and effect. They say, that increase of population causes misery; while the truth is, that misery causes the increase of population. Of course, we must reverse the Malthusian precepts for the management of the poor; instead of preaching abstinence and moral restraint to them, and endeavouring to starve them into it, instead of separating the sexes in workhouses, prohibiting out-door relief, discountenancing public and private charity, and declaring that the condition of the destitute classes is hopeless, and that interference with them will only increase their misery, — we must strive to succour and elevate them, to give them a stake in life, to surround them not only with necessaries, but with some comforts and luxuries, the fear of losing which will inculcate prudence more strongly, will do more to deter them from forming imprudent marriages, than all the lectures of Dr. Chalmers, or all the stories and illustrations of Miss Martineau. The difficulty of accomplishing all this is unquestionably great, but any thing is better than the despondency of McCulloch, who speaks gloomily of "the irremediable helotism of the great majority" of the laboring classes, but, in conformity with the principles of the Chrematistic school, of which he is the great expounder and advocate, has no advice to offer except to take away all the remaining restrictions on trade, and then "to fold our arms, and leave the dénouement to time and Providence." *

In

That the view here taken of the law of population is the only correct one is shown not only by theoretical considerations, but by the incontrovertible evidence of facts. France, where the land is minutely divided, and the peasantry are vastly better off than in England, the rate of increase of the population, for ten years, is only 5 per cent., while in the latter country it is 15, and in Connaught, the sink of Irish misery and degradation, from 1821 to 1831, it was as high as 22 per cent. In the province of Ulster the rate is 14, while in the county of Donegal it rises to 20 per cent.

"And this is precisely the county which official reports represent as forming an exception to the general condition of Presbyterian Ulster, and affording an instance of poverty little less extreme than that of Connaught. In the latter province, we find

* McCulloch on Taxation. London, 1845, pp. 110, 111.

Galway and Mayo, notoriously the two most destitute counties, exhibiting, the one an increase of 27, and the other of 25 per cent. In Munster, we find Clare, Kerry, and Tipperary at the head of the list." Laing on National Distress, p. 67.

But enough; the subject leads on to endless disquisition and illustrations, and we have already much exceeded our limits. We have pointed out the evils in the social condition of England, and some of the causes of them, certainly with no feeling of bitterness, and in no vainglorious spirit, because the condition of our own population is so much happier, and because our political institutions exhibit tendencies the very opposite of those which have imposed this intolerable burden of poverty and wretchedness upon the necks of British subjects. The spectacle is too awful, the prospect is too appalling, to excite any other emotions than those of the deepest sympathy and commiseration. The causes of the evil are deeply seated; they are inwoven with the very texture of British institutions, and cannot be removed without destroying the whole fabric. The feudalism of wealth, the serfdom of the laboring classes, are so firmly anchored in the empire, that they can be shaken only by the hurricane strength of a revolution like that which prostrated the throne and the nobility of France in 1789. The immediate cause of the wildest excesses of that epoch was a cry of the populace for bread; and one of the great permanent effects of that memorable convulsion was the adoption of a democratic law regulating the descent of property. England is already heaving with the first throes of a similar outbreak. The frequent suspension of the Habeas Corpus act in Ireland, and the disarming of its people, the Chartist disturbances in 1838, and the riots in the midland counties in 1842, are signs the purport of which cannot be mistaken. Even now, peace is maintained only at the point of the bayonet, by the presence of large bodies of troops, and of an armed and disciplined police. These facts are full of warning to the stoutest declaimer for the preservation of noble families, and for the extension of great landed estates. Let the blessings of an hereditary aristocracy be what they may, admit all that is claimed for it by such advocates as Alison and Dr. Chalmers, it is still possible that they may be purchased at too high a price.

ART. IX. CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.- The Roman Traitor: a True Tale of the Republic. A Historical Romance. By HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, Author of "Marmaduke Wyvil," "Cromwell," "The Brothers," &c. New York: William Taylor. 1847. 2 vols. 12mo.

We are not so fortunate as to have read any of the writings of Mr. Herbert, save the work whose title stands at the head of this brief notice. We say fortunate; for, if his other writings, in respect to ability, at least, are of the same high order as this, we may consider it a misfortune not to have fallen in with them. But that a certain book, or the book of a certain author, should not have been met with in these latitudes, argues nothing, we would remark, to the disadvantage either of author or book. It simply goes to show, among other facts, that great numbers of undoubtedly good and learned works are yearly printed and published in New York and Philadelphia, not one of which ever visits the shelves of a bookseller of our modern Athens; and, on the other hand, that an equal number of our Boston books are not so common as we, who sometimes make books, wish they were in the shops of the chief men of the craft in our Southern capitals. Our literature, we are sorry to say it, is local, exclusive, bounded, not by Mason and Dixon's line, indeed - who reads a Southern book?. - but by the Hudson and the Delaware.

