ledge has lately taken in this country. To me it appears retrograding to its first principles, or rather, I should say, abandoning all principle whatever, and relapsing into pristine barbarism and immaturity. And what is extraordinary, this declension is not from want of encouragement (the usual cause of decline), but is the choice of its most zealous professors, who appear to have discovered that perfection is to be found more in rudeness than refinement; and that the latter only tends to establish meretricious standards of excellence, or sophistical systems, inapplicable or injurious to society. This, no doubt, is a singular result in the progress of intellect; but who can contemplate the prevailing taste in literature and science, without allowing, that this is the point to which we are advancing, or, as I should say, for it is a backward movement-retreating?

Thus, to begin with the alterations in our poetry and works of imagination. They are not only vandalized in style, but in sentiment. A new system of morals is introduced, belonging more to a natural, than civilized state. It is a compound of Moorish and Gothic barbarity, one class patronising the eastern, the other the northern barbarism. In both, however, is the same contempt of refinement of the modern virtues of dutiful love, humanity, prudence, and forgiveness; instead of which, we have the eternal hatred, license, and ferocity of savage life. The style, too, of some of the teachers in the new school, is of the same primitive character,—it disdains all rule. The old models, which I had been accustomed to look up to, are superseded, and a rambling, jolting, dove-tailed composition introduced-which, while it affects simplicity and strength, seems to me lamentably deficient in both. I can see no reason myself for these alterations in our national literature: I cannot see why the old standards should give way to these uncouth innovations; why we should exchange the elegance, terseness, and harmony, of our Popes, Addisons, Humes, Johnsons, and Robertsons, for a jargon, which alternately offends by its puerile affectations and tinsel extravagance.

If literature fixes the manners of a country, we may anticipate wild work indeed from the late change; our admiration of chivalry and sultanism, of old plays and old poets, will naturally bring their accompaniments-the old tapestry, the leathern doublet, the fardingale, the bow-string, and the finale. We may expect, too, a new crop of Don Quixotes and Bajazets-of witches, giants, dwarfs, elves, Pucks, bull beggars, and other monsters of the same genus. Already, indeed, we hear of one unfortunate gentleman from the North, (deeply read, no doubt, like the knight of La Mancha, in chivalric lore, and an admirer of the "olden time,") making his debût at a great public solemnity, in panoply, armed with dirk and pistol, to the great terror

of the fair dames assembled. This, it is to be hoped, will be a solitary instance of the dangerous tendency of the new school: for it would make sad work in a commercial country like England, were the windmills and fulling-mills again to become objects of knightly prowess; or were the peaceable merchants of Liverpool and Glasgow to be interrupted on the king's highway, with perverse questions concerning a new race of Dulci neas del Toboso. The thing, indeed, is too outré to stand. As the Courier says, "it won't do ;" it savours more of a disease, a rage, a mania, than a legitimate passion. Elegance and refinement are as naturally the adjuncts of the age in which we live, as barbarism and superstition of the fourteenth century. To attempt to unite them is monstrous and artificial, and betrays an ignorant impatience of surreptitious fame, which must fail with the circumstances that have given it a temporary success. Meanwhile, in contempt of the new worship, I shall continue my idolatry of the old Grecian idols.

In the sciences I see, or fancy I see, a similar thirst for novelty rather than truth. Some sciences have sunk into complete neglect; others are just passing their grand climacteric. What a noise the mathematics made throughout Europe in the time of Newton, Clarke, and Leibnitz, the Eulers, Bernoullis, d'Alemberts, and Maupertuis's. I remember my grandfather had the portraits of all these impassable calculators hung in his library, with the years of their birth and death subjoined. One scarcely now ever hears their names mentioned. In England, mathematics were superseded by metaphysics; and these last have undergone a complete revolution. Locke's Theory of Sensation was carried to such an extreme length by Hartley, Priestley, and Darwin, that man appeared no better than a vegetable, or at most a piece of clock-work. Then come Drs. Reid and Beattie, who by re-establishing the old mysteries in our organization, brought the science of mind to nearly the state in which it was found by Locke;* with the advantage, however, that we have ascertained, that there are certain limits to inquiry, beyond which it is in vain to attempt carrying our researches. The opinions of Reid are adopted by Dugald Stewart, who stands at the head of modern metaphysicians.

Political economy appears retrograding in a similar manner from principle to empiricism. I am old enough to have witnessed this branch of knowledge rise to the dignity of a science, and it is

*The French usually take up a science about the time we abandon its cultivation. Thus the mathematical sciences are cultivated with great success, by M. Leplace and Biot, when they are neglected in England. In Metaphysics, they are now pushing on Locke's Theory of Sensation to its vegetable or mecha. nical consequences. It will probably be some years before they arrive at Dr. Reid's instinctive qualities. In Chemistry they tread close on our heels; but in this delightful science Davy gives us the advance.

probable I shall live to see it sink into its first crudities. Adam Smith's doctrines are evidently in great jeopardy, from his rebellious followers, each of whom is clipping away a part, professing at the same time, a deep veneration for the founder. Thus, Mr. Malthus, and a writer in the Quarterly, question the utility of free trade, and seem inclined to revert, (in part at least,) to the mercantile system. Another celebrated economist, Sismondi, contends that the accumulation of wealth, (the alpha and omega of Smith's system,) is not so material to national happiness as its distribution; and for this purpose recommends an interference with individual liberty, by checking the growth of machinery. M. Say, is Smith's firmest disciple. But Mr. Ricardo is full of seditious novelties; he neither accords with the founder of the science nor the founder's disciples; nor by the by, does he always agree with himself. The chapters on foreign and colonial trade, and that on supply and demand, are sadly sophistical, and inconsistent with his own principles in other parts of the work. And his notions, too, on wages and profits, and that the cost of production regulates price, seem to me not so new in principle as phraseology. But of course I do not presume to decide when the doctors disagree; nevertheless, I cannot help thinking there is a good deal of truth in M. Sismondi's" Nouvelle Principe." Certainly, if the mere acquisition of wealth were the summum bonum of public felicity, we cannot do better than continue the restrictive system of the last thirty years, which has at least been attended with that advantage. This, however, would bring back the science of economy to the goal from which it started.

