manufactured for rapid sale, and for the foreign market. "Formerly, their aim was to produce substantial goods, which should wear well, and with which the purchaser should have reason to be satisfied; now it is how to make the largest quantity with the smallest expenditure of materials." Our author complains generally of the present spirit of trade, and the modern extension of the manufacturing system, as having reduced the mass of the British people to the most degrading servitude; vastly augmented the number of the indigent and vicious; destroyed the small farmers, small tradesmen, and inferior gentry; disturbed the home attachments of every family, and driven forth from every hamlet adventurers, not to the "all-devouring metropolis alone," but to Canada and the United States, to the East and West Indies, to South America, and to Australasia. The ghost asks"may not the manufacturing system be tending to work out, by means of the very excess to which it is carried, a remedy for the evils which it has induced?" To this question, Montesinos replies thus:

"There are two ways in which it may work. Other nations may compete with us, and our foreign trade in consequence may gradually decline. Something of this is already perceptible. The French are said to manufacture about as much cotton now, as was manufactured in this country fourteen years ago. We now send abroad the thread, where we used at that time to export the manufactured article. The Americans also are endeavouring to supply their own consumption; they have this at heart, and there are no people who pursue what they think their advantage with more sagacity, nor with more determined eager ness and perseverance. An American, when he speaks colloquially of power, means nothing but a steam-engine. We can neither keep our machinery nor our workmen to ourselves; to attempt it, is, indeed, in the one case impolitic; in the other oppressive; in both unavailing. And wherever they go, and opportu nity invites, enough of British capital to set them in activity will follow. No sense of patriotism will check this; no laws can prevent it; the facility of transferring capital being such, that Mammon, in these days, like the Cupid of the poem,

'Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.'

This would be the enthunasy of the system, a gradual and easy decay without a shock; and, perhaps, were time allowed, we might then hope for a palingenesia, a restoration of national sanity and strength, a second birth;-perhaps I say,and were time allowed;-for I say this doubtfully; and that ghostly shake of the head with which it is received, does not lessen the melancholy distrust wherewith it is expressed."

We were not aware that the American, when he speaks colloquially of power, means nothing but a steam-engine, but he certainly has reason to admire it as a mighty agent, when he looks and reflects upon what it is accomplishing in navigation on our rivers and coasts. Its great triumphs in America are in this particular -in its efficiency for internal trade and rapid and delightful personal communication. As we are of Mr. Southey's school with regard to national happiness, and do not forget that the aggregate is composed of the enjoyments of individuals, we honour steam navigation, not merely for the degree in which it ministers to the transaction of business and the increase of wealth, but for the

pleasures and comforts which it affords the facilities for widelyextended personal intercourse, for the improvement of health, the correction of prejudices, the enlargement of knowledge, the recreation of the mind and body. Sir Thomas, the ghost, is fully sensible of the new influence of steam. He styles it the most powerful principle that has ever yet been wielded by man, and predicts that it will govern the world,—" mitrum et nitrum, the mitre and gunpowder having had their day." There is a principle in the moral world, which must, in our opinion, divide the empire with steam, and which Americans, we should think, would be quite as apt to mean when they speak of power. We refer to republicanism in the representative and federal scheme, to which the other will be subservient in obvious modes. Mr. Southey disserts upon the topic of war, and after treating peace societies with abundant contempt, invests steam with the quality of peacemaker, in this way :—

"The novel powers which, beyond all doubt, will be directed to the purposes of destruction, are so tremendous, and likely to be so efficient, that in their consequences they may reasonably be expected to do more towards the prevention of war, than any or all other causes. If, on the one hand, neither walls nor ramparts can withstand a continuous shower, or rather stream, of bullets, impelled against them by steam; on the other, such modes of defence by the same agent are to be devised, that the open city may be rendered more secure from assailants, than the strongest fortresses are at this time. Minds like that of Archime. des, will now have means at their command equal to their capacity and their desires. And men will not be induced, by any motives, to face such engines as may be brought into the field. They will first be felt in maritime war, in which there is reason to apprehend that a change as great, and not so gradual, as that which the introduction of cannon occasioned, will soon be brought about. There is an end to naval war, if it be made apparent, that whenever two ships engage, one, if not both, must inevitably be destroyed. And this is within the reach of our present science. The chemist and mechanist will succeed, where moralists and divines have failed. If steam navigation had been brought to its present state only half a generation sooner, or even half that term, the conquest of England would have been attempted, as well as designed, and the battle must have been fought on our own shores."

