esting. In the sixth year of his reign he | unchanged, and which has led to half the undertook to draw up a code of civil laws; revolutions of Europe: while he gave distinct and in this task he was assisted by his legal privileges to peasants and nobles, he left the adviser, Samuel Cocceji: this code, how-impassable barrier between them unbroken. ever, was soon superseded. Frederick's The nobleman must be a land-owner, the chief success as a reformer was in the peasant a farmer, and the burgher a meradministration of justice, and to this he chant. The burgher was not allowed to inalways gave the greatest attention. He pre- vest his capital in land, for fear of withdrawferred corporal punishment to fines, as more ing it from trade; and the peasant could not summary and less injurious to the revenue, become a landed proprietor, because his as fines tended to impoverish the tax- birth disqualified him from holding the compayers. mission of an officer. These distinctions, like those of the patricians and plebeians at Rome, must always give rise to jealousies and disturbances. Mankind have in themselves quite sufficient tendency to split into factions, without legal distinctions to facilitate their doing so. If a law were passed in England that every native of the counties north of the Trent must wear a white hat, and every man to the south a black one, two new factions would be at once created, and the streets of London would be an arena for their trial of strength. Though England possesses an aristocracy, yet the poorest man in the kingdom may rise to become a member of it; and there is no law to prevent a man, whose father was in trade, from rising to be a general officer or a bishop. He ordered a new scale of fees for legal certificates and bills of sale, which ignorant or corrupt magistrates had raised to an exorbitant price, and which they enforced with the stick. He appointed Cocceji controller-general of the courts, with power to revise all proceedings, and if he thought a cause unjustly decided, to bring it before the king in council. He abolished appeals to the imperial tribunal, and references to foreign lawyers, whom it had been usual for the judges to consult in difficult cases. By Cocceji's advice the office of attorneys was abolished, and the number of barristers limited, and they were obliged to confine their practice to one court. Every precaution was used to prevent delay, as Cocceji declared it was better that the debtor should suffer, than that he should be allowed to ruin his creditor on pretence of protecting himself. (Our law courts might take a hint from this maxim.) An ordinance was also issued call-give each of his new provinces a government ing upon judges and lawyers to make a return of the suits then pending, the length of time they had been before the court, and the reasons which prevented their being decided. The result was as follows: "In May, 1747, Cocceji announced with no little satisfaction that a lawsuit between the court of exchequer and certain nobles touching certain boundaries, that had lasted more than 200 years, and filled above seventy volumes of manuscript, had been brought to a conclusion satisfactory to the parties mainly by the industry of Jarriges and Fürst. In this manner they worked during the whole year. In January, 1748, Cocceji reckoned that, during the past year, 1600 old, and 684 new suits had been before the court in Stettin; and 800 old, and 310 new, in Cöslin. All the old cases had been decided; and of the new ones, only 183 remained outstanding in Stettin, and 169 in Cöslin. Your Majesty perceives,' exclaimed Cocceji, what can be done by courts of justice presided over by learned and upright men.'"-Ranke, vol. iii. 371. In Frederick's arrangements there was one element of the feudal system which he left To prevent the revival of old disputes, Frederick declared that no nobleman should be called upon to prove his title to his estate further back than 1740; and he endeavored to according to the habits and genius of the people. Frederick William had long ago projected improvements in agriculture and commerce, which his son continued with the greatest zeal. Vast tracts of lands were drained by his orders, and families who understood spinning were encouraged to settle. He considered it a fortunate discovery, that where his predecessors imported yarn, he imported the men to make it. To his manufacturing families he allotted a house and garden, and the grass of two cows; and reckoned that he could thus settle a thousand families in the year. He encouraged bricklayers who came to Berlin to remain in his dominions, and found employment for them. When he found his colonists troublesome (as a transplanted race usually are), he comforted himself that though the first generation are not worth much, their descendants would improve. The local governments were allowed to reserve to themselves the right of regulating the number of artisans in each branch; and if they increased too much in any given locality, they were sent without appeal into the next province. Thus we have an instance of the singular combination of improvement and despotism which characterizes all the acts of Frederick the Great. All this, and much more, will be read with interest; it is to us by far the most agreeable portion of the book. We have little knowledge of tactics; and the dry details of skirmishes and engagements, in which the Prussians are one day victorious, and defeated the next, is matter of little curiosity to us. We confess ourselves, therefore, little able to appreciate either the professor's details or the king's narrative of his own exploits; and we feel rather inclined to sympathize with escape "Si sciat hoc alter, scire tuum nihil est.” pole or Lord Bute could penetrate the We do not suppose that Sir Robert Walschemes of their German contemporaries, much less is it possible to do so accurately at