of the surgeon; who might lecture on the importance of temperance to health; of hollow-draining, to springy lands; of dancing, to military proficiency; and of the principles of mechanics, to the vulgar arts. He might read chapters out of Blackstone, or out of Burn, dissert on British history, and promulgate the new laws with expositions. The tythes might then be divided between the guardian of the body and of the soul; between the teachers of our wisest course for here and for hereafter. It might be doing too much at once suddenly to make the alteration, more than prejudice to-day would bear: but it would certainly not be amiss, we are serious here, if at least one living in every hundred were immediately to be held by a medical instead of an ecclesiastical qualification. This would secure, or at least motive the requisite education in country surgeons, and could be made compatible with the respect due to college property. In a thinly peopled neighbourhood no surgeon can earn an indemnity for an expensive frequentation of the metropolitan schools of medicine; yet in every neighbourhood skilful medical help ought to be within call. The third chapter treats of the finances. In the table of contents some very novel plans are promised for paying our debts and increasing our revenue; but alas! we find nothing but the old resources, econoDay and peace, sinking funds and taxes. We will give one hint to the author. On paper it is easy to be magnificent: nor would petty wares avail in our vast chasm. Lay a land-tax on the whole peninsula of Hindostan. Send over the necessary people to survey and to assess the vast district. As an indemnity for taxing their soil, relieve their trade, and throw open, free of duty, their ports, and those of Britain to each other. Open at Calcutta a bank for receiving this revenue: and let that bank there sell stock in the English funds, and there pay dividends on stock so sold. The form of remittting money home will then consist in buying at the Calcutta bank a perpetual annuity in the British funds; and all the hoards of our nabobs will become loans to the state. The dividends being payable in that country, and secured on their own land revenue, a great deal of native property will gradually take confidence and place itself there; so that one or two hundred millions of our national debt would migrate of its own accord, and make room here for the creation of as much fresh stock. From reckoning our debt by lacks of millions, we may bravely aspire to extend it to a crore. Land-taxes, which are of all others the wisest, because they encroach on the revenue only of the idle, are peculiarly dif ficult under the British constitution, on account of the sympathy felt for the burdened class by the proprietors who are crowded in both houses of Parliament. This country has consequently been always the victim of its anti-commercial system of indirect taxation. If lord North had spared the tea, and rated the soil of North America, the colonies would not have murmured; their landed interest was a feeble fragment of their popu lation. He might then have instituted in New York an office for paying dividends out of the land-tax, and have funded there vast supplies of capital toward the wars of this country, instead of their funding here the national debts of America. Every colony ought to be founded on the principle of paying an increasing quit-rent for its land. There would then be a secure local revenue to mortgage for the remuner ative expence of protection. The fourth chapter treats of agriculture, and recommends to the state to take into its own hands the whole farming system; to contract with Irish rebels for the digging of potatoes, and with the women of Billingsgate for the crying about of milk. This writer rivals sir James Steuart in his rage for regulating and meddling. We doubt not he would think it rational in government to open retail shops, under pretext of securing the excise duties, and to sell, on account of the lords of the treasury, calicoes, dish-clouts, mutton, and mustard. The fifth chapter, which proses about national industry, fills the whole second volume. The best thing that can be done for the internal improvement of the advantages of the country is to delegate the power of passing inclosure, road, and canal bills, to local courts of magistracy; so as to diminish the expence of acts of par liament, and to facilitate the examination of evidence on the spot. Such courts might have a jurisdiction coextensive with the circuits of the judges; might sit during the recess of parliament; and might comprehend deputies, nominated by the justices of the peace and by the corporations of the towns, or their head-officers. Parliament ought to be rid of the detail of local legislation. The sixth chapter, which occupies the greater part of the third volume, advises an immediate peace. Mr. Edwards would have us keep Malta, give Egypt to France (which may become very expedient, however impertinent) and conquer for ourselves all Assyria. This writer is not so precautious as Mrs. Glasse, who instructs her pupil to catch the hare before she directs