the importation of foreign manufactures. A foolish jealousy of the prosperity of other states, combined with a desire to discourage the consumption of the higher branches of manufactures, as tending to introduce a luxury and love of expense unfavourable to that soldier-like spirit, and to those martial and manly habits which at this time were considered as the only true foundation of national security, no doubt led to this prohibition. Sully's want of acquaintance with those principles which govern the prosperity of commerce, as connected with the circulating medium, induced him, about two years afterwards, to resort to a measure which greatly increased the distress he had already occasioned to the trading part of the community. The more effectually to check the export of the gold and silver coin he issued an ordinance, raising the nominal value of the écu d'or, or gold crown, of 60 sous, to 65, and the franc, of 20 sous, to 214, and the rest in proportion. He assigns as a reason, that he found this expedient “more prompt and less severe than penalties and confiscations, since there could be no other reason for carrying the specie out of the kingdom, but that it would pass for more in other countries than at home." Just as wise would it have been to put a stop to all foreign trade, because the articles exported fetched a higher price abroad than at home. The result of this ordonnance was to transfer all foreign commerce, to disjoint the exchange, to ruin private credit, to embarrass all payments, and, after introducing all this confusion, and much more, the price of commodities rose to a level with the new standard, while the coin having passed through the meltingpot, found its way out of the kingdom in the shape of bullion, and left the evil to be remedied just the same as before. Thus it is, that in the same manner that Love laughs at Locksmiths, the ingenuity of self-interest is always an overmatch for the cunning of the financier. S. MODERN BLUE-STOCKINGS. WE have frequently heard very amiable and talkative young ladies denominated " Blue-stockings," because they occasionally published what they wrote, and we think a more accurate definition of that animal will be acceptable to our fair readers. It is not enough that a lady should write poetry and be praised in the reviews, but she should have all the modern poems at her tongue's tip, be able to gabble about their faults, and moreover, be an enthusiast. It is not enough that she attend the soirées of an editor or two, and be pointed out as the author of Whim Wham, a poem, or Huncabunca, a drama, but she should fasten herself on some clever pretender of the masculine tribe at every such party, and not let him go until some more notorious individual of the order make his appearance. It is not enough to be vain of her own writing, while she affects to think it inferior, but she must enter the arena as a reviewer, and deal according to her prejudices and partialities with the writings of others, at least when her friends have no interest. It is not enough that she be acquainted with half-a-dozen booksellers, but she should offer her services to extol their works, and then use her influence with various periodicals to get her notices admitted. It is not enough that she write for some of the annuals, but she should afterwards review them, and particularly speak well of her own articles. A letter, from which the following is an extract, was received in the common course of "tit for tat" business, by an editor from a celebrated Blue-stocking, who had contributed some gratuitous papers. It is an amusing illustration of what may be called the reciprocity system of reviewing: "I have promised Mr. Reynolds a friendly notice of The Keepsake,' (which I am sure it will richly deserve) in your Mag. I am rather a considerable contributor to his book," &c. "Perhaps you would not object to allowing me to write the review myself." From another Blue, the following was received by an editor who, because he had been indulgent, was expected to prostitute his pages: "Mrs. Watts has sent me the New Year's Gift, to which I am a contributor. I should like to review it." A modern Blue-stocking belongs to a circle among the members of which these reciprocity letters float about in profusion, and although there is not a clever writer among them, their scribbling undertakings, are praised and pushed forward, to gull the silly public, who having no opinion of their own, are ready to adopt the first they read. SONNET FROM PETRARCH. IN what rich vein, Love, didst thou find the gold, Promethean godhead? kindling with thy voice, Taught their blest music to her gentle tongue? E. THE CANTING BUSY-BODY. THIS specimen is of a numerous and persevering class, nearly allied to that of genuine hypocrites. It has not been determined whether the masculine or feminine gender predominates, but it is generally supposed the latter is the most numerous. The principal characteristics are as follow : 1st. A strong disposition to sigh and groan, as if in deep tribulation, while they are in fact as happy as their neighbours. 2d. A constant habit of professing that they are fallen wicked creatures, who cannot be saved, though they practise all the cardinal virtues, if they have not faith; and that they can and will be saved, though they are loaded with sins, if they have faith. 3d. A determination to convince other people, that they ought to feel the same conviction. 4th. An opinion, that while they own their sins, and proclaim themselves the most wicked of the sons of men, they are in reality exceedingly good people. 5th. A belief that the rest of the world, whom they pretend to admit are better than themselves, are in fact infinitely worse, and a strong disposition to convert them. 6th. An affected abhorrence of being happy on a Sunday, or seeing others so, and a condemnation of every species of recreation or relaxation from every thing but sighing and looking miserable, while they indulge themselves in their own way to their heart's content. 