What passed during those few days between Jaqueline and Nicolas need not be told, except that he now and then said things which reminded her of certain of the speeches of the "pack of fools," whom she had encountered on the memorable missing Tuesday.

It was a fine day in September, when Madame Margot, Jaqueline, and Nicolas, took their seats in a patache, and were safely conveyed to the Cock and Bottle, where, to our heroine's great surprise, they were welcomed by her father and the little old lady of the ruins.

The cause of this surprise may as well be told here. The said old lady was an eccentric good body, and, having taken a fancy to Jaqueline, resolved to be her friend. So, after her departure from the castle, she went over to St Denis to make enquiries, as (like all benevolent persons) she had often been deceived. All that she heard of her young protégé was to her heart's content, and, by means of the curé, with whom she was acquainted, she found no difficulty in gaining the friendship of papa Triquet, to whom she related the particu lars of her interview with, and intentions toward his daughter. She then, with his consent, wrote a letter to Madame Margot, authorizing her, in case of enquiry touching such matters at Moulins, to state that Jaqueline Triquet would, on her wedding-day, receive from her a given quantity of that dross which Nicolas thought fit afterwards to proffer to his infernal majesty. This circumstance was not made known to the lovers till after the marriage, when the promise was strictly fulfilled.

And now, to the reader's imagination may be left all the particulars of the journey homeward- how papa Triquet flirted with the fat widow and the little laughing old lady-how Jaqueline was more envied by her friends, on her return from than on her departure for Moulins-how Nicolas and she, having once began each to fancy that there was something very capital in the other, proceeded onward in the delusion till each seemed perfect in the other's eyes, though, to the world in general, there really appeared nothing very particular in either of them.

The wedding-day passed, with ac

customed gayety, at St Denis ; and, towards the close thereof, when the bride was allowed a short respite from dancing, the good little old lady took her aside, and gave her certain reasons whereby to account for the missing Tuesday, concluding by observing"I would not tell you before, because I thought it might be a lesson to you not to wish for beauty, or think of acquiring attractions by the use of charms and such nonsense. The most powerful charm and attraction is a good temper and kind conduct. Ha, ha! Why, you don't look above half convinced yet: but, remember, you were very much fatigued that night, and it was very sultry after the storm, and you were very thirsty I daresay, and so it is no great wonder that water was running in your head." But, probably, she forgot the long tales which she herself told that night, about the olden times of splendour and gayety, with elaborate descriptions of furniture, liveries, &c. &c., which were not a little likely to have some influence in the affair.

As Jaqueline resolved to have no secrets unknown to her husband, she related the whole matter to him on the following day, and then said, “It seemed to me as if I saw all those people as plain as I see you now; and, if all that then happened was a dream, how do I know but I am in a dream now?"

"It really seems to me as if I was, my dear Jaqueline," said her spouse. "But it is a very happy one, and I am in no hurry to wake."

Our intended limits are already exceeded. We shall, therefore, only put on record, for the benefit of future tourists, that in the Cours Public at Moulins, they may still find excellent accommodation for large and small parties at the house of a restaurateur, whose buxom, bustling wife, Madame Jaqueline, manages matters after a fashion that induced a gourmand to observe latterly-" With such cooking a monkey might eat his own father." Her attentions are unremitting

and the only piece of unasked advice that she is in the habit of offering to her guests is, never to drink cold water, particularly in hot weather, without tempering it properly with good wine or Eau de Vie.

MR MALTHUS Was one of those writers to whom the world stands indebted for calling its attention to a great and neglected truth; and, like all writers who perform this essential service to mankind, he presented the truth he had taken under his especial charge in a position of greater prominence than it was found deserving to retain. This is excusable, for it is almost unavoidable; the task of reinstating any one verity in its due position, was perhaps never yet performed, without advancing it for a time into exaggerated relief and a disproportionate importance. The modest, cautious, limited statement, must follow afterwards, as the result of a bold uncompromising advocacy.

The statement, however, which Mr Malthus himself put forth, is not, by any means, so far from moderation, or that subdued tone of enquiry which succeeds to the excitement of novelty, as those would judge who have taken their impression of the "Essay on Population," not from perusal of the work itself, but from opinions and loose expressions afloat upon the surface of society, or from that panic on the subject of population which it certainly spread, at one time, amongst no small portion of our fellow-countrymen. Amongst those a vague idea prevailed, that this over-population was some new evil with which the world, in these later days, was threatened; and that, to avert it, certain strange, unheard-of, and intolerable restraints were to be laid on the future generations of mankind. The world was coming to an end by reason of its own too great fecundity stifling itself in its own crowded and prolific progeny; and society was to be disorganized, and resolved into a corrupted mass, by the starving and endless swarms of a too-teeming

race.

