land navigation and well-situated sea ports, the national tranquillity and security for person and property, the maritime superiority,-all these place England at the head of manufacturing countries. Mr. M'Culloch says, “Our master manufacturers, engineers, and artisans, are more intelligent, skilful, and enterprising than those of any other country, and the extraordinary inventions they have made, and their familiarity with all the details of the business, will not only enable them to perfect the processes already in use, but can hardly fail to lead to the discovery of others. Our establishments for spinning, weaving, printing, bleaching, &c. are more perfect than any other; the division of labour is arrived to an incomparably greater extent; the workmen are trained from infancy in industrious habits, and have attained that peculiar dexterity and slight of hand in the performance of their separate tasks that can only be acquired by long and unremitting application to the same employment." Another advantage consists in our immense capital, which enables the merchant to buy on the best terms, and to sell at the lowest profit, owing to the extensive use of machinery. The price of our goods is regulated more by the profits of capital than by the wages of labour. The power loom changes the mode of manufacture from that in which we labour under a considerable disadvantage, to that in which we possess the greatest superiority. Among the countries mentioned as likely to be our rivals, there are disadvantages existing which act strongly against a successful competition. Thus in America is to be taken into account the high rate of profit, on capital, high wages, and expensive machinery. The great advantage possessed by the Americans is in their water power, which is cheaper than steam power, and in the diminished cost of weaving. On the whole it appears, that the Americans can rival the English in coarse and stout manufactures, but must be long inferior in the fine spinning or hand-loom weaving.

The production of the French in this manufacture is only one-fourth of that of England. Besides the drawbacks from national character and habits, the French are inferior in coal and iron. Coal is twelve times as dear as at Manchester, and iron is dear and scarce. Every thing in trade is protected in France; and protection is a very costly affair. Machinery is double the price in France that it is in England; the roads are defective; the duty on the material two per cent. higher than ours; capital less plentiful; and in fact, the French have only the monopoly of the home market and the colonies, and they absloutely exist only by prohibition. It is stated that a protecting duty of forty per cent. on English yarns would not save the French spinners from being ruined by their admission. Dr. Bowring considers that the cost of French goods over English is from thirty to forty per cent., their inferior machinery twenty-five per cent., and the inferiority of labour twenty per cent.

The Swiss are twenty per cent. lower than the French, but the want of coal, the limited water power, and the expense of the raw material must keep down the inanufacture in that country.

In Belgium, owing to the loss of the Dutch trade, the manufacture is in a state of deep distress.

In Prussia, Austria, Saxony, Lombardy, the manufacture, though extending, is yet insignificant, and they are badly situated as repects the raw material.

The Hindoo weaver, low as are his wages, can never compete with the power-loom, and the attempt to work a spinning wheel in Calcutta, with machinery sent from England, has proved a failure.

We have thus arrived at the end of our argument, and close Mr. Baines's book with the highest opinion of his knowledge and judgment. The principles he adopts we think are sound, and wise as they are liberal, and such as alone can form a safe and lasting basis for the lofty edifice of our manufacturing prosperity. Our natural advantages are great, our natural activity, energy, and skill unequalled, our capital greater than that of all Europe united, our institutions more free and popular. What have we then to fear?

NOTES ON BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. VOL. III.
(Continued from p. 21.)

P. 68. The print of Boswell alluded to in the note (1) is now before me; and the account of it by C. 1835, is not quite correct. Boswell has a cap with the inscription mentioned, and a feather. He has a brace of pistols at his girdle, a musket slung behind his back, and a long stick in his hand, surmounted by a snake. (S. Wale, del. J. Miller sculp.)— "James Boswell, Esq. in the dress of an armed Corsican chief, as he appeared at the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon, Sept. 1769."

P. 92. On the ballad of Hardyknute, see Ritson's Letters to G. Paton, p. 8. Pinkerton's Maitland Poems, vol. 1. p. cxxvi. Irvine's Lives of the Scotch Poets, vol. 11. p. 301. Netherwell's Ancient Minstrelsie, p. lxxii. -The first announcement of Hardyknute, was in the following letter from Sir John Bruce, of Kinross, to Lord Binning, about 1719, and which came into the possession of Lord Hailes :- To perform my promise, I send you a true copy of the manuscript I found some weeks ago in a vault at Dunfermline. It is written on vellum, in a fair Gothic character, but so much defaced by time, as you'll find that the tenth part is not legible."-Pinkerton says-Sir John Bruce, forgetting his letter to Lord Binning, used Mrs. Wardlaw, it would appear, as the midwife of his poetry, and furnished her with the stanza or two she afterwards produced, as he did not wish his name to be used in the story of the vault, &c. The second part of Hardyknute is an entire forgery of Pinkerton's, published in 1781.

