it has had was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night, there were but four hundred people. A parson who came into White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake of the blowing up of powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalised, and said: 'I protest they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.' If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water; I am already planning a terreno for Strawberry Hill.

The Middlesex election is carried against the court: the Prince in a green frockand I won't swear but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat-sat under the park-wali in his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant-this is wise! They will spend their money to carry a few more seats in a parliament where they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for Westminster; the high-bailiff went to vote for the opposition.

DR. ADAM SMITH.

DR. ADAM SMITH'S 'Wealth of Nations,' published in 1776, laid the foundation of the science of political economy. Some of its leading principles had been indicated by Hobbes and Locke; Mandeville had also in his 'Fable of the Bees' (see ante,) illustrated the advantages of free trade, and Hume in his essays had shewn that no nation could profit by stopping the natural flood of commerce between itself and the rest of the world. Several French writers, moreover, had made considerable advances towards the formation of a system. Smith, however, after a labour of ten years, produced a complete system of political economy; and the execution of his work evinces such indefatigable research, so much sagacity, learning, and information, derived from arts and manufactures, no less than from books, that the 'Wealth of Nations' must always be regarded as one of the greatest works on political philosophy. Its leading principles, as enumerated by its best and latest commentator, Mr. M'Culloch, may be thus summed up: 'He shewed that the only source of the opulence of nations is labour; that the natural wish to augment our fortunes and rise in the world is the cause of riches being accumulated. He demonstrated that labour is productive of wealth, when employed in manufactures and commerce, as well as when it is employed in the cultivation of land; he traced the various means by which labour may be rendered most effective; and gave a most admirable analysis and exposition of the prodigious addition made to its efficacy by its division among different individuals and countries, and by the employment of accumulated wealth or capital in industrious undertakings.

He also shewed, in opposition to the commonly received opinions of the merchants, politicians, and statesmen of his time, that wealth does not consist in the abundance of gold and silver, but in the abundance of the various necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life; that it is in every case sound policy to leave individuals to pursue their own interest in their own way; that, in prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to themselves, they neces

sarily prosecute such as are at the same time advantageous to the public; and that every regulation intended to force industry into particular channels, or to determine the species of commercial intercourse to be carried on between different parts of the same country, or between distant and independent countries, is impolitic and pernicious.* Though correct in his fundamental positions, Dr. Smith has been shewn to be guilty of several errors. He does not always reason correctly from the principles he lays down; and some of his distinctions—as that between the different classes of society as productive and unproductive consumers—have been shewn, by a more careful analysis and observation, to be unfounded. In this work, as in his Moral Sentiments,' Smith is copious and happy in his illustrations. The following account of the advantages of the division of labour is very finely written:

Advantages of the Division of Labour.

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer in a civilised and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world! What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smoting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting - house, the brick-maker, the brick-layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine in the same manner all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen and pewter plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and cooperation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could

* M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy.

not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.

ADAM FERGUSON-LORD MONBODDO.

DR. ADAM FERGUSON (1724-1816), son of the minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, was educated at St. Andrews: removing to Edinburgh, he became an associate of Dr. Robertson, Blair, Home, &c. In 1744, he entered the 42d regiment as chaplain, and continued in that situation till 1757, when he resigned it, and became tutor in the family of Lord Bute. He was afterwards professor of natural philosophy and of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. In 1778, he went to America as secretary to the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the revolted colonies: on his return he resumed the duties of his professorship. His latter days were spent in ease and affluence at St. Andrews, where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-two. The works of Dr. Ferguson are- The History of Civil Society,' published in 1766; Institutes of Moral Philosophy,' 1769; A Reply to Dr. Price on Civil and Religious Liberty,' 1776; The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Re public,' 1783; and 'Principles of Moral and Political Science,' 1792. Sir Walter Scott, who was personally acquainted with Ferguson, supplies some interesting information as to the latter years of this venerable professor, whom he considered the most striking example of the Stoic philosopher which could be seen in modern days. He had a shock of paralysis in the sixtieth year of his life, from which period he became a strict Pythagorean in his diet, eating nothing but vegetables, and drinking only water or milk. The deep interest which he took in the French war had long seemed to be the main tie which connected him with passing existence; and the news of Waterloo acted on the aged patriot as a nunc dimittis.

On the Changes in Society.-From the Essay on the History of Civil Society."

Mankind have twice within the compass of history ascended from rude begin nings to very high degrees of refinement. In every age, whether destined by its temporary disposition to build or to destroy, they have left the vestiges of an active and vehement spirit. The pavement and the ruins of Rome are buried in dust, shaken from the feet of barbarians, who trod with contempt on the refinements of luxury, and spurned those arts the use of which it was reserved for the posterity of the same people to discover and to admire. The tents of the wild Arab are even now pitched among the ruins of magnificent cities; and the waste fields which border on Palestine and Syria are perhaps become again the nursery of infant nations. The chieftain of an Arab tribe, like the founder of Rome, may have already fixed the roots of a plant that is to flourish in some future period, or laid the foundations of a fabric that will attain to its grandeur in some distant age.