this day. This must plead our excuse immediate subject, and rather leading them with our readers for departing from our Wilhelmina, than following the hero through to join us in gossiping with the Princess through the mazes of diplomacy. Our prothe toils of the camp, or the politician fessor does both, and to those who prefer be more acceptable than lighter reading. such studies as more solid, he will doubtless much has been written and published lately, We have given but a short sketch; but, as much has been written and published lately, will find ample means of gratifying it. The if we have awakened curiosity, our readers proper study for mankind is man; and he always turn with pleasure to the history of who reads for his own improvement will Gil Blas, when he was valet to the old colonel, and thought himself safe, if, in undressing his master and taking off his leg, he could with two battles and a siege. Again, political manoeuvring is as little interesting to the generality of readers as military tactics; and it has this disadvantage, that the accounts are less likely to be properly authenticated. What George II. or his ad-genius, and the gradual development of the visers desired to do; what Charles VI. or Maria Theresa would have done if they could, and what they pretended to do in order to conceal their real intentions, are to us matters extremely apocryphal, and for this obvious reason,-diplomacy is the art of concealment; the politician has always reversed the principle of the philosopher, and instead of wishing that others should know what he knows, his maxim is, powers of nations and men. Frederick, however, presents another instance of the vanity of all earthly ambition; he lived long, and gained much, but he did so at the expense have forgotten that true happiness consists in the knowledge and service of God, and that, of almost incredible labor; and he seems to "Give all he can, without Him we are poor, EARLY DAYS OF NAPOLEON. THIERS, in his History of the Consulate, relates some very strange and previously unknown particulars respecting the early life and penury of Napoleon Bonaparte. It appears that after he had obtained a subaltern's commission in the French service, and after he had done the State good service by his skill and daring at Toulon, he lived for some time in Paris in obscure lodgings, and in such extreme poverty that he was often without the means of paying ten sous (5d.) for his dinner, and frequently went without any meal at all. He was under the necessity of borrowing small sums, and even worn out clothes, from his acquaintances! He and his brother Louis, afterward King of Holland, had at one time only one coat between them, so the brothers could only go out alternately, turn and turn about. At this crisis the chief benefactor of the future Emperor and conqueror "at whose mighty name the world grew pale," was the actor Talma, who often gave him food and money. Napoleon's face, afterward so famed for its classical mould, was, during this period of starvation, harsh and angular in its lineaments, with projecting cheek bones. His meagre fare brought on an unpleasant and unsightly cutaneous disease, of a type se virulent and malignant, that it took all the skill and assiduity of his accomplished physician, Corvisart, to expel it after a duration of more than ten years. The squalid beggar then, the splendid Emperor afterward,—the threadbare habiliment, the imperial mantle,-the hovel and the palace, the meagre food and the gorgeous banquet,-the friendship of a poor actor, the homage and the terror of the world,—an exile and a prisoner, such are the ups and downs of this changeable life, such the lights and shadows of the great and mighty. From Bentley's Miscellany. THE PRESS DURING THE PAST YEAR. THE Press, the mighty Press, so ambitious and so laborious, that looks so high, that attempts, and does so much; that lends itself so readily to all purposes and to all parties, to the vicious and the virtuous; to the cause of good order and the furtherance of disorder; that gives utterance equally to the thoughts of the wise, to the devices of the crafty, and to the fancies of fools; that is the ever-ready tool of all men, and that some men use to their very great profit and honor, and others to their ruin and dishonor; this all-powerful agent for evil or for good, to work weal or woe to the thousand millions of this world's inhabitants, comes now before us, on this the first day of a New Year, to render an account of its labors throughout the year which is past and gone forever. Indeed, there are times with us all, when it is prudent and right that we should, for a moment or so, consider our ways, and assure ourselves that we are walking and working wisely and safely; and, as the Press, like ourselves, has a character to lose, and is often exposed to much misrepresentation and abuse, and is very properly anxious to stand well in the world's opinion, it has entrusted this office to us, to say, briefly and honestly, what, by night and by day, through the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year of Grace 1849, the Press has been doing within the limits of the United Kingdom. Unavoidably, and of very necessity, we must do the Press no little injustice in this matter, since of much that it does we can know but very little; so hard does it work while we are asleep, and so much does it work in places of which we have scarcely any knowledge; yet, of what we do know we will now report. The Press never knows of any intermission to its labors. Now, what these labors are, may in some little measure be judged of by this fact, that to gratify the desire, which we all more or less have, to know the general news of the day, the Press sends forth in the daily papers a printed surface which amounts in the year to 347,308,000 superficial feet; and, if we add to these all the papers that are printed, weekly