ducers who give him their products in exchange for his, and no one has any fund wherewith to pay taxes, or to purchase commodities, save and except the article he is a producer of. If this view of society be correct, and it appears to us to be demonstrably so, can it be held for a moment, with Doctor Longfield, that an assessment for the unemployed poor must fall solely upon one set of producers, called the "labouring class," amongst this great variety of producers, of which society consists. Must not such a tax diminish the power of those who pay it, to employ lawyers, doctors, clergymen, authors, tutors, &c., as well as labourers. We

are, therefore, forced to dissent from Dr. Longfield's argument, although we cannot adopt Mr. Butt's refutation of it.

We believe it to be erroneous simply because it forgets the vast num-\ ber of persons who are equally producers with the labouring classes, and are equally supported by the revenue of society. But even though the argument could not be met, yet, cannot the difficulty be escaped, and did not the Act of Elizabeth effectually do so; for, according to the principle of that act, the rate which was levied, and which we will assume to have been thus taken from the labourer, is restored to him in the form of drained rivers, reclaimed lands, the construction of mountain roads, or suppose houses built for the labouring classes, in short, in whatever work the labourer would sooner or later derive benefit from, but which the lack of enterprize, the period of return being too remote, the necessity for the co-operation of very many persons, or any other cause whatsoever, might have prevented the voluntary undertaking of.

Mr. Butt has truly said, that the assertion of the right of labour, is not the mere language of enthusiasm. Mr. Senior in his pamphlet on the Relief provided for the Poor in the principal nations of Europe, shows us that in Sweden, Norway, Russia, in fact, in one-half Europe, this relief however inadequate, however insufficient it may be, is yet avowedly based on the principles of their natural right; and not to speak of Heathen nations, or Heathen moralists, we find the claims of labour formally laid down in the writings

of Puffendorf, Grotius, Montesquieu, Locke, Paley, in fact, of every inoralist of eminence who ever wrote. Mr. Locke says "Reason tells us that all men have a right to their subsistence, and consequently to meat, and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their preservation. We know that God has not left one man so to the mercy of another, that he may starve him if he please; God the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of his children such a property, in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods, so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it."

Mr. Butt has enriched his lectures by quotations, freely taken from the writings of the illustrious Bishop Berkeley. In drawing our notice of this important subject to a close, we cannot more effectually recommend it to our readers, than by adopting the language of another distinguished prelate who presided over the same see. About eighty years since Dr. Woodward thus expressed himself on the inherent right of the poor to reasonable support: "It would be a waste of words, and a disgrace to reasoning, to labour to prove a point so clear as this, that the richer members of society, who are the minority, have no right to exclude the lower class, who are the majority, from any portion of the public patrimony, without securing to them the resources of a subsistence, when they must otherwise be reduced to the dreadful alternative of breaking through these regulations, or perishing by a dutiful observance of them."

We must now conclude our notice of these lectures. They reflect the highest credit on the University from which they emanate, and bear additional testimony, if any such were needed, to the genius and to the talents of their au thor. For the science of political economy, they have done much by the exposition of the subject with which they are directly concerned, but more, still more by directing the investigations of the science into a new channel. For we are satisfied that no one who reads these lectures attentively, will henceforth feel that he has thoroughly investigated the economical bearings of any measure, until he has examined its effects, not merely on the production, but on the distribution of wealth.

THE distinguished individual whose life and correspondence lie before us, was one of the galaxy of great men by whom the reign of George III. was illustrated and adorned. England was called upon to confront perils, both political and social, such as she never before encountered, and by which the whole framework of her polity seemed about to be disorganised. And not the least among the remarkable men who were raised up to be her stay and her protection against the revolutionary madness which was desolating the rest of Europe, was Richard Colley Wellesley, whose abilities will bear a comparison with those of the most gifted and brilliant of his contemporaries, and whose services were only second to those of his illustrious brother, his eleve in the field of fame, and whose renown is identified with the brightest page of his country's military glory.