Such, then, is the melancholy result of the pursuit of truth and refinement; the tide of knowledge returns to its source, instead of advancing to maturity. Our poets and fine writers abandon the classic models of literature for the prolixities and badinage of the old writers; metaphysicians return to the exploded doctrine of innate ideas; economists to restrictions on public industry; and a system of morals, mild, merciful, and just, is thrown aside for the maxims of outlaws and savages!-I wonder what the world will come to at last. To me it seems that man is that sort of animal, that were he by a miracle to attain perfection, he would, from mere thirst of novelty, return to his former state of misery and infirmity. He "never is but only to be blest;" and this seems the only state of which he is capable.

In contemplating these intellectual revulsions, I cannot help congratulating myself that I have remained nearly stationary on the threshold of science. Without the fatigue of inquiry, I have the satisfaction of finding myself on a level with those who have extended their researches to the higher regions of intellect: instead of the adventurers making new discoveries, they reap only disappointment; and, after disagreeing among themselves, return to

a few simple truths obvious to all the world. What ought we to infer from this? Clearly, I think, the vanity of abstruse inquiries; that they lead to no useful result-that they only tend to perplex and mislead-and that all the truths useful or attainable by man lie near the surface, and it is folly to dig much lower.

Ought we then, it may be said, to be satisfied with our present knowledge, and not aim at a higher state of improvement? By no means let us improve as much as possible, only do not let us toil after imaginary benefits. A good deal of misery attends difficult researches. If one man masters a knotty subject, another must not be below the average state of information. Thus is a tax as burdensome as corvée imposed on time and industry. And to what does it all tend? Our movements are as clearly circular as the paths of the planets. For a time we advance; but if we proceed beyond a certain point, it only brings us to the place from which we started. It is curious enough to observe these mutations in the social orbit-how industry begets wealth, wealth indolence and luxury, which again render industry necessary; how public virtue leads to national greatness; how that begets power and corruption, which again calls forth public virtue; how private morals lead to excess of population, which begets licentiousness, and licentiousness again brings private morals into repute. Thus good every where leads to evil; evil to good; and society, like the vegetable world, passes from infancy to maturity-then decays, and that decay is the germ of a new series of revolutions. It is all very laughable: it is lamentable too, but it is true. Our lot is fixed, and we may as well complain that we were not made angels and demigods as that we are not capable of indefinite improvement. There is, however, no doubt, a certain limit in which man may enjoy a maximum of happiness: to attain that limit, and adhere to it, is the only true philosophy;-to pass it, or come short of it, equally leads to evil. This limit I fancy is as little to be found in the higher geometry, the differential calculus, or the researches of metaphysicians, as in the illumination of the Hottentot, or the Esquimaux probably it may be found in the midway.

Sincerely desiring the happiness of mankind, I would fain hope we are approaching the happy medium betwixt excess of refinement and barbarism. One indeed can hardly suppose that we shall not be benefited, though not perfected, by experiencing the mischief of the two extremes. Already I think we may reckon on some points being gained, which cannot fail to be permanently beneficial. Of this description are religious toleration, the freedom of the press, and the invention of machinery. The first must be fatal to superstition, the second to political oppression, and the last will lessen the number of the working classes the most unhappy part of the community.

When society has obtained all the improvements of which it is capable, the following probably will be the most important changes: Having learned to be more careful of health, mankind will be longer lived. Affairs of love, I apprehend, will be quite as numerous and ardent as at the present time, though not so romantic. Pleasures, simple and durable, will be in more request than vicious indulgence. Ambition, and those violent passions which now desolate the world, will be less destructive. Poverty will be considered a great evil, though the thirst after riches will have abated. The gastronomic art will be esteemed the most important of sciences. Farces and operas will be in more request than tragedies; novels and romances than the abstract sciences. Magazines and Reviews, and rambling Essays like mine, will be highly prized. Natural philosophy, the fine arts, and all pursuits which gratify the senses or have certain results, will be zealously cultivated. Men will be less dogmatical, less pugnacious. Nature and all her works will continue objects of devout admiration, and we shall no longer be vexed with inquiries which experience has proved to be vain and nugatory. Voyages of discovery, however, like Captain Parry's, will be considered very important, and the results far more interesting, than the issue of any campaign, naval or military. In fine, men will be " merry and wise." There will be less want, less contention, less toil, more enjoyment; but, after all, there will be left enough of the old leaven to prevent society becoming either stagnant or incurious. Though there will be less war, apprehend there will still be some duelling, and I have no hope that such places as the Old Bailey can be entirely dispensed with. M.

ADDRESS TO THE ORANGE TREE AT VERSAILLES, CALLED THE
GREAT BOURBON, WHICH IS ABOVE FOUR HUNDRED YEARS
OLD.

WHEN France with civil wars was torn,
And heads, as well as crowns, were shorn

From royal shoulders,

One Bourbon, in unalter'd plight,
Hath still maintained its regal right,
And held its court-a goodly sight
To all beholders.

Thou, leafy monarch, thou alone,
Hath sat uninjured on thy throne,
Seeing the war range;
And when the great Nassaus were sent
Crownless away, (a sad event!)
Thou didst uphold and represent

The House of Orange.

To tell what changes thou hast seen,
Each grand monarque, and king, and queen,
Of French extraction;