7th. A total banishment of all decorum in their process of converting their fellow-creatures,-evinced by obtruding themselves upon private families, especially under the mask of assisting them, and in the most shameful appeals to the sick, whom they profess to comfort, but in truth often frighten or worry to death, having a strong objection to allowing people to die quietly. H 2 8th. A blindness to all their marvellously great and confessed sins, and an eye that can see the wickedness of others glowing in horrible colours. They despise a dealer who gives short weight or measure while they charge things twice over themselves. They condemn card-playing, and gamble with dominoes. They abhor working on Sundays, but make their servants slave. They forswear lying in toto, and deceive by shrugs and looks and evasions. This class will not easily be confounded with any other of the tribe, their meddling is the more disagreeable, as it is with the affairs of the next world, affairs, by the way, which we dislike to trifle with in print, and which we only notice to put our friends upon their guard. They attack the infant as soon as it can lisp, teach it to speak the most sacred names without knowing their import, cry up the babe as a prodigy of piety before the elect people of their order, dress up the miracle for their magazine, and thus publish to the world the simplest occurrence as an instance of divine interference. They attack the growing youth, and especially if in delicate health, prey upon his nerves and spirits by horrible pictures of a future world, work the little victim into a proper tone of mind as they call it, for their purpose, and then mould the conversation, the manner, and the conduct of the half-idiot, to what shape they please; that he may finish his career in the precise mode which they point out, and in fear and trembling pronounce sentences which they have crammed into his mouth, that they may hold the deluded child up to their friends as a saint. They attack the adult under the plea of affording assistance, which they only give as the price of conformity to their will. If he be not of a right frame of mind, they point out all the objects that can make him wretched. The picture of helpless and destitute children, or aged and dependent parents in all the states of misery which their fertile imagination can draw, will affect the stoutest heart, and when they have accomplished the first step of making him unhappy, they commence doling out the comfort, and this they call charity. They attack the aged on his deathbed, and if they find him approaching the close of life with a placid smile of conscious rectitude, with a belief that he has fought the good fight, and is about to rest from his labours, that he has set his house in order and awaits with patience the coming of the guest, they rush to the onset with an appetite for mischief of which a fiend might feel ashamed: they break through the calm reflection of the dying man, by recalling his attention to things around him, they disturb his communion with his Maker by indecent appeals to his past actions, they ruffle the peaceful disposition of his soul by affected prayers which apply not to his state, they worry their victim on the very brink of the grave, and rob him of the most precious of all Heaven's bounties, a calm and happy close to his mortal life. This they accomplish to a great extent among the poorer classes, the right of plaguing whom, they purchase by some paltry apology for almsgiving for the receipt of a sixpence from their bounti ful hand, gives them free admission as the directors of the household, confers the right of lecturing its inmates at all hours, and throws into their hands the power of propagating hypocrisy in its worst form, and exercising tyranny in its most malignant shape-such is a Canting Busy-body. Q. Q. THE GENERAL CEMETERY COMPANY. THIS emanation of folly and avarice, of empty heads and empty pockets, is making another struggle to entrap the living into a speculation upon the dead. In consequence of the expected arrival of the cholera morbus, a meeting has been held during the present month, of its Undertakers, at which Lord Milton presided. His lordship is not remarkable for wisdom; but it is just possible he has lent his authority to the project, in the same spirit that the Times has lent its columns to puff it, because the wise projector is a proprietor of the Times newspaper. The "General Cemetery Company," as it is now called, is a legitimate descendant of the bubbles of 1825. In the month of May, in that year, it was started as the "Economic Funeral Society," (the original prospectus of which is now lying before us), with a capital of 150,000l. in 6,000 shares of 251. each. The "Economic Funeral Society" was to be a sort of" cheap and nasty" association, for burying people at so much a head, under the superintendence of "sympathetic officers, men of superior address and mildness of manner," who were to have "a handsome remuneration" for their trouble. The "foundations of the Society" were declared to be then "laid," (i. e. in May, 1825); "funeral carriages, horses, feathers, and an extensive timber-yard," for the manufacture of coffins, were upon the point of being provided; and the "profit to the shareholders, after deducting all expenses," was estimated, at the lowest calculation, at "fifteen per cent.," notwithstanding the undeniable circumstance that a man requires to be buried only once in his life; a circumstance, by the by, which the learned projector, in his prospectus, endeavoured to soften by the following luminous elucidation: **It is said, in common, quoth he, "that the circumstance happens but once; this error is too general to remain unnoticed; a man indeed can die but once; but how is it with the head of a numerous family?" Why, of course, they can die as often as they like. And yet, metaphorically speaking, men have been known to die more than oncecowards, for example. But it is certainly true, as the prospectus of the "Economic Funeral Society" gravely states, a man cannot die more than once in right earnest, whatever privilege of dying over again may belong to his "family." It seems the "Economic Funeral Society" did not take; for, in October the same year (1825), it changed into the "General Burial-Grounds Association," 66 with a capital of 300,000l., instead of only 150,000l. The prospectus of this scheme, dated from the Temple," is also lying before us, and a most amusing specimen of impudence and ignorance it is, be