and fortnightly, in the metropolis and the provinces, the whole amounts to 1,466,150,000 square feet, upon which the Press has left in legible characters the proof of its labors. Of the Newspapers, therefore, that have been published in the United Kingdom during the year 1849, we may say, that they would cover a surface of 33,858 acres, or would extend, if joined one to another, to 138,843 miles; that is, they would nearly six times encircle the earth at the equator. But to this daily and weekly labor to supply subjects which men will insist to be daily and weekly gratified with, must be added those many monthly and quarterly publications, for which we are content to wait somewhat more patiently. It is no light toil, however, to prepare these for our use, since these, if spread out, sheet by sheet, would cover 4700 acres, and would extend, with a breadth of one foot, to 38,000 miles. Upon these publications alone has the Press, through the year 1849, used up considerably more than 1000 tons of paper. And who can say what the results of such labors are, or by what skill and toil, by what talents and risks, such results have been produced? It is only by unceasing vigilance, and untiring exertion, and intense application of mind and body to the work, that all the advantages and enjoyments of the daily papers are secured to us. But let us give praise where especial praise is due, even to that giant of the Press, "The Times," than with whom none, for usefulness or completeness, can compete or compare. That paper keeps no fools on its staff, but the very ablest writers, the most acute reasoners,-men with intellects of the highest order, with minds the most gifted, with talents the most distinguished, with acquirements the most varied; and such is their energy, activity, thought, and enterprise, that they will suffer none to have equal energy with themselves. And we daily see the sum of the united daily toils of this phalanx of able men. What a mass of information they contrive, | Now, the result of this inquiry is in the day by day, to collect together; and how highest degree creditable to both the Press ably they arrange it, how briefly they state and the public. Of trash there may have it, how accurately they report it! Nothing been more than sufficient, and of twaddle of general interest escapes their vigilance or enough to weary the most patient and wakeful notice; no subject is beneath them, none too of reviewers; but the discouragement given hard for them: whatever concerns others to these in years past, may have partially concerns them, and hence the patronage acted as a check upon their production in the "The Times" receives, and the circulation it year 1849. We have very little to complain obtains. of on this score. The works which have most abounded are works of real usefulness, of great present interest, and of lasting importance, as we shall proceed to show. Nor is this circulation unworthy of a paragraph. "The Times" publishes daily, according to the season, from 28,000 to 33,000 copies; but 30,000 the year through, is, probably, the daily average of the copies "The Times" sends out. Now this paper, with its supplement, if spread out on the floor, would be found to cover a space of 9 feet by 2-18 feet; and if 30,000 of these are printed daily, and the printing days are 313 in the year, it follows, that what "The Times" Office sends forth each year, would cover an estate, and would purchase two such, of 3880 acres; and what they send forth in eighteen months, would completely encircle the earth at the equator. But we turn from the daily Press, which interest us chiefly for the moment, to those more stately publications, the folios and quartos, the useful octavos and the humble duodecimos, of which the writers too often vainly hope that they will be hailed by the world's applause, and a vast mine of wealth will be opened to them. Of all fallacies this is one of the most deceiving, the most frequent, and the most mortifying to write a book which the reviewer cannot praise, and which the public will not purchase, is gall and bitterness indeed, and deep affliction of spirit; but it is a needful correction to the vain, and a just recompense to the presumptuous. Of the Press's labors in this department of literature we must, on this occasion at least, confine our observations to what it has done in London alone, and from the lists now before us, should say, that about 4000 new works, or new editions of old works, have issued from the press of the Metropolis during the year 1849. Of the number of impressions of each of these which have found their way to the public, we can know nothing, and should probably say nothing, even if we knew; but it is rather more to our purpose to define the books that are published,-to discover what the Press has been most busy upon,-what class of works the public most patronize, or that they who write to be read, conclude the public would most wish to have. Whatever a few may think, the thoughts of the many most decidedly are to the things of eternity, rather than of time; the works upon Theology, or Divinity, or by whatever name we would designate what refers chiefly to the soul, exceeding four times over those of any other, of the many subjects which the Press has brought under our notice. We were not prepared for this result to our inquiries, but we rejoice at it, and regard it as a certain sign of the healthy tone of the public mind-of the strong and general religious feelings of the nation. We take into no account, in this case, the four millions and upward of books and tracts circulated within the year by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, nor of the one million one hundred thousand by the British and Foreign Bible Society,-nor of the large number sent out by the Religious Tract Society,-nor of the many thousands upon thousands of Bibles and Prayer Books which issue yearly