RECREATIONS WITH THE MAGNIFYING A SKETCH FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. EVEN the sunniest days of summer are like life's pleasures-not always to be calculated upon. We had proposed for to-day a visit to the woodlands to study nature in the fields and open air; but the morning lowered, and to a dense drizzling fog succeeded a continued rain, which steeped everything in moisture. There is no time that one feels a disappointment from the weather more than in the long and bright days of summer, and especially when some out-door excursion is in view. The young people felt it much, and looking out upon the green shrubbery, every leaf of which was now weighed down with the dripping moisture, and on the prostrate roses with compressed and soiled petals, and then, giving many an anxious gaze up to the dense and sombre heavens, they could not help contrasting the sunny smiles of yesterday, and their out-of-door gambols, with the dreary solitude of this. Under these circumstances, other amusement was to be sought for within doors; so, making some arrangements beforehand with the magnifying mirror, the young people were called in. Look here, Henry, and as your observations are generally pretty accurate, tell us what you see.' 'I see a green park with shrubbery; in the distance a handsome lodge, and in the foreground several trunks of trees lying about as if newly felled.' After a short pause-Oh! I see on one of the prostrate trees a creature, a beautiful animal. I declare it moves; it climbs up over the fallen trunk, and now it stands on the upper side of it. How beautiful and majestic it looks! It has a dark-brown or olive body, with numerous fair yellow spots, a finely-shaped neck, small head, two horns, and soft and beautiful eyes. It moves again; it must be alive: it stalks along like a deer, or the pictures we have seen of a chamois. Tell me, is it really a living animal or a deception?' 'It is indeed,' said I, a living creature.' 'I thought so,' replied Henry, for its movements could not be but those of life and nature. How slender and elegant is its makeits limbs how pliant, and adapted for quick and easy motion! It now moves again down the sloping trunk of the tree, and along the side of another.' It was Anna's turn to view it next. I do see the creature, but it is half concealed among the branches: nothing now is seen but its beautiful head with its slender tapering horns and soft intelligent eyes. It is gone; I wish it would appear again. Oh! here comes from the other side another, and another, and another. What beautiful creatures! They move on with all the calmness and majesty of tame roes: they stand, look round, move their horns, and then wheel off, succeeded by others. Oh! here is a little one, a young creature, of a bright yellow, with a body so transparent that you may almost see through it.' Elizabeth, who had given place to the younger children, now had her curiosity raised. She now viewed the mimic scene, peopled with really living creatures, with some amazement. They are indeed like a troop of deer,' she says; but this is impossible; and, let me see, they have six feet instead of four.' 'Six feet cried Henry, somewhat piqued at his failing to observe this; are you sure of that? let me look again.' It was found that they had six feet, and, therefore, that they could not be quadrupeds. I then inquired what class of animals had six feet, and they all answered me, 'Insects generally.' They were, however, loath all at once to bring down their fine troop of deer, or, at the least, chamois, to insects; but as the investigation of truth should at all times be made the paramount object, the mimic show was dissolved, and the trunks of trees in the foreground proved to be some slips of our favourite myrtle, which I had discovered to be infested with the aphis, or plant louse. While reading near the window, one of these animals crawled across my book, and I was so struck with the beauty and elegance of its form, that after ascertaining from whence it came, and that it had left there numerous companions, I resolved on showing it on a magnified scale; and, by arranging a coloured landscape of a park and trees in the way mentioned, I succeeded in inducing in the children the association of deer in a park. Our attention was now directed to the myrtle, and to its stock of living inhabitants, which it had, unfortunately for its health and vigour, acquired. The question now was, where had these insects come from? The myrtle had hitherto been perfectly free from them, and as the species of aphis appeared to be that generally found on the willow, I conjectured that the colony had come from the willows on the outskirts of the shrubbery. But how could they come from such a distance, over walls and through hedgerows? How? what is to hinder an animal which you compared to a deer from bounding over all these obstacles? But look here, some of these insects are winged, while others, and the great majority, are wingless. This is a singular difference in animals of exactly the same species: but so it is; some are furnished with wings, in order that they may flee away and produce new colonies, while the remainder, creeping along from plant to plant, leave none in their neighbourhood untenanted. They are perhaps the most numerous of all insects, and the most prolific. One parent will bring forth from ninety to a hundred young; in five or six weeks as many generations will have sprung from each of these ninety, so that, in the course of a short season, not less than six thousand