We have our doubts that the dread of mutual destruction will prove as operative as Mr. Southey imagines; yet it certainly will have, in that way, a degree of salutary influence. Touching the preservation of peace between the great Christian powers of Europe since 1815, we ascribe more efficacy to the perplexing condition of their finances, and the apprehension of grievous reciprocal blows, than to the sanctity of the Holy Alliance, the ascendency of any kind of public opinion, or the propagation of any rational, religious, or philanthropic doctrines. How long the restraining motives will continue to have sway, we do not pretend to determine:-Mr. Southey is of opinion that France will not be satisfied with her present power and extent of territory; that in Germany, there are jealousies which only slumber; that there is danger of a fierce struggle "between governments which grant too little, and enthusiasts who demand too much;"

and that Italy is in a worse plight. His speculations were probably written before the rupture between Russia and Turkey, which threatens to involve the other primary states, or place them in new relations with each other still more precarious. If Great Britain, France, and Austria compel Russia to stop short of Constantinople on the present occasion, still they cannot ultimately save the Turkish empire in Europe. Russia gravitates upon it, irresistibly;-at the first opportunity when those powers may be estranged, embroiled, or otherwise entangled and disabled, so as to allow her time for repeated and determined assaults, she cannot fail to succeed;-the crescent must yield to the cross-the turban to the green cap; and the cause of civilization may thus be promoted in the end. These considerations render it doubtful, whether they ought, in policy, to interfere at present, for any other purpose than that of securing to themselves a larger share of the spoils, or more satisfactory gages and arrangements, than they might be competent to procure at a later period, under less favourable circumstances. Genuine statesmen do not merely put off an evil day, trusting to the chapter of accidents, when it is likely to aggravate the case, much to their disadvantage.

Montesinos and his familiar naturally fall into the topics Catholic Emancipation and Ireland, and here the former breathes a spirit, and lavishes sentiments, such as we would have expected from Sir Harcourt Lees or the Earl of Eldon, if they had been announced as interlocutors. Mr. Southey is extremely embarrassed by his strong antipathy to Papists, and his equal or deeper aversion to Dissenters. In one page he tells us that the standard of both devotion and morals is higher in the Romish than in the Protestant countries; in another, that the reformation has done the English peasantry and manufacturers no good; in a third, that, though not yet three hundred years old, it is perishing in the country, Germany, where it originated; in a fourth, that it is his admiration, his delight, his hope. According to our author, there is a satanic combination against the Establishment, of Dissenters, Roman Catholics, and unbelievers; the former and the latter advocating Catholic Emancipation only to advance their respective interests and objects. The ghost asks his acquaintance if he believes that the spirit of the old Roman Catholic religion is changed; Montesinos answers

"No, by St. Bartholomew and Dr. Lingard! No, by St. Dominic and Dr. Doyle! No, by the Holy Office! By the Irish massacre, and the Dragonades of Louis XIV. By their saints and our martyrs!"

The Presbyterians fare no better, and are convicted by a similar logic. Both, he thinks, would make a grand Auto-da-fe, of all the adherents of the establishment, if they had the power. Atheism, superstition, and fanaticism, divide the world. The