This alarm, which has certainly no foundation in the "Essay on Population," was combated and allayed by an argument which has quite as little bearing on the line of reasoning adopted in that work. The quantity

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of waste land in every part of the globe was measured, or guessed at; the further capabilities of the soil, as yet imperfectly cultivated, was ingeniously calculated; and thus a result so comforting was obtained, and the evil day was postponed to such a remote, and almost incalculable period, that men held themselves justified in laying aside all alarm whatsoever. And jus tified they certainly were in thus recovering from their own panie; meanwhile, Mr Malthus had neither been read nor answered.

It is no new law-it is no remote result, which the "Essay on Population” expounds and anticipates; but a law operating incessantly on human society, and which as incessantly is felt in beneficial or disastrous results, according to the circumstances in which any social community is placed. Casting out of our calculation every thing except the two items of food and population, and looking at men simply as cultivators of the soil multiplying their numbers at a given rate of increase, it is impossible to deny that population has a tendency to outstrip the means of subsistence. A race of beings, amongst whom the births more than supply the room of those whom old age and disease carry off, must increase in a geometrical ratio; at every succeeding generation it starts with greater numbers, and with the same fecundity. The amount of food, on the contrary, attainable from a given territory, can increase only in an arithmetical ratio; the land itself cannot be doubled, nor does each successive application of the capital, or the industry of the farmer, yield a greater return than the preceding one. This, as an abstract. proposition, is undeniable; and the law here indicated is, and always has been, in perpetual operation. Along the whole line of human progress, there is a tendency in the population of every nation or community to increase beyond the means of subsistence which its own territory can supply.

This law Mr Malthus pointed out

as highly deserving, which it unquestionably is, of the consideration of all who take an interest in examining the constitution, or speculating on the progress of human society. But now the question occurs, how far is this law, or this tendency, counteracted and reduced to a safe and beneficial action by other laws and other tendencies of the human being? Looking back through the annals of history, what proportion of the evils which mankind have suffered has been produced by the operation of this law of increase? Looking round on our own actual position, how far does this law of our nature call upon us for any change in our dealings with the poor, and in that legislative relief we bestow upon their wants, or for any modification in our moral opinions upon the subject of early and imprudent marriages? Looking forward to the future, does the recognition of this ineradicable tendency operate to dash and perplex our hopeful reasoning on the progressive amelioration of society?

In answering these questions, Mr Malthus, as might be anticipated in one who wrote with something of the zeal and passion of a discoverer, has assigned a too great prominency, and a too absolute and unrestricted operation to his law of population. This, we think, he has done both in his historical survey, and in the application of his doctrine to our own times, and to matters of practical importance.

When, for instance, Mr Malthus ascribes the great irruption of the northern barbarians to a deficiency of supply, he is giving an economic character to events which are directly traceable to warlike passions. These Germans who, because we have accounts given us of their frequent and systematic emigrations, he describes as having been driven from their native land by want of food, had a law amongst themselves which forbade the same soil to be cultivated two successive years by the same person, for fear the people should grow less warlike. Such is the reason of this law which we learn from Cæsar ; Mr Malthus wishes to engraft this further reason that they might thereby be better prepared to submit to that periodical emigration rendered necessary by the pressure of their numbers upon their agricultural produce. The

conjecture is not happy. The inhabitants are first supposed to emigrate because of the scarcity of provisions, and then, in order to facilitate an emigration thus called for, to enact a law most palpably adverse to every improvement in agriculture-a law which could not possibly have been devised amongst a free people who had any regard for agriculture. For it can need no science of political economy to demonstrate, that to take away from a man his improved soil at the end of the year, must deprive him of all inducement to labour at improvement; neither would a free people who had ever laboured to improve their soil submit to so great a violence to all the natural feelings of property. No doubt these Germans were often, in fact, straitened for food; but as they preferred to obtain it by ravaging other lands rather than cultivating their own, such distress can have no place whatever in an argument relating to the proportion between produce and population. We may find described in the Essay itself the sort of rude uncultured home which these hunger-driven barbarians left behind them. "Julian had conquered as soon as he had penetrated into Germany; and, in the midst of that mighty hive which had sent out such swarms of people as to keep the Roman world in perpetual dread, the principal obstacle to his progress were almost impassable roads, and vast unpeopled forests."-P. 71, Qu. Ed.