P. 110. Boswell's assertion concerning what Dr. Johnson said on the subject of the foreknowledge of God, is as absurd, as his own language of "being certainly foreseen " is unphilosophical and incorrect. On this subject consult Archbishop Whateley's edition of Dr. King on Predestination; Davison's Sermon on the Divine Foreknowledge (Sermons on Prophecy, vol. VII.) and Copleston's Four Discourses. 1821. Boswell appears never to have studied the subject, nor to be acquainted with the arguments used in the discussion. As Dr. Johnson has referred to Archb. Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity, I may quote a passage in his treatise in which the difficulty attending common views of the subject may appear diminished, if we can go along with the author in his view of all time and the whole order of things which we call future, as well as past and present, being ever present to God:-" Concerning the prescience of contingent things, in my poor judgment, the readiest way to reconcile contingence and liberty with the decrees and prescience of God, and most remote from the altercations of these terms, is to subject future contingencies to the aspect of God, according to that presentiality which they have in eternity." And so Dr. Henry More, the Platonist :- "It may be conceived that the revolution of ages from everlasting to everlasting is so collectedly and presentifically represented to God at once, as if all things which ever were, are, or shall be,

were at this very instant, and so always really present and existent before him, which is no wonder, the animadversive and intellectual comprehension of God being absolutely infinite, according to the truth of his idea." Our modern treatises have added little to the arguments used on this subject by the old divines and scholastic writers: but they have presented them in a more compact point of view, and arranged and examined them with more logical accuracy.

P. 112. This conversation of Johnson's, on conversion from Popery to Protestantism, and vice versâ, to be at all instructive, should have entered into more particulars; when he says, " a Protestant embracing Popery, parts with nothing, but only superadds," he makes a very nice distinction. He certainly does part with many opinions which he before held. Surely superadding the belief of a doctrine, which you disbelieved before, as of purgatory, infallibility, is as difficult as parting with one which you did believe; both cause a new process of reasoning to take place in the mind: but Johnson's language appears to consider the change from Popery, not. only as a matter of conscientious reasoning, but of feeling. The distinction between parting and superadding would seem, in some cases, ridiculous;-as a Protestant becoming a Catholic, does not part with his belief of the lawful marriage of the clergy, but he superadds their celibacy to his former opinion.

P. 130. "Mrs. Grierson's edition of Tacitus, with the notes of Rycheus.” -There was no such critic. The person alluded to was Theodore Ryckius, of Guelderland and Leyden, born 1640, died 1690; he published a learned dissertation on the first colonies in Italy, &c.

P. 135. Walter Harte should have had higher praise than Mr. Croker has given. He was a man of various and elegant accomplishments-a poet, an historian, a divine, and a person of general knowledge. He was the friend of Pope. His essays on husbandry are remarkable for their elegance. I spent a few hours at Bath with my friend Mr. Harte, canon of Windsor, whose conversation on the subject of husbandry is as full of experience and as truly solid as his genuine and native humour, extensive knowledge of mankind, and admirable philanthropy are pleasing and instructive." Vide Six Weeks Tour through England, by the Author of the the Farmer's Letters, p. 153.-On his History of Gustavus, see Life of Schiller, p. 162. Harte has given a list of the historians of Gustavus Adolphus, but has omitted the following curious work—" Widekin di Historia Belli Sueco-Muscovitici Decennalis Sub Carolo IX. et Gustavo Adolpho. 4to. Helmiæ, p. 672."

P. 139. "In blank verse, he said, the language suffered more distortion to keep it out of prose, than any inconvenience to be apprehended from the shackles of rhyme." Blank verse is not separated from prose by distortion of language, but by selection of language. Poetry has its own language, which separates it from prose; distortion may be superadded, but it does not make the distinction. What distortion of language is there in Cowper's Task, in Thomson's Seasons? Johnson had Milton alone in his mind; but what he calls distortion,' is in truth poetical arrangement,' the arrangement proper to poetry.

P. 142. Speaking of the national debt he said—" it was idle to suppose that the country could sink under it. Let the public creditor be ever so clamorous, the interest of millions must prevail over that of thousands." But that country has sunk under its debt, that takes a sponge and wipes it out. It has irrevocably sunk in faith, in honour, and wealth; and to

what financial distress must it be carried, for this conflict to have taken place between debtors and creditors of the state; besides that the very confiscation of the debts would only serve to increase public distress and financial difficulties? The worst measure which the vox populi' ever forced on a minister, was the abolition of the Sinking Fund! Mr. Coleridge's opinions on the national debt as given in his Table Talk, are extraordinary, for so close a thinker, and a person of such knowledge.

P. 146. Of Dr. Brown, the author of the Estimate, &c. see Warburton's Letters in the Garrick Correspondence, which will give a better idea of Brown than any other work.

P. 153. "Nugent wrote some odes and light pieces, which had some merit, and a great vogue." I do not think that his small volume of Odes had much vogue; but one ode certainly had, viz. that which appeared in Dodsley, and to which Gray alludes when he said—" Mr. Nugent sure did not write his own ode." That is the one to William Pulteney, and the seventh stanza of which had the honour of being quoted by Gibbon, in his character of Brutus :

What tho' the good, the brave, the wise,
With adverse force undaunted rise,

To break the eternal doom;

Tho' Cato liv'd, tho' Tully spoke,

Tho' Brutus dealt the godlike stroke,

Yet perish'd fated Rome.

