of a thing which never existed. Since the whole effective power resides in the popular body, its relative importance cannot have been diminished; and as the other co-ordinate branches of government are distinct powers rather in form than in reality, any apparent increase in their influence is in fact only an increase in the general attributions of the government, resulting from an increased action of the society in its political capacity. FRANKLIN. This, my dear President, appears to me the correct opinion. How can the influence of the crown have increased and be increasing, when it is now and always has been null? In this respect, therefore, the constitu tion requires no reform: nor is there much more consistency in the popular cry for reform in the house of commons. The composition of the house of commons is irregular, but it represents with sufficient fairness the property of the country, which is itself a pretty fair representation of all the interests affected by legislation. I have remarked before, that the forms of elections are in a great measure indifferent: and the manner in which the house is composed is well calculated to bring into it a great share of talent and instruction. The demand for reform proceeds from two descriptions of persons. With one it is merely the cry of distress for bread. With the other it means a few slight alterations in the mode of administration, which would not affect in a sensible degree the principles or the operations of the government. The principal defect of the British constitution appears to me to consist in the unjust principles upon which it provides for the distribution of property. If landed estates were placed on a level in this respect with other descriptions of property, a blow would be struck at the root of the great inequality of fortunes which would then disappear by a gentle and gradual process; and by the same means a steady and growing relief would be applied to the diseased state of the population, since the country would then be enabled to support a greater number of inhabitants. If in addition to this, the various laws now in force prohibiting and restraining industry and commerce in so many ways, were prudently aud gradually repealed, so that a healthy and natural relation might grow up between the demand for labour and its supply, every thing would have been done, which is in the power of legisla tion, to restore the country to its former tranquillity and prosperity. It would be necessary after this that the expenses of the government, or the taxes paid by the people, should be in proportion to those paid by other nations, or else the capital of the country would soon be transferred to places where it could be employed to greater advantage; and in this point lies the principal difficulty of the present situation of England. Whether we attribute the political measures of the last thirty years to mal-administration or to an unfortunate necessity, it is certain that they have left Great Britian loaded with debt, as well as covered with what is called glory. The interest at least must be paid. This is already an enormous charge on the industry of the country. As this evil is common in nearly the same extent to most of the other European nations, the effect is so far neutralized. in addition to this, the political importance of the country must be maintained; a little island must continue to be the arbiter of the world. Extensive fleets and armies must be kept up, expensive civil and military establishments must be supported in a thousand colonies all over the globe, which return no profit to the nation. The balance of power must be regulated in Europe at the cost of long, frequent, bloody and ruinous wars. Could not the safety of the inhabitants of the British isles from foreign inva sion and their happiness as far as it depends on civil institutions be secured at a cheaper rate? Of this their wise men must judge. If not, their danger results from their unfortunate situation, from the great disproportion between their necessary expenses, and the number of people that bear the burthen of them. Meanwhile my countrymen in the west are prosecuting their march in the career of national existence, blessed with liberty in its purest form, unincumbered with debt, an unlimited territory at command, and with all the enterprise of character and extent of information necessary to enable them to improve these advantages to the greatest possible degree. May they long continue to seek no other glory than that of being the happiest and consequently the wisest of nations! Safe from foreign violence behind the mighty wall of waters, which the blessing of providence has interposed for their defence between them and Europe, may they abjure forever the fatal passion of being feared and hated through the world! May their political efforts be solely intended to secure their own rights and to establish the custom of peace! Tu, regere imperio populos, Romane, memento: CHINESE MANNERS.* (North American Review, October, 1828.J You have made me bounce off my chair,' said lady Bradshaigh in a letter to the author of Sir Charles Grandison, 'you have made me bounce off my chair with reading that two good girls were in love with your hero, and that he was fond of both. I have such despicable notions of a divided love, that I cannot have an idea how a worthy object can entertain such a thought.' It is so long since we indulged ourselves with a reperusal of the celebrated work in question, that we are not able to say from our own recollection how far her ladyship's censure of the conduct of Sir Charles and his two enamoradas is justified by the standing rules of the code of romance, and the multiplied reports of cases illustrating it, that occupy the shelves of the circulating libraries. But if such was the horror of this sentimental person at the mere imagination of a double attachment, what would have been her astonishment and indignation, had Richardson wound up the novel, by actually marrying his pink of moral perfection to both the fair pretenders? The least violent result of such a proceeding would doubtless have been the immediate termination of the quiet little practical romance, which her immaculate ladyship (without disparagement to the claims of good Mrs. Richardson) was enacting in con Yu-Kiao-Li, ou les Deux Cousines; Roman Chinois, traduit par M. Abel Remusat; précédé d'une Préface où se trouve un Parallèle entre les Romans de la Chine et ceux de l'Europe. 4 vol. 12mo. Paris. 1828. nexion with the ingenious bookseller. Such, however, is in fact the catastrophe of the Chinese novel to which we are now to invite the reader's attention. The hero Sa-Yupe,* a young man far more learned and accomplished than Sir Charles, and not less handsome, elegant, and virtuous, after running the gauntlet for the space of four volumes, through the long train of cruel fa. thers, cross uncles, eccentric fortune-tellers, stupid rivals, and knowing chambermaids, which, it seems, forms the regular staple of an oriental as well as an occidental novel; besides passing with brilliant success several literary examinations, and making a great deal of first-rate poetry, achievements which the heroes of our romances, and, we fear we may add, the writers of them, would probably, in most cases, decline attempting, is finally rewarded for his merit and trouble, with the hands of the two cousins, Houngiu, or Red-Jasper, and Lo-Mengli, Dream-of-a-Peartree, whom he espouses on the same evening, both being by general acknowledgment among the prettiest and most amiable young women, as well as the best poetesses of the Celestial Empire. We are informed by the translator, that the work before us is not singular in this respect; and that this mode of disposing of their heroes and heroines, at the end of the story, is rather a favorite one with the Chinese laborers in this seductive department of the literary vineyard. Richardson does not appear to have been much alarmed by lady Bradshaigh's bouncing, and is reported as having, in his answer to the letter from which we have made the above extract, thrown out hints that polygamy itself was not so bad a thing, as she seemed to suppose, principle more lax than we should have expected from a * In this and the other Chinese words introduced in this article, the vowels express the sounds usually given to them in English; a as in mako, &க. |