about the cooking. Appendix after appendix thicken these volumes into portly ponderosity. The projects which pass in review are mostly notorious, and are rather expounded than discus-ed, or appreciated. One of the most peculiar, and of the favourite projects of the author, is the institution of parish agencies, which is more concisely and explicitly recommended in the concluding appendix than in the first volume, and which we shall republish in the form it there receives. "Such persons as may have read the preceding work may be presumed to be in general convinced of the infinite importance of public agency, as it has been proposed for innumerable concerns useful to the nation at large, various in their kind, and yet still more reniarkable for the difference of their extent, referring alike to the most minute particulars of internal police, and to proposals as bound less and opposite to each other, as the five preceding are. At the same time these concerns or proposals, to which it is essentially necessary, are considered to be indispensable for the maintenance of the future greatness and prosperity of the empire. However, it is requisite to insist farther upon the subject in respect of the importance of the combination of public agency with the present magistrates and different parish officers, which is proposed under the general substitute, as see chapter third. : "These at present are intrusted with vast powers, but are under no controul for any appeal which the law affords is nugatory, and will not be had recourse to, unless they com mit great offences. They differ, in this respect, from all other of the civil orders, even the clergy being subject to strict discipline. They are, in fact, exempted from the regula tion of police, as if a sense of the presence of an active controul over their conduct would not produce a salutary attention to their respective duties. Let it be supposed, that they are highly valuable in their respective offices, and their services indispensable: yet the magistracy, like all other orders, will produce occasionally, or often, individuals, whose general conduct may be reprehensible: and parish officers are still more frequently deinquent. Some degree of control here is therefore requisite: and a barrister associated with the former, though his jurisdiction is extended to two or more circles, and an agency steward with the latter in every circle of the kingdom, will be as small a check as can be introduced; and must answer very important purposes. Thus the conduct of both inay be duly regulated, and the functions of their of fices happily discharged in all respects: and they will be more respected; and will be an as they together constitute a body of police, effective agency, with which refractory and pretended paupers, or those who perform statute work upon the roads, will not trille. At the same time the check commissioners might be obliged by law to select a proper committee, or committees, to act on the occa sion, both for a circle in general, and for the maintain the cause of the people, while they different parishes and townships. These would would thus co-operate with this general body of agency, in advancing the welfare of the country: and the different orders, emulous of following their example, would not be content with the mere performance of their public duties, but would cord ally enter into the spint of them. "Parish or township officers left as they are, to themselves, are often negligent to an extreme, or commit the gross st violations of their duties; or frequently are incapacitated affairs, cannot spare the time necessary for the to perform them; or, engaged in their own public. These last they overlook in such a proper execution of those which relate to the manner, as to render ineffectual many highly salutary regulations of the legislature: and in respect of the first plan to be proposed for the jurious, as they attend not the numerous faniidiminution of poverty in general, are very in lies among the lower orders, inattentive to form their children to those habits of industry, that are the surest means of reducing the poor rates. It is impossible here to describe the amount of the detriment, or in what different respects they are injurious to the country, Yet they are capable of being chosen, and of being subjected to co-operation with the circe stewards, by such proper regulations of police, as would render very valuable services." This ard throughout the extent of the circle, and they may every where assist the agency s'ew. the present time; while, seated in the centre yet experience less trouble than they do at agents as these may be wanted, or dispatch of population, he may there employ inferior them as they are required in different parts. They would of course be employed to superintend different kinds of work, carried forward in their respective neighbourhoods, and to enthey would readily furnish him with local in ter proper minutes for the purpose. Farther, formation, as well as take upon them a great part of the trouble of the agency. Thus a single steward, with proper officers under him, trained to the various