millions will have sprung from a single parent. You see these clusters of minute brown spots on the under side of the leaf? these are the eggs from which young will be hatched in a few days. Towards the close of the season, eggs are always produced and deposited in crevices of the green bark; these eggs endure the cold of winter, and insure a brood in spring, thus affording a careful provision by which nature secures the preservation of the species. And what part of the plant do these animals feed on ?' inquired Elizabeth. They extract the juice by a proboscis, the end of which pierces the leaf or tender stem. If you gently turn up one of these myrtle leaves, you will find a group of the insects on the under side, and with this glass we shall probably see some of them feeding. They are always found on the under side of the leaf, and thus are protected from the weather and from their enemies.' Here,' cries Henry, 'is one busy at work; I see his proboscis distinctly; it is not unlike that of the elephant.' And here is another on this side,' said Elizabeth, 'just unfolding its proboscis, and we shall watch it piercing the leaf. How quickly and easily is this operation performed. But do they not injure the leaves by this process?' Very much,' I replied: 'you see how many of the leaves of yon myrtle are curled up and shrivelled and sickly from the operations of these creatures; in a very short time the whole plant would suffer from the abstraction of its due nourishment. In this way these animals are very destructive to all plants on which they settle, and especially to tender and succulent ones, which they prefer. You see, too, on many of the leaves a clammy whitish fluid; this is what is called honey dew; in reality a kind of sugar or honey which drops from the animal, and is the refuse of its digestion. This is what gives the clammy feel to the stems and leaves of many plants, which you have often remarked, and which is found covering them, as the beech and hop, like a hoar frost. Some have supposed that this dew exuded or sweated from the pores of the plant itself, from the state of the weather, but there can be no doubt that it is caused by the aphis, for it is only found on those parts of the plant where they are domiciled. Other insects are very fond of, and feed on this honey dew, and it is much more common in some seasons than in others-those years of blight, which, by repressing and retarding the vigorous growth of plants, favour the propagation of the aphis.' 'You make me displeased with the aphis now, which I formerly admired,' said Elizabeth; how shall we rid our dear myrtle of these pests?' 'The rascally vermin!' cries Henry; 'we shall utterly exterminate them, not only from the myrtle, but from the willows and the garden too.' 'Moderate your wrath a little, my dears,' I said; they have enemies enough, as you shall presently hear; besides, they perform their parts in the great chain of existence, and would be as much missed by many hungry stomachs, as our sheep or our poultry would be by us.' 'Let us hear of some of their enemies,' they all exclaimed. In the first place, they are preyed upon incessantly by many of the larger flies, which pounce upon them, and suck up all the juices of their bodies. Among these is the ichneumon fly-a brown fly with a long piercer attached to its body, which I have formerly shown you. This fly pitches upon a poor aphis, pierces its little body, and then deposits its egg in the hole which it has made. In a few days the egg becomes a little grub, having such a voracious appetite that it soon devours every particle of the creature into whose body it had been so curiously inserted, except its skin, when, piercing a hole in this, it creeps out, and leaves the dry skin hanging on the leaf like a drop of dew. Myriads of them fall in this manner. And the well-known insect, the lady-bird you have often seen creeping among the bushes, many a dinner does it make on a fattened aphis. But they have more enemies still. You see that blue tomtit there busy among the leafy bushes; even in this rainy day he must have his dinner. See how he perches with his back downwards, and picks, picks incessantly at the backs of the leaves; every pick indicates the death of an aphis: not fewer are made than one hundred in the minute, so that in half an hour, for his share alone, he has bagged three thousand head. And no doubt many other species of the soft-billed birds are making similar dinners in various other corners.' 'I relent against the poor aphis,' cries Anna, and must again pity it: no wonder that they have fled from the willows and the cruel ichneumons, and have come to take shelter in our myrtle: we must not kill them; yet if they would only be content with cabbages, and not destroy our beautiful myrtle, I would feed them myself daily.' Here followed a sharp discussion on the propriety or impropriety of their destruction. Henry was firm in the determination that, as they had unlawfully entered the house, and taken possession of the plant, they should be exterminated without compunction. The others hesitated much, on the plea that the creatures were innocent, and had sought their protection; and proposed that the plant should be taken out into the lawn and washed with water till freed of them. I stated that this plan would be ineffectual, for water was found not to kill them, and the most minute washing would not eradicate them; that in all greenhouses, and other similar places where their rapid increase could not be checked by the operations of their lawful enemies, man