There is indeed a fallacy, or rather an irrelevancy, to be detected in many of the historical illustrations which Mr Malthus has supplied. If these illustrations are regarded merely as proofs that men have, in sundry times and places, been afflicted by hunger, and that their numbers have been kept down by various correctives, more or less painful, they are somewhat redundant, and scarce necessary; they become valuable only for the collateral information they may occasionally afford; for such a general proposition as this, admits not, unhappily, of a moment's doubt. But the law which Mr Malthus undertakes to establish is, that there is a different ratio in the increase of food and the multiplication of the human race, whereby such hunger is occasioned; and if his historical examples are intended to illustrate the operation of this law, they

whereas that distress may, and in our manufacturing country does, more frequently arise from the periodical inability of the poor to obtain that employment which is to entitle them to a share in the distribution of the products of the soil. To such extent, therefore, as the necessities of the poor arise from this latter source, to such degree also must a poor-law be regarded, not as a bounty on population, but as a redress of evils occasioned by other bounties on population; as a relief to destitution occasioned by the changeful caprices of fashion, or the fluctuating prosperity of commerce. But the second ill-chosen ground is even still less tenable; for he proceed. ed on the principle-2. That to withhold relief from the destitute poor would check the growth of population amongst that portion of mankind, while a systematic charity would as inevitably promote it. This view of the subject is contradicted by experience, and opposed by juster and more profound reflection upon human nature. It is wretchedness that is so prolific it is despondency that breeds so fast amongst us. Relinquish all national charity-resign all steady effort to uphold that class which is most exposed to adversity, and least wise to guard against it let them sink, and you will open the door to a redundancy of the most frightful description-to a population, the result of mere sensuality and despair-to the offspring of men having all the recklessness of savages or wild beasts, and who yet live and multiply within the fold of civilization. We have taken this rapid survey of the celebrated" Essay on Population," chiefly as a fitting introduction to our notice of an admirable work which has lately recalled us to this subject-the work of Mr Alison on the " Principles of Population." We have thus obtained for ourselves a station from which to observe the course taken by the later writer, and put ourselves in such a position, that, in passing our own strictures, or, what will more frequently be the case, in expressing our own assent and admiration, we shall run the less risk of being misunderstood. The work of Mr Alison contains many bold views, put forth in free and eloquent language; it is full of well selected information, rich in historical example-a work which all I will read who are interested in the

topic it discusses; and which no one, let his reading elsewhere be what it may, will peruse without obtaining from it some valuable material for the completion of his own views. It is not a book, however, which can be trusted to, or adopted, as the sole expositor of its subject. Perhaps there is no such work in existence on this or any other speculative theme; it is something more, however, than the absence of an unattainable perfection that we point at. Mr Alison is not always logical, not always consistent with himself: he needs watching; and the reader must sometimes stay himself upon principles he has obtained elsewhere, if he would avoid being carried off by the impetuous stream of this author's eloquence.

Mr Alison commences his investigation by pointing out "the relation established by nature between the produce of human labour and the wants of the human species, in the essential article of subsistence." The labour of one man's hands produces much more than is necessary to maintain himself. On this fundamental relation the prosperity of the social body depends; for it is this excess which gives support to all those classes of society who are engaged in arts, and commerce, and intellectual pursuits. In newly peopled countries, where an unappropriated soil extends around the infant community, this fertility of the earth is manifestly superior to any demands that an increasing population can make upon it. But when limits have been drawn round an occupied territory, then it matters not what the proportion may be between the number of agriculturists and of other classes of men: the question to be resolved is, how will the produce of the whole soil answer the demands of the growing population? There is no controversy between Mr Alison and Mr Malthus, or between any two rational men, that the time might come, when, under such circumstances, the land might be cultivated to its utmost, and yet the community continue to increase. "But if it is meant," says Mr Alison, (and such undoubtedly is the meaning of Mr Malthus,) "that long before this ultimate limit has been attained, population has a tendency to increase faster than subsistence can be provided for it, then a little reflection must be sufficient to