offices of public agency, and acting under the supreme board, would be able to accomplish all the local concerns of the circle; and such a person might have been found very serviceable in respect of the come tax." If a national bankruptcy were on the point of being effected, it might be meritorious to devise a vast increase of useless offices, in order to provide pensions for the more vociferous and pitiable sufferers. But under an order of things, which alredy stifles by profusion of patronage, a. tendesty to independence among the paple, there can be no occasion for more state-parasites. Alrearly the tax-gatherer is frequently bid to cail again. Even the ri her inhabitants of parishes put off their payments, no doubt in order to keep in untenance their poorer neighbours, whom real want compels to such procrastination. New managers must have new salaries; out of what rates can these be extorted without inhumanity? Rather let us calculate which public servants can be cashiered without detriment, which can be equitably recompensed with inferior profitsion. To simplify, not to complicate the mechanism of administration, is the purest pursuit of statistical contri vance. In all these dissertations there is much repetition, much want of arrangement, much reference to and fro, much vain claim of invention and discovery, much confusion of idea, and much appearance of oscillating conviction, which begins by advising one way, and ends by advising another. Notwithstanding this, the author's self-complacence insensibly gains upon his readers: to be well-meaning is to be deserving; to have toiled for the public is an extensive claim to gratitude. ART. XI.—An Enquiry into the System of National Defence in Great Britain. By Jonn MACDIARMID, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. NEARLY half this book consists of speculations about the price of land, the various taxes, the sinking fund, the proActive industry, and the national debt of Great Britain; things which may be pressed into connection with the national atence, as might the revolutions of the asons, and the theory of the weather, Cat which ought rather to have been separately considered. After ordering a book out the public force, in order to be equipped with conversation for the mess, it is vrovoking to find it full of the solicitudes of the counting-house politician. Defence-the very word is unmilitary. What occasion has this country for other fence than its navy Should a legion traders chance to land, fury will fur wish weapons, and courage, victory, to the people. It is in order to assume our .uk among the European nations, that we least train to military skill a larger proportion of our population. Of stay-atme soldiers, and stationary cavalry, we ve enow and to spare. The influence of a system of defence on erals Mr. Macdiarmid undertakes to uss in the third section of the second apter. In the course of this important estigation what are we told that illis a vice-that the Athenians thought that the Spartans thought so that he Romans exemplified the fact-under he emperors and under the Popes-and at the reformation favoured industry. At length come a few observations in int: that military manners relax indusFry-that they interrupt chastity--that they favour ignorance-that they encroach on liberty. Finally, we are informed that heavy taxes operate as temptations to perjury. The introductory and concluding reflexions may be passed over as irrelevant, but the intermediate matter deserves son e extent of commentary: let us first transcribe it. "If our military system have a powerful tendency to relax the industry of the people, it must have an equal tendency to relax their morals. It is the business of recruiting parties to introduce habits of drunkenness and debauchery of all sorts wherever they go. It is by a taste for these that they expect to unsettle the habits of industry among the young will not be denied that the morals of both men, and to allure them into the service. I6 sexes suffer equally by these proceedings. "it is not to be supposed that the mora's of those who have been allured into the ser vice by such means should immediately recover the taint, or that the consequences of their vices ould be confined to themselves. Our officers call loudly for the institution of bare racks, where they may have the soldiers inmediately under their own eye. It is with justice they complain that their men, when quartered in our great towns, become uniformly licentious, dissipated, and diseased. Will any one affirm that when a regiment leaves a town it carries the effects of its vices along with it? More women are generally supposed to be debauched by the members This is not to be considered as any reproach of the army than by any other class of men. to them. The members of the army differ nothing from their fellow citizens, unless in the situation in which they are placed. They would not trifle their time in ensnaring simple and ill-educated women, if they had any thing better to do. "Those unhappy persons, who are called the dregs of society, acquire this appellation not less from their uselessness than