This is one sufficient reason why The Roman Traitor has never been allowed to commit his treasons in these Northern parts. And not only has this remarkable work not been read here, but, what is stranger still, it has not, as far as we know, been reviewed; though that it has not been read is no conclusive evidence, as the world goes, that it may not have been reviewed. We notice it now, not because, within our present limits, and at the close of our number, we can in any sense do it proper justice, but because, as it was not till the very last moment laid upon our table, - owing to the causes above hinted at, we cannot let another three months pass by without just commending it to the public as a work of learning, taste, and power. It gives throughout abundant tokens of genius and fine scholarship; and no one can read it and not receive yet deeper impressions of the gigantic vices and crimes, and sometimes the almost equally gigantic, but for the most part the pigmy, virtues of the great republic. The theme of the romance is Catiline, - Catiline the conspirator, the traitor, the assassin, the vulgar murderer, the violator, the VOL. LXV. - No. 137. 43

savage, fiend, and brute, and all in one, therefore, the genuine Roman. We do not see that the author exaggerates any of the darker shades of the Roman character in general, or of the character of Catiline in particular. Indeed, it were impossible, with the most adventurous imagination, to overdraw a portrait of the cruelty, licentiousness, and crime of that people; — that is, if a tithe of what their own poets and historians have transmitted is true. But while Mr. Herbert does ample justice, with a pen. dipped, as it should be, in Stygian dyes, to the enormous wickedness of Rome, to the characters both of her men and her women, whose equals for moral turpitude no other empire has ever seen, he does not paint vice alone; he has a heart and a pen for depicting with quite equal vigor and truth to nature woman's loveliness and virtue, and the gentle scenes where their triumphs are found. The scene which for moral power and beauty most impressed us — and it is one unsurpassed, we are ready to say, in any of our modern fictions for every element of moral poweris that where Arvina and Julia are reconciled, after his frank confession of unfaithfulness at the supper given to a few of his friends by Catiline, where Lucia, the natural daughter of the traitor, is introduced, and, by seducing the virtue of Arvina, lays the train for the most important incidents of the narrative. All the finer and more gentle emotions and affections are here brought into play, and an interview of highest interest and deepest pathos ensues, managed throughout with great knowledge of human nature, and with the consummate skill of an accomplished artist. The supper scene which precedes it, though no more than Roman in its voluptuousness, quite reaches, we think, the limits of what is allowable, in these times, for a writer to present to his reader, or wholesome for the reader to contemplate even on the printed page. It is hardly enough to say, in defence of such pictures, that they are transcripts from human nature and real life. Our limited space prevents us from dwelling upon particular traits and single characters introduced upon the scene. But we must refer in one word to the admirable delineation of the great Consul and Orator, in whose period of office the Catiline conspiracy was crushed. We think Mr. Herbert has shown in this a profound insight, acquired by investigating the authenticated facts of Cicero's life, and carefully studying his works. The translation of the first Catiline oration, which the course of the story requires to be given entire, is executed with great fidelity and vigor; and the whole scene which passed in the Senate on that occasion is drawn with masterly effect. He has also interwoven spirited translations of the speeches of Cæsar, Cato, and Catiline, as presented by Sallust. In the first volume, also, Mr.

Herbert has introduced two songs in the antique measures.

The

first is an Alcaic ode, as constructed by Horace. It is sung in a blacksmith's stithy, by the sturdy workmen, as they ply their sledges. So far as the thing can be done in the English language, Mr. Herbert has represented the quantitative rhythm of the Latin, and produced a singularly fine specimen of the modern antique. The same general remark may be applied to the Sapphic and Adonian stanzas, sung by Egle at the house of Fulvia. We should be glad to quote them both, if we had room.

A Discourse on the Life and Character of the late John A. G. Davis, Professor of Law in the University of Virginia; delivered before the Society of Alumni, June 29th, 1847. By LUCIAN MINOR, Esq. Richmond. 1847. 8vo. pp. 32.

OUR readers will remember the thrill of horror which went through the country in 1840, when the news circulated that a valuable and distinguished citizen had fallen a victim to the unbridled passions of a profligate young man ; that the life of Mr. Davis, the able Professor of Law in the University of Virginia, had been taken by a student whose turbulence he was endeavouring in the course of his official duty to repress. The murderer fled; but the active efforts of the community were speedily suc cessful in accomplishing his arrest, and justice seemed in a fair way of receiving its due. Unhappily, the ignorance, weakness, or corruption of a magistrate set the blood-stained culprit at large on bail. The sum, to be sure, was a heavy one, but the great wealth of the family enabled them readily to meet the penalty; and the ancient and proud Commonwealth of Virginia stood in the unenviable attitude of the barbarian who takes in atonement for the blood of a kinsman a compensation in money. But though the laws of man were thus evaded by "wealth which is stained by filth of hands," the judgment of God followed the murderer over the face of the earth. The terrors of a guilty conscience, personified by the ancient poets as the avenging Erinnys, hunted the wretched victim of profligacy and crime, until he was driven to complete by suicide the tragedy which he had commenced with murder. What guilt, and what retribution, transcending all human punishment!

The Discourse, whose title is placed at the head of this notice, was delivered before the Society of the Alumni of the University.