what you cannot produce yourselves. In short, we deprecate foolish discouragements of trade, because these drive the population back upon agriculture, and we would have the latter held up, because, as our authors say:

37

rality, which is treating topically a constitutional disease.

Well do our authors say:

"Religious instruction, and education accompanying it, are unquestionably most essential: but they are not of themselves, nor can they be, the remedy sought for; they doubtless frequently enable men to

"Were the prices of agricultural produce bear up against calamity, and resist temp

in Great Britain driven down to the low rate which some seem to have contemplated by the too easy introduction of commodities of a similar description, the growth of foreign soils, it is by no means too much to say, that the depreciation in the value of land and contingent property would amount to 600,000,000l, and where is the foreign trade to be found, that could by possibility compensate for such an enormous deficit,

which must in its effects involve the utter ruin of almost every class of the community." P. 48.

Our sly jesuitical seditionists, in their hopes of overturning the constitution, by invisible means, are aware of the awful results alluded to in the extract quoted, and utter loud yells against the necessary protection of agriculture, because, if it were left unprotected, as they wish, the landowners and their dependants would have no means of self-preservation, and be brought to the workhouse, a state of things they most ardently desire.

We shall indulge only one more remark as to the political part of this work, a remark founded upon that cruel system of the political economists, who, under the phrase of cheapening labour, generate pauperism and crime; for,

"All experience proves that there cannot be a more unwise or destructive policy than that which tends to place the workman or the labourer in a situation only, as it were, one degree in the scale removed from starvation. It not only destroys every feeling of independance and respectability, but it operates as a temptation to crime, and too frequently he proceeds from the less to greater offences, till the amount in the aggregate throughout the country becomes fearfully alarming, and, unhappily, a generation growing up is presented to view, who are more demoralized than their parents." P. 81.

Thus it is. Circumstances are in the actual process of demoralization; as excessive wages, prompting debauchery, are given in some trades, at least for a time, or mere starvation wages in others. The present age takes up nominal religion as the cure for immo

tation, but it is impossible they can remove the evils arising from the extreme poverty of numerous classes of the community."

P. 121.

Mr. Becher has proposed the rational and statesman-like remedy; why is it not patronized?

We shall now proceed to the agricultural parts of this work. The chief point urged is the substraction of capital in the valuation outlay, paid by an incoming to an outgoing tenant, a plan which does not exist in the north of England, and there our authors say:

"This is all avoided in the North of England, and merely by means of the simple expedient that one tenant has nothing to do with the other. The outgoer acts upon his own system, and disposes as he pleases of any part of the property on the farm, except what he is obliged to use upon the premises. Whilst the incomer has nothing to pay for valuation, no favor to ask of the outgoer; he is enabled to purchase a sufficient stock, wherever he has the best opportunities of making good bargains, and enters the farm completely unincumbered, with the remainder of his capital left, after purchasing his stock, to carry on business with every prospect of success." P. 98.

This evil would we think be remedied

by the simple method of letting farms at old Michaelmas. The outgoer would then have his crops in, and he might be accommodated with a barn or two for threshing them out till Midsummer.

For turniping and winter food, specific clauses might be made by the landlord, which would not affect the incomer.

In page 61 is a most useful table of sums (in the pound per acre) paid by the different counties for poor's rates. These, though increased by manufactures in some degree, are chiefly exaggerated by large towns. We find, that in Westmorland and Northumberland, the amount per acre is only fifteen pence per pound; in Lancashire, the seat of the cotton manufacture, only 9s. 3d.; in Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire, the

38

REVIEW.-Hodgson's History of Northumberland.

seats of the clothing trade, the assessment is only from 3s. to 5s. But in the County of Middlesex, it is THREE

POUNDS THIRTEEN SHILLINGS AND

TEN PENCE, though in the County of
Surrey, one arm of the London and
Westminster coat, it is only ELEVEN
That

SHILLINGS AND TEN PENCE.

living is just as cheap in St. George's Fields as in the City and West end, is certain; but if, taking the Surrey ratio, the proportion on the Northern Bank of the Thames is not more dense in the proportion of nearly seven to one, there is great mismanagement in the two corpulent sisters, London and Westminster,, which imperiously requires parliamentary attention.

Here we must end. We are acquainted with the husbandry of certain of the counties mentioned, and have been surprised at their accuracy. Our authors have exercised an undue partiality towards the agricultural systein, and we think, on the subject of emigration, that when the population is obliged to fasten, as in Ireland, upon small patches of land for support, then does the clock strike the hour for emigration; but, upon the whole, the work abounds with lessons of prudence, and precedents of improvement.

A History of Northumberland, in Three
Parts. By John Hodgson, Clerk, Vicar
of Whelpington, &c. Part III. vol. ii.
Containing Ancient Records and Historical
Papers. 4to. pp. 435.

WE do not like to see old friends with new faces, and such would be county histories without records. They are certainly dull; but what then? they are the bones, muscles, and blood of local history. Topography without record is an estate without earth. But there are important moral and political consequences attached to such useful collections, consequences well exhibited by Mr. Hodgson, who is a writer of depth, in the following

passages.