from their vices. The wives of the soldiers, who come on the parish, are supposed to rank in the scale of morals only a few degrees above the women whom they send on the town. Their destitute children usually discover that tendency to dissolute habits which distinguishes foundlings and parish children. This is to be ascribed to the military system, and not to the parents who are altogether unable to give their children a education. proper "The ariny is supposed to be a profession which requires no previous education. Hence it is not unusual for country gentlemen, and the better sort of people in general, to neglect the education even of their younger sous, under the idea that, although they be good for nothing else, they may still find a provision in the army. The expectants of commissions, being thus accounted privileged idlers, spend the time which they know not how to employ, in hunting, fowling, and other amusements of this sort; and perhaps still more frequently in debauches, or in dangling after the equally idle women of the neighbourhood. Whether the habits thus formed are corrected in the army will appear hereafter. But it will, at least, be owned, that the half-pay officers, when thrown back on society, are occupied with nearly the same pursuits as the expectants. They are gentlemen by profession, and are therefore bound to hold in sovereign contempt those means by which other persons better their condition. It is only, however, in idleness that they can, in general, uphold the vocation of gentlemen. The scantiness of their pittance compels most of them to a rigid economy, which does not allow them to partake in the expensive immoralities of the age. In this case they have all the virtue of a compulsory abstinence. Let it not be supposed, that I mean to insult those who are already doomed to wretchedness. It is to the system, and not to its victims, that the demerit is to be attributed. Are unhappy men to be blamed because their education has been neglected by their parents; because they have been abandoned from their youth to idleness and the lures of immorality; because they have been doomed as their only resource to a profession which has barely afforded them the means of subsistence, and in-, spired them with an insuperable prejudice against every other method of bettering their condition; because they are afterwards thrown on the world with a moiety of this pittance; and because necessity and insurmountable prejudice compel them to wear out the remainder of their existence as an useless incumbrance to society, to breathe the free air in pining and hopeless poverty, or to rot in a jail? Are even the parents of these men to be blamed? Or is not the whole to be charged on a system which abuses both parents and children by fallacious lures? "I have remarked some incroachments on freedom which seem at least to be apprehended from a perseverance in our present mili tary system. Experience proves that any diminution of the freedom of a people necessarily vitiates their morals. Montesquieu, a most acute observer of men, distinctly perceived this. He informs us that virtue is indispensible in a free government, and altogether unnecessary and extremely dangerous in a despotism. He affirms that even in a monarchy, where the sovereign rules by law, but by such laws as those of France, it is extremely difficult for the people to be virtuBut Montesquieu was the subject of an arbitrary monarchy; and was therefore oblig ed to redeem his head by a quibbling distinction between private and public virtue; although he owns that public virtue is the result of the greatest private virtue." ous. No doubt the diffusion of military manners has altered, and will affect yet more our national character. We shall be gallicized by the change; for the French character in the main is the result of inveterate and extensive military habits. There are certain concatenations of moral qualities which must be taken or rejected in the chain, not link by link; certain inconveniences, which are inseparable from particular excellences; certain vicious excesses, which always accompany the profuse cultivation of the connected vir tues. Lord Bacon observes, justly, that "all warlike people are a little idle, and fear danger less than labour; nor must this temper of theirs be much checked if we would preserve their vigour." Let the progress of recruiting officers be observed, it will be found most successful among those who are averse to industry. A given proportion of the males, especially those begotten by the young, are born with the military propensities, spirit, impatience, sensibility to applause, a fickle and migratory taste in places and persons. These lads, when they attempt commercial pursuits, fail in them. Their wages are gone before they are earned. They try experiments in life, and hope by gambling speculations to atone for the neglect of parsimony and perseverance, A long peace overstocks trade with these characters, who do best in the colonies, as explorers of new markets. An East Indian war provides for them to their taste, by building them a palace, or a tomb. Return rich or