had no hesitation in exterminating them by his art. I then explained the means by which I intended to preserve the myrtle from their further ravages, which was to place it within a large box, and apply over it the fumes of tobacco; this, or sprinkling the leaves with tobacco juice, being generally approved of as the best means of getting quit of such destructive creatures. I then turned to the pages of our favourite poet of "The Seasons,' and desired Henry to read the passage referring to these insects. For oft, engendered by the hazy north, To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl, "The author, you see, here describes concisely and elegantly what I have been telling you.' He is at fault, however,' said Henry, 'with regard to the remedy of water as a destroyer of them.' And he omits,' added Anna, all mention of the cruel ichneumon.' Still here, as indeed throughout his whole poem, he paints his sketches not only with the eye of a poet, but of an accurate naturalist.' PERSECUTED POETS. HAPPILY such a being as a persecuted poet has no existence in this country. No court censor wields his pen to score out, from his manuscript, a bard's finest thoughts, because they may, in the cold unsympathising opinion of the official, be construed by the public into something having a political tendency opposed to the powers that be. But abroad-especially in Germany and Italy-the case is different: nothing can be done in imaginative art without the sanction of the government. To show how rigidly this rule is enforced, we may cite a curious instance of the small despotism which the heads of a great empire will sometimes exercise over half-adozen simple words. A few months since, a noble Florentine, Count Masetti, anxious to save it from the ravages of time and the vandalism of speculators, purchased the house, on the Lung' Arno, in which Alfieri lived and died, and placed over the gate, on a white marble slab, the following inscription:-Vittorio Alfieri, Principe dell' Italiana Tragedia, per la gloria e regenerazione d'Italia qui detto e qui mori'-('Here Victor | Alfieri, the Prince of Italian Tragedy, for the glory and regeneration of Italy wrote and died.") There was nothing very alarming in this monumental record; the local censorship gave its visa, and the prefect of police his exequatur. The inscription had been open to public view for several days, when, all at once, the Austrian chargé d'affaires at Florence took exception to it, in the name of his imperial master. At first it was naturally believed by the Tuscan government that he could not be serious; but despatches from Vienna came which fully proved that the chargé d'affaires perfectly represented the notions as well as the power of the Austrian emperor. Protest, lampoon, pasquinade, and epigram, were all in vain. The Florentine authorities were obliged to yield, and the inscription was removed in the name of Austria. If, it will be asked, this sort of vigilance be exercised over mere poetical inscriptions, what must be its effect upon poets and poems themselves? The reply will appear in the few facts we are about to narrate. They do not, it is true, apply to Austria, but to other parts of Germany, where the jealousy of literary censorship is equally rigid and oppressive. So much so, that the youthful continental poet has to struggle not only against want of patronage and the other evils which unknown genius is heir to in every clime, but runs the risk-even when his fondest hopes are accomplished in finding his verses in print of being punished for some perhaps accidental, perhaps designed eulogy on a forbidden subject—such, for instance, as 'freedom.' Many instances of this have occurred in Germany in former times, without exciting our especial wonder. But now, the spread of knowledge and a more ripened political experience would, one would think, diminish the number of persecuted poets. This, however, does not appear to be the case. Our readers may recollect an account, Let us not be by partial defeats disconcerted; And the cry be raised louder of Freedom and Right! For these two are one, and they mock all endeavour And let this thought, too, cheer us--more proudly defiant And battle they still, where the voice of earth's sorrow in our twelfth volume, of the case of George Herwegh, who was banished from the Prussian dominions as an incorrigible votary of ideas inconsistent with the existing political system. In the last number of the Foreign Quarterly Review we find some interesting particulars respecting an equally able poet, and apparently more amiable man, Ferdinand Freiligrath, who has been recently banished for publishing a song we shall presently quote, and for translating Burns's noble ditty, A man's a man for a' that!' From the above source we learn that Ferdinand Freiligrath was born at Detmold, in Westphalia, where his father was a teacher in the burgher school, and early destined for the pursuit of commerce. He is said to have given proofs, even in childhood, of a poetic temperament, and, at the age of seven, to have delighted his father by the production of his first copy of verses. At an early age he was removed to the care of an uncle at Soest, in Munster. This relation, a man of ample means and liberal sentiments, allowed his poetic nephew to follow the bent of his inclinations. Much to the credit of Ferdinand, he took the best possible advantage of his uncle's kindness; for during the six years he remained with him, he acquired the English, French, and Italian languages. His mind,' says our authority, had