heard of similar dispositions in others, that were not expressed directly to me. On the other hand, there were many to approve it, and one in particular, whose opinion and experience were worth to me, as to their weight, more than all that of the others. Two of the persons, who openly expressed their disapprobation to me of this publication, I considered to be the dupes of Mr. Cobbett's attack upon it. They were two thorough-paced disciples of Mr. C., disciples even to idolatry, and, on this subject of love, the one was a wild, swearing, ruffianly character, who had the compulsory honour of patronizing the bastards of several servant wenches; and the other, an elderly widower, was smarting with a horrid rottenness of frame, produced by the foulest gratification of the passion which he would most sanctimoniously condemn. And what is a better finish to his character, is, that while thus smarting under the loathsome disease, and a prospect of speedy death, he became so far enlightened, so far inspired with heavenly impulse, as to be converted to some new point of the Christian faith? They are characters of this description, who become the blind idolators of any man, and more particularly of so fickle a man as Mr. Cobbett The latter of these persons, the venereally inspired and converted man, has been so blind an idolator of Mr. Cobbett, that, when a public dinner was given to him, on his arrival at Liverpool from America, in 1819, this person, being present, would not eat potatoes, because Mr. Cobbett had written against that vegetable! "Mr. what vegetables will you take, will you take a potato?" Oh! dear! a potato! Mr. Cobbett has written against potatoes! There should have been no potatoes served up here! I like a potato very well; but (looking round) does Mr. Cobbett eat potatoes?" Even this man told me, that he was ashamed of Mr. Cobbett's conduct at Preston, and, that that conduct had greatly lessened his zeal for him. I shall, by and by, have to describe, such as I received it from eyewitnesses, and those Mr. Cobbett's friends, what that conduct was, in Preston, and more particularly in Bolton.

By the way, I may here properly observe, that my supporters and friends are not made up of those who approve altogether what I have done. Some say to me, and some of these religious people:-" I admire every thing you have done in Politics, I join you heartily in what you have done under that head, and think you have been eminently useful; but you should not have attacked the Christian Religion; there I cannot agree with you. I condemn the persecutions you have suffered for so doing, and think you have been a very ill-used man, therefore I make very great allowances for what you have done offensive to my feelings; but have done with your attacks on Religion, and stick to your Political warfare."-Others say, "I am very much pleased with your attacks upon the Religion or superstition of the country, there you do good; but I cannot see why you interfere with the Politics

and government of the country. That is all very well, we can have nothing better. Stick to your attack upon Religion, and leave Politics alone."-Each of these persons would have me to exclude the other subject from my periodical publication; and because I find it so, I think that I am right in preserving both.Then comes another class of people saying: "By the powers, Mr. Carlile, I admire your Politics and your view of Religion, you have shone there beyond all men; but I cannot bear with you in your view of love. Why did you publish such a thing as that? Were it not for that, I would freely and openly take you by the hand."-Such are really the substance and style of the expressions which I frequently receive; but I know rightly how to estimate them, whenever they come in the shape of excuses for not giving me open countenance. I know that they have their source in timidity, and the fear of public prejudice. My object is wholly Political; for I know nothing of political goodness, but that which increases or preserves the happiness of the greatest number of people; and that is the end and aim of the three points which make up the sum of the three objections above mentioned; the end and aim of all that I have done as a public character, or am doing, or am about to do.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding and misrepresentation about what I have published on the subject of love. Mr. Cobbett associates me with Mr. Malthus, and says, that I make Mr. Malthus an authority for what I have done. It is not so. am quite as much and more opposed to Mr. Malthus, than I am to Mr. Cobbett, or than Mr. Cobbett is opposed to Mr. Malthus. For my recommendation upon the subject of love, if I have made any recommendation, or have done more than to shew how its evil consequences may be avoided, is not only not in coincidence with any thing published by Mr. Malthus, but is in opposition to it. I say, marry, and marry early. Mr. Malthus says, you should not marry early, nor marry at all, if you do not see the means before you of supporting well your offspring. And he calls upon the legislature to legislate, as far as possible, for the restraint of poor marriages. I see that Mr. Malthus is in an error, and has not considered properly, or has not stated properly, all the physical inducements, as well as the moral inducements to marriage, inducements as powerful, and more powerful, perhaps, in the poor than in the rich. I neither agree nor disagree with him on the subject of superabundant population. It may be superabundant here, and deficient there, too many in one trade or place, and not enough in another trade or place, or badly regulated through political means. It is a question which I leave open, and decide nothing positively or as fixed about it. It is and ever will be a question, the basis of which will vary and not be long in the state to admit of the same conclusions; but my view of the subject of love is, that of unvarying benefit, that may