British ministers have been fools and traitors to tolerate Roman Catholic colleges and favour Catholic Emancipation. The Irish religion is "a cobra capella, erecting itself on its coils, in hostile attitude against the English, its head raised, its eyes fixed and fiery, its head dilated, the forked tongue in action, and the fangs lifted in readiness to strike." The Presbyterians have become Socinians. The Dissenters are disloyal subjects, and the dissenting interest is a curse to the nation. The Protestant cause sustained more serious injury from the English Puritans, than from all the efforts of Spain, Austria, and France combined. There is an active and influential party in literature and in the state, with whom blank unbelief is the esoteric doctrine, and who seek on all occasions to wound and weaken Christianity. We cite these opinions of the Laureate as samples, yet he writes with all seriousness "men judge wiseliest when they judge most charitably." He is a sworn enemy to all abstract rights and democratical pretensions; upon these, he says, the science of politics, so called, has been erected by shallow sophists, without the slightest reference to habits and history. To maintain that the state ought not to concern itself with the religion of the subjects, he regards as the greatest and most perilous of all political errors. All the evils in society arise from the want of religious obedience; religion is the only true basis of governments; and to religion an established church is indispensable; this therefore is necessary for the security of the state and for the welfare of the people.

Few will deny that religious faith and worship are essential for social order and prosperity; but government is properly political and physical-and its best securities are universal attachment to its principles and forms, and general content and competence, arising out of equality of rights, lightness of burdens, scope for increase of numbers, and facilities for all kinds of salutary action and acquisition. Mr. Southey admits that the immense property of the Established Church in England, has been more secularly than religiously employed, that "a right faith has not led to right practice," and that "had it not been for the dissenting ministers, a considerable proportion of the people would have been left without any religious instruction." The annals of crime in Great Britain, equal in atrocity and volume those of any other nation;-instances of the grossest superstition and fanaticism are sufficiently numerous; and "the intense worldliness of all classes, the appalling misery and depravity of the lower orders in town and country, the disaffection and abjection," to which our author bears reiterated testimony, are cumulative proof of the inadequacy of the church establishment in a political or politico-economical sense. His theory is refuted by his own confessions and lamentations, unless it be understood as one of utter intolerance, which could be accomplished only by inquisitions and penalties,

such as he condemns in reference to Popish history. In fact, an establishment exclusive of sectarism, or permanently comprehensive, was impracticable under the principles and with the tendencies of the Reformation. That of England has been maintained at all, only by vast endowments, superior education, political power, intimate connexion with the crown and privileged or aristocratic orders; and in spite of all appliances and state-auspices, it undergoes inevitably a relative diminution of pale and consequence, which may well excite dismay in the breasts of admirers like Mr. Southey. The dilemma is an all-extensive establishment, and political and religious despotism, or toleration, and final religious freedom. The United States are fortunate to be exempt from the struggle which has produced so much deadly rancour, barbarous legislation, and irritating disfranchisement, as in Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. Southey trembles, however, for America, arguing that, inasmuch as "the American government has not thought it necessary to provide religious instruction for the people in any of the new states, the prevalence of superstition, in some wild and terrible shape, may be looked for as one likely consequence of this great and portentous omission." We shall quote some more of his words on this head, to amuse the wellinformed American reader.

"An old man of the mountain might find dupes and followers as readily as the all-friend Jemima; and the next Aaron Burr who seeks to carve a kingdom for himself out of the overgrown territories of the Union, may discover that fanaticism is the most effective weapon with which ambition can arm itself; that the way for both is prepared by that immorality which the want of religion naturally and more necessarily induces, and that camp-meetings may be very well directed to forward the designs of a military prophet. Were there another Mahommed to arise, there is no part of the world where he would find more scope, or fairer opportunity, than in that part of the Anglo-American Union into which the elder states continually discharge the restless part of their population, leaving laws and gospel to overtake it if they can; for in the march of modern colonization both are left behind."

Ignorance of facts and institutions is the excuse for this extravagance. The emigrants from the elder states carry with them the religious principles and rituals which they have received in their youth; the law, and the gospel, as they have learnt it, go with them; and they are followed by clergy regular or irregular, for whose ministry they build churches. Moreover, they are not illiterate, nor doltish; occasionally, individuals may fall under fanatical illusions, but in general they are too acute, too deeply imbued with particular religious and political maxims, and too intent on the improvement of their earthly condition, to become dupes to any ambitious impostor. If Mahommed were to be commissioned from his paradise to our western region, he would soon learn to talk about river-bottoms, crops, steam-boats, rail-roads and canals, and might get a seat in congress, by dint of his wordy eloquence. In the capacity of a military prophet, he would not