already taken its decided bent, and not all the prosaic details of the wharf and the counting-house could smother the fire of genius within him: on the contrary, his vigorous imagination throve well upon such food as would have killed a weaker one of indigestion. Invoices of sugar and whale-oil are not, perhaps, the sort of reading best fitted, in all instances, to nourish and develop the poetic faculty; but in every tub of oil Freiligrath had bodily These lines, and a translation of 'A man's a man for before him the life of the hardy whaler, its perils, hard- a' that,' which appeared about the same time, were abships, and bursts of intense joyous excitement; every solutely prohibited, and as our readers would perhaps cask of sugar spoke to him of tropic skies and tropic like to see a specimen of official criticism from the pen vegetation, of tornadoes and earthquakes, of pirates and of a continental censor, we produce the following from slavers, and negroes toiling under the white man's the chief of the Upper Court of Censorship of Berlin :lash, who, in their own wild land, had fought victo-The fundamental notions from which both poems proriously with the lion and rhinoceros for their spoils. The sights and sounds of the sea, which the great bulk of his countrymen know only by report, became for him visible and audible realities; he mingled with travellers and seafaring men, for his muse was not of that squeamish sort that "loves not the savour of tar and pitch;" and many a band of emigrants, from his own Germany, did he see departing for the new world, and he talked with them of the untried homes they were seeking, and of that dear land they were never again to visit but in dreams. Thus his mind accumulated a vast store of images, not isolated or partial, but concrete and entire; he could say of himself, ** My eyes make pictures when they're shut❞— pictures which he projected into his verses, glowing with the vivid colours of the most intense life.' There are sore aching bosoms and dim eyes of weepers ceed are, in their clear and pure conception and application, perfectly true, and may even be uttered and extolled in a poetical form. But such a turn and import is given them in the said poems, that a provocative appeal is thereby made to the tendencies in conflict with the existing social and political order of things; the first poem, namely, addressing itself to false ideas of freedom, the second to the mutually hostile opposition of the several ranks of society; wherefore these poems are manifestly at variance with the principles of the censorship, as laid down in the fourth article of the Instructions." that would make a in the paper, and returned it. He turned then to me, The practical operation of these prohibitions is graphically described by a correspondent to the League newspaper. 'Standing,' he says, 'in a bookseller's shop (in Frankfort), where I had called to inquire for a new work, I saw a man enter with a sheet of paper in his His poems, which he began to publish in 1830, in hand, which he handed to the bookseller. After readvarious periodicals, were first issued in a collected forming part of its contents, the bookseller wrote his name in 1838, and they have now, in six years, reached as many editions. In 1839, encouraged by the enthusiasm with which his first volume was received, Freiligrath withdrew from commercial pursuits. His means, which were probably not large, were increased, in 1842, by a small pension spontaneously bestowed on him by the king of Prussia. On New-Year's day 1844, however, Freiligrath thought it advisable to resign his pension, and shortly after published a poem, of which the follow-conceived in such general terms, that none but a Prussian, ing is a translation:or some one well versed in the domestic policy of Germany, would think of applying them to Berlin. The most explicit piece the book contains is a translation of Campbell's "Ode to the Germans," in comparison with which the others are gentle complaints. Freiligrath has a remarkable tact in translating from the English, and has even been able to give his countrymen a taste of the beauties of Burns. In the preface, he declares his envy of the land in which it was possible to publish "A man's a man for a' that," without every verse being applied to Alnwick, Apsley House, or Buckingham 'FREEDOM AND RIGHT. O say not, believe not, the gloom of the grave Palace, and the authors being thus brought into conflict with the pillars of the state. Burns would assuredly, in Germany, have been exchequered, instead of sharing, even in a humble capacity, the profit of the excise office; and his danger would have been of course the greater in a land where the state professes to have but one pillar, which will not bear shaking.' Before Freiligrath could venture to publish any more poems, he was compelled to put himself out of the reach of the royal censor, and now resides in exile at Brussels. The above account of Freiligrath, with the translated poem, is from the last number of the Foreign Quarterly Review, a work now of long standing, and which we are happy to see kept up with unabated spirit. There is perhaps no department of intellectual culture more neglected in England than the study of continental liteIature. POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY OF NEWCASTLE. An institution called the 'Tyne Polytechnic Society' was established in the above town in the early part of September last. There were a Literary and Philosophical Society, a Natural History Society, and a Mechanics' Institution, previously