be applied whenever necessary, and is as useful, when the popu lation is scanty, as when it is superabundant.

I am very sorry to see, that the British Almanac,"published under the superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," has adopted the recommendations of Mr. Malthus. With this exception, this Almanac has many useful remarks, and it is much to be desired, that it may supersede the silly pamphlets published under the title of "Moore's Almanac," &c. In the "useful remarks," under the month of April, it has the two following paragraphs :

"There is no cause of misery more fruitful, than undertaking expense which we cannot afford. The greatest expense of a poor man is a wife and children. His greatest act of folly, therefore, is to marry before he has the means of supporting a family."

"Our forefathers had an excellent maxim, 'Do not wed until you have sped;' and another, When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window.'"

The writer of those paragraphs considered nothing more than the moral motives, he did not consider the physical motives, to marriage. Had he considered the physical motives, had he known the physical consequences, to the female in particular, of abstaining from marriage, after the proper age and proper state of health, he would have seen that these were not" useful remarks," nor moral maxims; but that they were mischievous remarks. As well might he have said, avoid hunger without food, or thirst without drink, as to say avoid marriage without capital. The hunger, the thirst, the physical motive to marriage, will come, and moral reasoning will not controul, cannot remove it. If health and life be to be preserved, the hunger, the thirst, and the physical motive to marriage must be alike appeased by its natural means. They form a part of those principles and necessities which constitute our nature, and morality does not consist in subduing, but in preserving and encouraging them. Let it be understood, that the word marriage is here used, to express the commerce between the sexes which the law allows to be good.

The aggregate of mind in Liverpool may be taken as purely commercial, and perhaps has a nearer correspondence with that of the aggregate of mind in the United States of North America, than is to be found in any other part of England. I would fain hope that there is less superstition and more general knowledge in Liverpool than in America generally; for I found many Americans in Liverpool, belonging to the merchant ships, who knew nothing of the name or character of Thomas Paine. Mr. Robert Owen reports favorably of the improvement of the American mind, and I rejoice to hear it. America should begin to lead the mind of Europe, instead of being content to be led by it. It will owe more to such men as Thomas Paine and Robert Owen, for its mental independence, than it owes to all the patriots united, who

worked out its independence as a state. It is in mental independence, that true liberty is found. America should be free from priestcraft, and shame Europe by its great example.

I feel great diffidence in the use of names in this journal, fearing that I might do the parties some injury; otherwise, I could make it much more locally interesting. On the first or second day that I was in Liverpool, I, by accident, met at a house, where I called to enquire for my old friend Thomas Lindsey, who had gone to Buenos Ayres, a gentleman, who, with Mr. Lindsey, had paid great attention to Mrs. Carlile, when she visited Liverpool. I thanked him, for his kindness to her, and after confessing that business had compelled him to be so much of a hypocrite with regard to his religious opinions, as to keep silent for two or three years, he invited me to his house, treated me with great civility, and promised to assist me in the formation of an acquaintance in Liverpool. The next morning he came to the Saracen's Head, while I was at breakfast, and in a great state of trepidation, begged an excuse from introducing me as he had promised, as he had great apprehensions not only for his own welfare in trade, but for the sort of reception I should meet, in consequence of the publication of " Every Woman's Book;" one friend, to whom he had mentioned my name, having cautioned him upon the subject. I entered fully into his feelings and assured him that I would not intrude myself upon him, if he were uneasy: and though I cannot but respect him, I did him, with myself, the justice not to intrude on him afterwards. He acknowledged, and I saw, that though his profession was respectable, and as independent as most, he chiefly depended for a living, on those persons who were most hostile to my political and theological principles. There were some few little-minded politicians, for whose expressed fears and excuses, I felt the most sovereign contempt; and such were the two whom I have before mentioned, as disciples of Mr. Cobbett, and as men of bad taste and foul dabblers in love.