He was born on the 20th of June, 1760, his biographer is uncertain whether at Dangan Castle, the seat of the family in the county of Meath, or at their town residence, in Graftonstreet, Dublin. His father, the Earl of Mornington, was remarkable for his musical abilities, and his kindly and benevolent nature first it was that led to the establishment of a loan fund, upon the principle of the Monte Piete Institution, by which, while distress was relieved, industry was encouraged, and habits of thrift and eco

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nomy promoted, which, in many instances, raised the borrowers from distress and want, to opulence and prosperity. Amongst the most admired of his musical compositions are― "Here in Cool Grot;' "When for the World's Repose;" "Gently hear me, charming Maid;"" By Green Wood Tree." There is also a chant to the "Magnificat," in which his devotional feeling is expressed, and which is used at present in many of our churches. Of his lady, the daughter of Arthur Hill Trenor, first Viscount of Dungannon, but little is said in the work before us, although she was, we believe, a woman of extraordinary good sense and vigour of character, and to whom her younger children more especially were indebted for their early advantages.

Upon the early classical celebrity of the subject of this sketch, we cannot afford to dwell. He was amongst the most distinguished of his cotemporaries at Eton, and retained, through life, a strong predilection for the studies by which he was familiarised with the models of Grecian and Roman composition, which he imitated with no mean skill, and in which, during the most active period of his subsequent brilliant career, he found recreation and enjoyment.

Lord Mornington died on the 22nd of May, 1781, and his eldest son wanted just one month of his majority, when he succeeded to the family

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estate and title. He at once placed himself in loco parentis to his younger brothers and sisters, voluntarily made himself responsible for his father's numerous pecuniary obligations, and showed his good sense as well as his filial affection by placing the estates under the management of his mother, by whose vigorous understanding he knew well they would be better administered than they could be by one whose cares must thenceforth be chiefly devoted to public objects.

When he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords, Ireland was in the agony of her struggle for independence. What his precise sentiments were upon that important question we have no distinct means of knowing; but that he sympathised, in general, with the popular party, there can be no doubt, as we find him supporting a motion of Lord Mountmorres-" that a session of parliament should be holden every year," and condemning the large and extravagant grants by which the public resources were squandered by a profligate administration.

But his sagacious mind soon led him to see the danger of the courses upon which the popular leaders had adventured. With the Volunteers, in their original formation, he sympathised. They were the sudden development of great national vigour to meet an emergency for which the government were not prepared. But when they proceeded to resolve themselves into an armed deliberative body, and assumed that menacing attitude by which they hoped to control the determinations of parliament, he at once saw that the constitution was in danger, and he denounced this abuse of their functions with an energy which electrified the house, and declared that no man's liberty could be safe so long as such a tyranny was endured. For what was called his tragic vehemence on this occasion he was gravely chidden by some older senators, who lived, however, to see, that, had that body been permitted to continue its sittings, his worst apprehensions would have been realised.

At that period it was allowable for an Irish nobleman to represent a constituency in the British House of Commons, while he retained his rank and privileges in the Irish House of Lords; and at the general election in

In

1784, Lord Mornington was returned for the borough of Beersalton. 1785, he was made a member of the privy council in Ireland; and in 1786 he was appointed one of the lords of the treasury in England, one of his colleagues being William Pitt.

It is curious that the first occasion upon which he distinguished himself in the House of Commons, was by an attack upon Lord North for his defence of Warren Hastings! That eminent and useful public servant, it is now acknowledged, became obnoxious to the attacks of a brilliant but unscrupulous opposition, for a series of measures imposed upon him by the necessities in which he was placed, and which were absolutely necessary for the security of the company's possessions in India; and little did Lord Mornington imagine that the conviction would soon be forced upon himself, that if that country was to be retained, the maxims of constitutional government with which British statesmen were familiar,, must be disregarded. But he was yet to learn that to Asiatics a system of despotism is as natural as, to British subjects, a system of freedom; and that the princes and potentates who were bent upon our expulsion from the settlement, must be encountered with their own weapons, if their aggressions were to be effectually resisted.

In 1788, he was returned for the royal borough of Windsor, and took an active part in the debates upon the celebrated regency question, in which he coincided with Mr. Pitt, and ably supported that great man in the constitutional doctrine which he maintained, that, in the event of the royal incapacity, it devolved upon the two houses of parliament to supply the defect which had taken place; in opposition to the doctrine of Mr. Fox and his friends, who maintained, that the heir apparent was entitled to enter upon the functions of sovereign, as soon as the royal incapacity was ascertained, and exercise them with the same unrestricted freedom to which he would be entitled if they devolved upon him by natural demise.

In England, the question was decided in favour of the view of the minister. In Ireland, that contended for by the opposition prevailed. In the one country, the Prince of Wales