Great part of Africa has been always unknown; but the silence of fame, on the subject of its revolutions, is an argument, where no other proof can be found, of

weakness in the genius of its people. The torrid zone, everywhere round the globe, however known to the geographer, has furnished few materials for history; and though in many places supplied with the arts of life in no contemptible degree, has nowhere matured the more important projects of political wisdom, nor inspired the virtues which are connected with freedom, and which are required in the conduct of civil affairs. It was indeed in the torrid zone that mere arts of mechanism and manufacture were found, among the inhabitants of the new world, to have made the greatest advance; it is in India, and in the regions of this hemisphere which are visited by the vertical sun, that the arts of manufacture and the practice of commerce are of the greatest antiquity, and have survived, with the smallest diminution, the ruins of time and the revolutions of emp.re. The sun, it seems, which ripens the pine-apple and the tamarind, inspires a degree of mildness that can even assuage the rigours of despotical government: and such is the effect of a gentle and pacific disposition in the natives of the East, that no conquest, no irruption of barbarians, terminates, as they did among the stubborn natives of Europe, by a total destruction of what the love of ease and of pleasure had produced.

Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate in his sensibility; extensive and various in his imaginations and reflections; attentive, penetrating, and subtle in what relates to his fellow creatures; firm and ardent in his purposes; devoted to friendship or to enmity; jealous of his independence and his honour, which he will not relinquish for safety or for profit; under all his corruptions or improvements, he retains his natural sensibility, if not his force; and his commerce is a blessing or a curse, according to the direction his mind has received. But under the extremes of heat or of cold, the active range of the human soul appears to be iimited; and men are of inferior importance, either as friends or as enemies. In the one extreine, they are dull and slow, moderate in their desires, regular and pacific in their manner of life; in the other, they are feverish in their passions, weak in their judgments, and addicted by temperament to animal pleasure. In both, the heart is mercenary, and makes important concessions for childish bribes; in both, the spirit is prepared for servitude; in the one, it is subdued by fear of the future; in the other, it is not roused even by its sense of the present.

·

LORD MONBODDO'S Essay on the Origin and Progress of Language,' published in 1771-3 and 1776, is one of those singular works which at once provoke study and ridicule. The author was a man of real learning and talents, but a humorist in character and opinions. He was an enthusiast in Greek literature and antiquities, and a worshipper of Homer. So far did he carry this, that, finding carriages were not in use among the ancients, he never would enter one, but made all his journeys to London-which he visited once a year-and other places on horseback, and continued the practice till he was upwards of eighty. He said it was a degradation of the genuine dignity of human nature to be dragged at the tail of a horse instead of mounting upon his back! The eccentric philosopher was less careful of the dignity of human nature in some of his opinions. He gravely maintains in his 'Essay' that men were originally monkeys, in which condition they remained for ages destitute of speech, reason, and social affections. They gradually improved, according to Monboddo's theory, as geologists say the earth was changed by successive revolutions; but he contends that the orang-outangs are still of the human species, and that in the Bay of Bengal there exists a nation of human beings with tails like monkeys, which had been discovered a hundred and thirty years before by a Swedish skipper.

When Sir Joseph Banks returned from Botany Bay, Monboddo inquired after the long-tailed men, and, according to Dr. Johnson,

was not pleased that they had not been found in all his peregrinations. All the moral sentiments and domestic affections were according to this whimsical philosopher, the result of art, contrivance, and experience, as much as writing, ship-building, or any other mechanical invention; and hence he places man, in his natural state, below beavers and sea-cats, which he terms social and political animals! The laughable absurdity of these doctrines must have protected their author from the fulminations of the clergy, who were then so eager to attack all the metaphysical opponents of revealed religion. In 1779, Monboddo published an elaborate work on ancient metaphysies, in three volumes quarto, which, like his former publication is equally learned and equally whimsical. James Burnet, Lord Monboddo, died in Edinburgh, May 26, 1799, at the advanced age of eighty-five. WILLIAM HARRIS (1720-1770), a dissenting divine in Devonshire, published historical memoirs of James I., Charles I., Oliver Cromwell, and Charles II. These works were written in imitation of the manner of Bayle, the text being subordinate to the notes and illustrations. Very frequently only a single line of the memoir is contained in the page, the rest been wholly notes. As depositories of original papers, the memoirs of Harris-which are still to be met with in five volumes-were valuable until superseded by better works: the original part is trifling in extent, and written without either merit or pretension.

JAMES HARRIS of Salisbury (1709–1780), a learned benevolent man, published in 1744 treatises on art, on music and painting, and on happiness. He afterwards (1751) produced his celebrated work, Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar.' The definitions of Harris are considered arbitrary, and often unnecessary, and his rules are complicated; but his profound acquaintance with Greek literature, and his general learning, supplying numerous illustrations, enabled him to produce a curious and valuable publication. Every writer on the history and philosophy of grammar must consult Hermes.' Unfortunately the study of the ancient dialects of the northern nations was little prevalent at the time of Mr. Harris, and to this cause-as was the case also with many of the etymological distinctions in Johnson's Dictionary-must be attributed some of his errors and the imperfection of his plan. Mr. Harris was a man of rank and fortune: he sat several years in parliament, and was successively a lord of the admiralty and lord of the treasury. In 1774, he was made secretary and comptroller to the queen, which he held till his death in 1780. His son, Lord Malmesbury, published, in 1801, a complete edition of his works in two volumes quarto. Harris relates the following interesting anecdote of a Greek pilot, to shew that even among the present Greeks, in the day of servitude, the remembrance of their ancient glory is not extinct; When the late Mr. Anson-Lord Anson's brother-was upon his travels in the East, he hired a vessel to visit the Isle of Tenedos.