"Anxiety for the preservation, and a deep sense of the value, of public and family muniments, are feelings that spring out of loyalty and attention to self-preservation, and are characteristic of the high-minded and patriotic people who live upon estates which have descended to them from remote ancestry-have been the reward of valour, or wisdom, or industry, and which especially have been kept unspotted by dishonourable and enthralling incumbrances. How, indeed,

[Jan.

can a generous and enlightened progeny look with indifference upon those charters of their rights, liberty, and property, which their ancestors had sealed with their blood, or emblazoned with the glory of great or useful deeds? A conqueror, who wishes to begin a new era in a country, by dividing its property among his adherents, naturally enough dements and possessions of the people he has sires to destroy all evidences of the achieve

kind occurred in China about 2000 years A remarkable event of this vanquished. since, when Chi-Hoang-ti, for the purpose of obliterating every trace of the feudal government that preceded his dynasty, destroyed all its books and writings, excepting such as related to law and medicine, and put to death great numbers of learned men, lest they should relate from memory any portion of the genuine memoirs or established superstitions of their country. Something similar to this may always be expected to permits popular discontent to ripen into happen, where neglect or mismanagement hatred, and to bring on a revolution: in the heat of revenge the actors in a new order of things, naturally seek security for themselves, their power, and property, not merely from those whom they had removed from their offices and estates, but from their descendants, by the destruction of such records and papers as might assist the conquered party in the recovery of their rights, Prynne asserts, that in several periods of the unsettled state of our country, "the prevailing king's parties embezzled and suppressed such parliamentary records and proceedings as made most against their interest, power, and prerogative:" and Ayloffe to this quotation adds, that "it cannot be doubted that in those times the like fate befel many other of our national muniments;" that " damps, mildew, and vermin have, from time to time, deprived us of many antient and valuable records." Dugdale, in his Baronage, cites the Scottish Rolls for the 34th year of Edward the First, which records, as well as similar documents for the preceding and succeeding year of the same reign, were not existing when that copious source of historical evidence was printed by government in 1814. It is the multiplicacountries and places, and especially of useful tion of copies of the authentic histories of records and papers, which tends to avert these effects of wars, revolutions, and neglect. It is this process that keeps the most antient writings in perennial youth. It preserves the remembrance of such arts and measures as have been found to be useful and good, suitable to the climate in which they have rooted and thriven, and to the people by whom they have been adopted. It keeps truth before men's eyes, and conse

in the event of a successful re-action.

• Vol. i. p. 525.

1829.]

REVIEW.-Fisher's Antiquities of Bedfordshire.

quently gives a relish for histories that are
founded on facts, in preference to works of
imagination, fables, and romance.
It pre-
vents the spread of visionary theories, by
encouraging us to protect and defend the
laws under which our predecessors have long
lived happily, rather than venture upon such
rash and vain experiments in legislation, as
usually end in democratical risings and poli-
tical ruin. Records,' indeed, are the
treasuries and conservatories of our laws, and
the standard to which we must resort for the
resolving and ascertaining all constitutional
points; they are the testimonies of our le-
gislation and of all juridical and judicial pro-
ceedings, and the perpetual evidence of
every man's rights, privileges, and liberties.'

The same fertile mine likewise offers us a rich vein of materials for improving and illustrating our English topography,' and for rendering our local history and antiquities of essential and public use.'

In Preface, p. v. Mr. Hodgson suggests the following improvement concerning deeds.

"From the very large and inconvenient size of most modern deeds, and the great difficulty in keeping them in order and from injury, I cannot here omit this suggestionthat some statutory enactmeut, making every sort of conveyance of property illegal, unless it were plainly written upon parchment or paper of the foolscap or some other specified size, and the several sheets of each deed were inlaid, might be of considerable individual and national advantage. Title-deeds would then be easily accessible to the parties they belonged to; and if every deed was paged, and the contents of each clause indexed at its end, it would be rendered still more intelligible and useful. On this plan, deeds would be all of one size; and might be protected with covers, according to their owner's fancy: series of them belonging to the same estate might be bound into volumes; and copies of the whole much more conveniently made for the purpose of common reference."

In p. 171 is a copy of an ancient survey, (33 H. VIII.) relative to the marches between England and Scotland, which appears to us very illustrative of ancient manners and customs, as far as concerns boundaries, castles,

&c.

Drawings and plans were made of castles and towns, and sent up to Government. p. 172.

Roads were made around the boundaries of towns, for the convenience of perambulating them.—p. 172.

The use of Wansdike as a boundary, is proved by the existence of a ditch

'Ayloffe's Calenders, &c. Introd. iv. and v.

(39

for this purpose, called "the marchdyke of old mencon."-p. 174.

A rivulet or brook was another boundary.-p. 176.

A hanging stone was a limit

"To the hanging stone which ys the boundes and mere betweene the easte and

middle marches of England."—p. 178.

We might think that this was a rocking-stone; but Stonehenge (Saxum pendulum) was the denomination of Stone-henge (see Lye), and we think that the hanging stone" merely implied a stone upon an acclivity, in the

same sense as we now use the term "hanging wood."