die, said a wise director to his son who was going out in the company's service. But, although a given proportion of the males, perhaps a tenth, may be said to have the military predisposition, may expediently be trained to warfare, and employed in extending the empire of their country; it is dangerous to break in upon the natural division of labour, to generalize the manners of military men, to make their pursuits the objects of popular imitation, to inoculate for the scarlet fever, and teach every artisan to carry a musket. Industry is mostly a habit, the result of long coercion and everawing superintendance, which is so agreeably interrupted by pompous parades and crowded festivities, that it is easily bribed to try the experiment of venturous idleness. The veteran of industry makes a bad soldier. Arts exercised not abroad but within doors, and delicate manufac tures, that require the finger rather than the arm, have in their nature a contrariety to a military disposition. The sedentary classes lean to sottishness; they are not drunkards, but they habitually use stimulant drinks and drugs: they require this substitute for airy exercise; a sluggish and torpid character of constitution supervenes, ill adapted for fits of effort, subject to the most fatal disarrangement under the enduring privations of actual service, and incapable of being animated into heroism by the gin of the hour of battle. It is easy, as we see by our militia, to debauch away the pupils of thrift, but the state is no gainer by such apostacy; by making soldiers of such men it has only prepared new battles of Zama, or new campaigns of St. Domingo. Those Spartan lawgivers, who are for having us become a military nation, and for educating us all to excel in the military exercises, endanger much more than our commercial arts. Military morals are closely connected with military manners and habits. Spirit must be excited and enhanced in the armed classes by juvenile conviviality. This is mostly followed by a riotous insolence of the men in uniform, by a more irritable sense of honour, and by a multiplication of duels. The military exercises are acquired to most perfection by the young: yet the consequence of convening shop-boys and journeymen at sixteen to the parade is, that habits of dressiness and early libertinism are adopted, which their earnings will as yet not afford to purchase; and that, to supply these factitious wants, the property of their masters is too often rashly violated. General Murat is recorded to have boasted, that in a French army every man was a thief, which was also the case in Sparta: but even in England, where pecuniary probity is held peculiary sacred, there is a proverbial suspicion of a tendency in the military taste to respect propriety more than property. There is no honour among honest mon, (says the vulgar adage) and no honesty among men of honour. The remedy for this mischief, the worst that is likely to result at all extensively from our new regulations, is to allow pocket-money profusely to the young men for learning the military exercises. With the eager libertinism, the personal elegance and desirableness, the shifting residence, the general celibacy, and the frequent poverty and extravagance of continental officers, has been found connected a tendency to adulterous intercourse. It is well known that in France the marriage-bed was invaded with as little scruple as the tent of the baggagewomen; and that garrison-towns were especially notorious for gallantry. Indeed lewdness throughout animal nature is allied to courage: the gelding is a spiritless beast. Religion is not favourable to courage, half its essence consists in inspiring fears of the mind; and the habit of dwelling on prospective solicitudes of the imagination is the basis of apprehension, dismay, and panic. Impius miles was the familiar characteristic of the Roman soldier: spernere deos was of old observed to be a natural concomitant of daring. From those who quibble about a Sunday drill, who expects efficacious resistance to the foe? The priest and the soldier are natural antagonists. Bravery seldom flourishes in a community but at the expence of some tenderness and humanity, Women and priests, who are usually forward in offices of kindness, are supposed to be comparatively inferior in point of courage. Anger is a tearing mangling passion; and, during its paroxysms, cruel: but anger is the regular stimulus of bravery; every general reviles the foe. Those who are naturally most apt to flinch, are naturally most apt to sympathize. There is indeed a reflex sympathy, as there is a reflex courage, brought on by reasoning about our duties, which may co-exist with antagonist qualities: but these are accidents of accomplished natures, not the average lot of ordinary men. Old generals are the mildest but not the boldest. The Russians are the bravest, the hardiest, the best of soldiers, but they are not the most humane. Archenholtz says, that in the seven-years war some Russians, who had just lost their limbs, were seen on the ground still to gnaw at the Prussian foe who had fallen beside them. The French |