from the presses of Oxford and Cambridge, of Bagster and others, in every variety of form, and expensiveness of decoration; but will keep strictly to the four thousand new publications, as they appear in the trades' circular, and we announce the fact with pride and with pleasure, that one-fifth of the works which the press of London has been engaged upon, during the last twelve months, are decidedly of a religious character. The fact speaks volumes for the sound religious principles of a vast majority of the English people, and it accounts fully for the tranquillity we enjoy, and for the sober, quiet way in which we pursue our several avocations, to the enriching ourselves, without despoiling our neighbors. Having thus proved how greatly we care for our souls, the Press then certifies to us that our next greatest care is for our property, books upon law being more in number than any other after divinity. Some of these are really most instructive books to all classes; and to name one out of many, we consider that Colquhoun's "Summary of the Roman Civil Law," with its commentaries and parallels, would be found a very valuable class-book in every school and college In the kingdom. | from their intrinsic value, are the Rupert Letters, which have strangely confounded all the novelist writers of the histories of the Civil Wars, and have occasioned an unpublished history or two to be thrown, as damHaving taken due care of our property, we aged property, into the fire. There is, in then give attention to what concerns our truth, people discover, no gainsaying what health; and the large number of works upon the " Rupert Correspondence" asserts; it is Medicine, published throughout the year, tes- useless to distort facts from what we there tifies to the alarm the Cholera excited, and find them to be; there we have the truth the total ignorance of medical men as to the from eye-witnesses and from the actors in nature of it and the right treatment of it; and those scenes, ungarbled and undisguised; we know of nothing more damaging to the and it matters not what writers now say or profession than their contradictory opinions think, if their thoughts or words are opposand practice upon this one disease. Arranted to the facts which the Rupert Letters disquacks must many of them be, if the books they write are any evidence of their real opinions on this matter; men of little useful knowldge and with very deficient understandings, f their letters and pamphlets are to be considered as the test of either. With our property safe and our health cared for, we may next give a thought to the subject that stands next on our list, which is the History of past Ages and Nations,-of times long gone by, or barely preceding our own. Foremost among these is a reprint of Thirlwall's "History of Greece," and a new volume of Grote's "History of Greece," a very able work, displaying great learning and research, much patient investigation, and many original and strong party views of powerfully interesting subjects, but we shall not for this displace Mitford from our shelves. Macaulay is publishing his personal opinions upon men and their proceedings during the last two hundred years in his "History of England," the great popularity of which is attested by the almost unprecedented sale of it--upward of twenty thousand copies. It is brilliantly written, and men read it, and will continue for years to read it, from precisely the same cause that they continue to read Sir Walter Scott's historical novels; namely, for their own amusement and from their admiration of the writer's dashing style, of his dexterity and odd fancies and strong prejudices. Its value as a history, strictly speaking, will become a matter of history, perhaps, ten years hence. Of other works of this class, such as Kemble's "Saxons," we may hereafter probably speak, and more in detail. With these more formal histories we may connect those valuable materials for history, which are to be found in the Memoirs and Correspondence of public men in times gone by, several of which the past year has laid open to us. And the first we may name, VOL. XIX. NO. IV. close. The "Fairfax Correspondence" is another valuable contribution to our historical stores. The numerous letters may not have been made the most of, and the political opinions of the present day may have been. mixed up more than was needed with these records of the past, but their value is, nevertheless, unquestionable. They are faithful evidences of what men thought and did, and why they so thought and so acted; they unfold to us new views of some of the leading men in those stormy times, and enable us to judge far more correctly of their characters, and far more charitably of their motives, with less prejudice and with far greater satisfaction. The "Memoirs" by Keith and Lindsay are of a later date, and read admirably well with "Horace Walpole's Memoirs;" but those of such men as Lord Hervey and Lord Castlereagh, who lived almost with us and amongst us, must of very necessity be either in some measure imperfect or in some measure objectionable; since, if all their letters are published, many persons who are living must be injured and many a fair character would be damaged; and if many are held back, then the value of the memoirs as helps to history is so far depreciated. Biography supplies a very large class of publications, and they are works that in general sell well; the object of the notice being usually, in some sense or other, a partyman, committed to a party either in politics or religion, or both; his party, therefore, praise and patronize the work on principle and purchase it largely. Of Travels and researches in other lands there are above two hundred separate publications, and of many of these it would be impossible to speak too highly. Layard's "Nineveh" has procured for him a triple reputation,-European, Asiatic, and American, 82 |