Being in Liverpool, I had some curiosity to see the two Mr. Smiths, who edit the Liverpool Mercury, partly, in consequence of Mr. Cobbett's foul attacks upon them, and to know how far he was justified in such attacks; for the justification of which, I, for one, had not given him much credit. It is worthy of remark too, that he probably owes much of his information, about the Editors of the Mercury, to that same source from which he obtained the information of a gentleman of Liverpool having given me a hundred pounds for the better circulation of "Every Woman's Book." I credit his political potatoe-hater, for such generally false information; but if Mr. Cobbett has ever heard, seen, and known what I have heard, seen, and known of the three political Smiths of Liverpool, he may rest assured, that his disciple will bear no comparison with the others, for talent, for honesty, or for general political utility. Upon the strength of his VOL. I.-No. 2.

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Liverpool information, he has written himself into very general contempt in Liverpool; his general description of the Editors of the Mercury being as false as they are unmerited.

Mentioning my wish to a friend, to get somewhat as an incog. observer, into the company of the Smiths of the Mercury, he observed, you cannot have a better place for it than the floatingbath, where you will find them almost every evening. To the floating-bath we went, saw the Mr. Smith's, and I must confess that I received a very favorable impression of them, on finding that they were the principal patrons in Liverpool of such an useful vessel. I was introduced to the master of the bath, and received a warm congratulation from him for the successful exertion I had made for free discussion. Returning from the bath, I was taken to the Vine tavern, in Pitt-street, and introduced as Mr. Carlile of London. There were present, Mr. Egerton Smith, Mr. Riley, the comedian, and several other gentlemen, who formed part of a political groupe in Liverpool, of which the Smiths are to be considered the leaders. The sort of introduction which I received did not lead to any recognition of the character in which I stood before the public. I could not discern whether the absence of a recognition arose from the want of a more full introduction, or whether it was a shyness on the part of the company; but I was subsequently told, that the company at large had no suspicion as to who or what I really was among them. I subsequently spent a few hours in the company of Mr. John Smith, and found him to be a really respectable and talented man. There is more of vanity and a sense of self-importance visible in the provincial public men than in those of the metropolis. They strut a little more, and show off a few airs of consequence. The same may be said for the country tradesmen and clerks, when contrasted with those of London. There is an intelligent simplicity and plainness about the London public men, and tradesmen, and clerks in general, which is agreeable, and produces that respect which the little vain efforts of the country gentlemen seek, but fail to produce.

The Smiths, Egerton and John, are the principal reforming politicians of Liverpool, and they rather follow than lead the public opinion of that town. It is more profitable to follow than to lead public opinion; and profit is generally a first consideration in newspaper property, as well as in any other trade. The intellect of the editor of a newspaper is too often made subservient to the trading or profitable propensity. But in the characters of respectable, well-disposed, and useful men, Mr. Cobbett, with all his Liverpool backers, will make but a sorry contrast with the Smiths, the Editors of the Liverpool Mercury. These gentlemen most assiduously study,and report, and seek to improve the morals, the health, the comforts, and the conveniences of the inhabitants of Liverpool. They are very useful in their sphere, and I am not