(To be continued.)

Monumental Remains and Antiquities in the
County of Bedford. By Thomas Fisher.

This is a very curious antiquarian work, consisting of thirty-seven drawings upon stone, executed by Mr.Fisher, and only fifty copies of each have been printed at the lithographic press of D. J. Redman.

Mr. Fisher was one of the first encouragers of lithography, or, as he termed it, polyautography, in this country; and to him we are obliged for a curious memoir of Philip H. André, the first introducer of the art in this country, which appeared in our volume LXXVIII. p. 193.

Mr. Fisher has distinguished himself also by a vigourous opposition to the illiberal Act unjustly designated for the encouragement of literature. His appeal to the legislature on this subject has been laid before the public.

This Act, it appears, has been the sole cause of stopping in their progress two very curious works begun by Mr. Fisher, and the completion of which has long been the wish of many a collector of antiquarian publications. We allude to "The Antient, Allegorical, Historical, and Legendary Paintings at Stratford upon Avon," and 66 The Collections for Bedfordshire." But on this subject Mr. Fisher shall speak for himself:

"The progress of these works was interrupted by that very singular measure of Parliamentary encouragement, the Copyright Act. By that Act the Curators of eleven privileged libraries acquired a legal right to demand, without remuneration, eleven copies of any and of every book which might thereafter be published in Great Britain, with letter-press; a right which, so long as it exists, will operate on the publications above

40

REVIEW.-Sweet's Hortus Britannicus.

referred to, and on all similar projected works, however intrinsically valuable or praiseworthy, as a discouragement.

"But it is hoped that the impolicy of this enactment will soon be obvious to all impartial persons, and to the Legislature in particular. It is now known that the Copyright Act has, on the one hand, failed to secure to the favoured parties much of that benefit which they had desired so inconsiderately, and laboured to obtain so strenuously; while, on the other hand, if it has not altogether banished elegant and expensive literature from this country, it has at least turned the scale very much in favour of foreign nations, where the act of publication entails upon an author no such penalties and loss of property as the Copyright Act imposes. A comparison of the productions of the British press, in almost every department of science, with those of the presses of the coutinent of Europe, during the last ten years, will verify the observation.

"Such being the state of facts, may it not be reasonably expected, that at no very distant period, the subject will be again brought under the consideration of Parliament; and that, when the impolicy of the law shall have been made apparent by a reference to the actual result of ten years' experience of its operation, this oppressive statute will be repealed, and freedom be again restored to the literature and science of Great Britain ?"

In this wish we most cordially join. From our experience in trade we are aware of many valuable and extensive works, rather than incur so heavy a penalty, having been either given up altogether, or published without the necessary explanatory letter-press, thus evading the penalty of the law.

Hortus Britannicus; or a Catalogue of Plants cultivated in the Gardens of Great Britain, arranged in Natural Orders; with the addition of the Linnæan Classes and Orders to which they belong, &c. By R. Sweet, F.L.S. 8vo. p. 1. Ridgway.

THIS useful work must have occasioned the author great application of labour in arranging all the genera and species according to their natural affinities, a plan which we believe has never been before introduced into any general catalogue of plants. It appears to be by far the most useful method for the cultivator, as it brings together the plants that are the nearest related; and we observe, in the same line with the generic name, the addition also of the Linnæan class and order to which it belongs.

[Jan.

It certainly is the most complete and useful catalogue that has yet appeared, and English names, where described, as in one line it gives the systematic of what country it is native, the year introduced, the months when in flower, whether hardy or tender, its duration, and reference to the books in which it is figured; and where any names have been lately changed, a synonym is given in italics to show what it is changed from. It also contains nearly double the number of plants contained in any other catalogue that we have seen, so that, on the whole, we believe it could not have been more complete. In our opinion,' tural system is far preferable to that of the arrangement according to the naan artificial one, particularly for cultivators, and on this account the present work should be in the hands of all gardeners and cultivators of plants, and the references to the figures will also render it very useful to the botanist.

The author's previous works, viz. the Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis; the Hothouse and Greenhouse Manual Cultivator; Geraniacea; Cistiniæ ; and the British Flower-garden; have been deservedly admired and appreciated, and have acquired for the author the most extended reputation both at home and on the continent of Europe, and happy should we feel if our tardy notice of his labours should be the means of stimulating him to still exertions.

greater

The Sympathizing High-priest. Three Ser-
mons, preached in the parish church of St.
Mary, Aldermary. By the Rev. H. B.
Wilson, D.D. F.S.A. Rector. 8vo. pp. 44.

WE do not like such odd expressions as the thickness of our Saviour's sweats (p. 8) during his agony; but many divines do not think literary character of any moment in the composition of sermons.

These before us are directed against Unitarianism in one view, and in commemoration of the public virtues of the late Archbishop Sutton in another. A pious and benevolent spirit seems to animate the three discourses, and we ble and excellent intentions. We agree highly respect the author for his amiawith him in his opinion, that

"Many of the dissensions which unhappily divide and distract mankind on the subject of religion, are to be traced to an anxiety to divest it of all mystery."—p. i.