the writer of it whom he may. Its motto, "Salus populi suprema lex!!" is an instance of blundering stupidity for which any lad who had thumbed his accidence only a month would have deserved to be reminded of his own latter end. Finding that people did not care to provide themselves with cheap graves for the benefit of the disinterested persons who undertook to sell them at 15 per cent. profit, the attempt was now made to frighten them, with a terrible account of" deleterious gases" which exhaled from dry bones; the danger of "leaden coffins made too thin" to confine the said deleterious gases; vaults where penny candles would not burn; "the incredible fact, that in this enlightened age the dead were secured only by a wooden coffin," through which all the " deleterious gases" would, of course, reek and fume like a steaming dunghill; with sundry other things equally horrible. "We," said the kind-hearted souls who wanted to get hold of the 300,000l., “have no resentments to gratify; yet we think ourselves bound to caution the public, who cannot be aware of the extent of the evil. Convinced of the veracity of our statements, however, men for their own sakes will become our warm supporters. It is, in truth, a labour of love!" But it would not do. The "labour of love" turned out to be "Love's Labour Lost." The evil of thin leaden coffins, and the "incredible one" of thick wooden ones, were endured by the sotenderly-cautioned-public, who laughed at the projector as a person whose head partook wonderfully of both qualities. The pathetic allusion to "robust health and vigorous constitutions," which would be the consequence of letting the "General Burial-Grounds Association" have a monopoly of graves, did not catch a single stray deposit of 21. 10s. : nay, the inviting assurance that the association could get seventy or eighty Perhaps, like Taylor, the Water-Poet, the writer of the Prospectus might have said, "I do confess I do want eloquence, And never yet did learn mine accidence." * acres, "upon the rise of a hill," if they could get the money to pay for them, was made in vain. The thing was so palpably absurd, disgusting, and selfish, that even in 1825, when a jointstock company for establishing steam carriages to the moon would have succeeded, it was received with contempt." From that time till 1830, nothing more was heard of these grave-mongers, and it was supposed they were themselves dead and buried; when lo! they made their re-appearance under a new name,-"The GENERAL CEMETERY COMPANY, for providing places of interment secure from violation, inoffensive to public health and decency, and ornamental to the metropolis." Having first spread their nets for 150,000, then for 300,000l., they now resolved to try for something between the two,-200,000l. This is the grand fudge-foodlum affair which has the advantage of Lord Milton's countenance, and which will be as prosperous, we doubt not, as its two elder brothers, "The Economic Burial Society," and "General Burial-Grounds Association," of the bubble year 1825. The first consideration that strikes us in looking at this attempt to carry on a mercantile speculation in graves, is the revolting indecency of the thing; for as to the pretended anxiety of the speculators about the public health, it is as rank balderdash as the cant in the former prospectus respecting its being a "labour of love." It is a scheme for putting money into the pockets of the schemers; and to do them justice, they do not affect to disguise their object. "And why should they not?" it may be asked by some. Our answer to this interrogatory shall be given in the language of that great man, Sir Henry Spelman, in whose treatise," De Sepultura," published in 1641, we find the following observations. "The grave," says he, "is the only inheritance that we are certainly born to; the inheritance which our grandmother the earth hath left to descend in gavelkind among all her children. Shall one enter, and hold another out, The or drive him to pay a fine pro adeunda hæreditate, as they say in the feudal law, or pro ingressu habendo, as we in the common law? Is our tenure base, like a copyhold, ad voluntatem domini, and not rather noble by francke Almoigne, free from all payments and services? How do the dead rest from their labour, if they be vexed with payments? How go they to their graves in peace, if they pay for their peace? Laborat ære alieno qui debito tenetur, and his peace is not worth thanks if he must pay for it. He payeth for his peace if he payeth for the place where his peace cannot otherwise be had: he payeth for his rest, if he cannot enjoy it without payment: he payeth for his inheritance, if he cannot enter into it without a fine, pro ingress, his inheritance settled upon him by the great charter, terram dedit filiis hominum: a royal gift, but as it is used, malé collocatum, ill distributed. poor man, alas, hath nothing of all this for his portion, but his grave, and may not now have that unless he pay for it. Well, to whom should he pay? Reason answereth, if to any, to the owner of the soil. True, but the owner of the soil was the founder of the church, and he, out of piety, zeal, and charity, gave the church freely for prayer, the churchyard freely for burial, absque ullo retenemento, without any rent, any service, any reservation. Nor could he (if he would) have done otherwise, for the canons would not suffer him; nor, though he were the absolute owner, yet if he had reserved but a peppercorn out of a grave, it had been not only void, but execrable. A peppercorn! what talk we of a peppercorn? No ground in the kingdom is now sold so dear as a grave. That poor little cabinet, that is not commonly above five feet long, and a foot and a half in breadth, where is no room to stir either hand or foot, and the roof, as St. Bernard saith, lieth so low that it toucheth the nose; this silly cabinet is sometimes in the churchyard sold to the poorest man for sixteen pence, sometimes for two shillings and eightpence, sometimes three shillings, sometimes six shillings; in the church itself, *The following note, in the original Prospectus, disclosed the mercenary views of the parties." The revenue arising from Père-la-Chaise' is IMMENSE, although the poor are buried for nothing." |