His other pieces, which we have just read, are very inferior; and Gray's question is not put without reason. His poems were published by Dodsley, in 1739, 8vo. On the subject of the above lines see The Antijacobin, p. 52.

'Save Parr's buzz prose and Courtenay's kidnapp'd rhymes.'

By which it appears that Mr. Courtenaysaw these lines of Nugent's, and liked them; but he thought it right to make a slight alteration in their appearance, which he managed thus. Speaking of Rome, he says, it is the place "Where Cato liv'd." A sober truth, which gets rid at once of all the poetry and spirit of the original, and reduces the sentiment from an example of manners, patriotism, virtue, from the exemplar virtue of Lord Nugent, to a mere question of inhabitancy. Ubi habitavit Cato? Where he was an inhabitant householder, paying scot and lot, and who had a house on the right hand side of the way, as you go down the Esquiline Hill, just opposite to the poulterer's. But to proceed

Where Cato liv'd, where Tully spoke,
Where Brutus dealt the godlike stroke-
By which his glory rose !!!

The last line is not borrowed. We question whether the history of modern literature can produce an instance of a theft so atrocious, and turned to so little advantage?' On Nugent, see Sir C. H. Williams's poems-passim. P. 158. We think Mr. Croker was quite right in his suspicion, that Johnson, at the age of sixty-two, would not have succeeded as an orator in the House of Commons; besides, had he appeared for the first time in the house at that age, he must have appeared as it were in the disadvantageous character of a professed debater. Not connected with any set of men, not allied to any particular interest of the country, not possessing any property, not familiar with the usages of the House, not conversant

with the details of some of the great questions that would arise, he could not have appeared as the man of business, the practical statesman. They who would not listen to Burke, might also have turned away from Johnson.

P. 195. "I see they have published a splendid edition of Akenside's Works. One bad ode may be suffered, but a number of them together makes one sick."-A very unfair estimate of Akenside's lyrical productions. With the exception of some few passages, which are too familiar and prosaic, Akenside's Odes are entitled to the praise of elegance, and often rise into fine lyrical spirit and energy. We have heard Mr. Wordsworth speak in their praise; and his motto to his last volume is taken from one of these bad odes. We so agree in Mr. Wordsworth's opinion, as to have read them till they have long been quite familiar to us.

P. 200. To this note of Sir H. Liddel bringing two rein deer to this country, it should be added that Mr. Bullock brought a whole herd, which we saw, and which we believe soon perished from want of their proper food, the moss, and from a temperature which did not agree with them.

P. 201. The character of Bayes was not originally sketched, as Mr. Croker says it was, for Sir R. Howard, but for Davenant; for the brownpaper patch on the nose, which was introduced in ridicule of Davenant's misfortune, was retained even when the character was changed to Dryden. It is said that, at one time, it was meant for Sir R. Howard. Dryden's dress, manners, and expressions are all copied, and Lacy, who acted Bayes, was instructed to speak after the manner of Dryden's recitation. Scott thinks the character was a sort of knight of the shire, representing all the authors of the day, &c. I think the change of the hero very much hurt the consistency and spirit of the satire.

4

P. 213. "

What did he say was the appearance (of the ghost). Why, sir, something of a shadowy being."-Mr. Coleridge has remarked that ghosts are described as shadows-but we cannot have shadows without substance to form it ;-Ghosts have no substance, ergo, &c.

P. 220. W. J. Mickle. Mr. Croker says, “His translation of the Lusiad is still read, his Original Poems are almost forgotten." His Lusiad is read, because it is well worth reading; though not faithful to the original, it is a very spirited poem, with beautiful versification. Sometimes passages of ten, twenty, thirty lines are introduced in one place Mickle has introduced 300 lines of his own. See, on the conduct of Mickle's Lusiad, a Criticism in Vigor's Essay on Poetic License, p. 212-224. On the dedication of the Lusiad, see D'Israeli's admirable and interesting Curiosities of Literature, vol. 1. p. 107. The noble lord to whom he dedicated it, kept it for above three weeks before he had courage to open the leaves. See also an account of the dedication in Chalmer's Life of him, British Poets, p. 509. It is said that to Adam Smith's insinuations he owed the loss of the patron to whom he dedicated the Lusiad. He first printed specimens of his translation in the Gent. Mag. 1771, and soon after printed the first book at Oxford. Mickle contributed much to Evans's Collection of Ballads. He is supposed to have fabricated some of the old ballads in it. We do not agree with Mr. Croker that Mickle's original poems are forgotten. His Syr Martyn' is a great favourite of ours. See an early poem of his on passing Parliament Close, in Campbell's History of Scotch Poetry, p. 244. In the European Magazine for 1788, is a criticism on the Samson Agonistes, by Mickle. And now we have no more to say of him at present.