in existence; but the terms of the Literary and Philosophical Society (two guineas per year) are too high for the limited income of the majority of the working classes. The Mechanics' Institution has hitherto confined its funds to the formation of a library and purchasing philosophical apparatus; and all classes which have been established under its auspices have been charged extra to the students attending them. A branch of the Government School of Design is also established at Newcastle, and affords an excellent opportunity for instruction in the art of design, as applied to manufactures. But there was still something wanted to complete the education of the great majority of the artisans in that populous and important town. Impressed with this idea, a few individuals met at a private house, and resolved to establish a society for the purpose of affording mutual instruction in the several departments of science, until their funds should allow of payment to lecturers. And such has been the success of the measure, that, in the short space of four months, upwards of eighty members have joined the society, and numbers are daily being admitted. Classes for the study of mathematics, chemistry, English grammar, the French language, and drawing, are now in active operation; and others for the Latin language, elocution, music, and modelling, will be added as soon as the necessary arrangements for their establishment are completed. The pupils already number amongst their teachers professional men, who have handsomely offered their services gratuitously. They have purchased furniture for the room, and also the requisite books, out of the quarterly subscriptions (38. per quarter above the age of eighteen years, and 1s. 6d. below that age); aided only by a donation from the mayor of the town, A. L. Potter, Esq. It is intended to form a library of scientific works; but the books will not be allowed to circulate, the want of success of the classes attached to some Mechanics' Institutions having been traced to the inducement afforded by their libraries for members to remain at home, instead of attending the classes. The committee of the society take in rotation the duty of attending every week, and thus save the salary of an attendant or librarian. We have entered somewhat minutely into detail, for the purpose of showing the advantages likely to result from the formation of similar institutions in other towns. So far as this institution has been carried on, no expense whatever has been incurred for the teachers of the various classes. Ultimately, however, it is the intention of the members to engage feed teachers and lecturers when their finances will permit. WOMAN'S MISSION. As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it in sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling around it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity-winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.-Washing ton Irving. WE ARE GROWING OLD. We are growing old-how the thought will rise On some long remembered spot that lies It may be the shrine of our early vows, But it seems like a far-off isle to us, In the stormy sea of years. Oh, wide and wild are the waves that part Our steps from its greenness now, And we miss the joy of many a heart, And the light of many a brow; For deep o'er many a stately bark That steered with us from that early mark Oh, friends, we are growing old. Old in the dimness and the dust Old in the wrecks of love and trust The bloom of life's freshness yet, And beams may brighten our latter days, But oh the changes we have seen, In the far and winding way; The graves in our path that have grown green, And the locks that have grown gray! The winters still on our own may spare The sable or the gold; But we saw their snows upon brighter hair- We have gained the world's cold wisdom now, But where are the living founts whose flow We have won the wealth of many a clime, But where is the hope that saw in time Will it come again when the violet wakes, We have stood in the light of sunny brakes, And our souls might joy in the spring-time then, For it ne'er could give us the youth again THE KAMPTULICON. FRANCES BROWNE, constructed by the Elastic Pavement Company of London, Such is the name given to a new life-boat invented and whose applications of caoutchouc to a number of economical purposes we noticed in No. 33 of our present series. The 'Kamptulicon,' so called from the elastic nature of its materials, is composed principally of cork and India-rubber, the gunwale, keel, seats, and fittings, being of wood. She is 34 feet long and 12 feet wide, and is 4 feet deep in the midships from gunwale to keel; she is fitted with four victualling-boxes, and ten air-boxes, covering an area of about 19 feet by 10 feet, which may be fitted up at will either with air or water-with air, of course, when increased buoyancy is required, and with water when extra ballast is wanted. She is capable of holding about fifty persons; and though an open boat, with no sails or rigging of any description, little doubt is entertained of her capability to live in the roughest sea, the specific gravity of the material of which she is composed being so small, that she would not sink if full of water. She weighs about two tons, and draws fifteen inches of water when her crew and passengers are on board. Complete sets of the Journal, Firat Series, in twelve volumes, and also odd numbers to complete sets, may be had from the publishers or their agents. A Stamped Edition issued for transmission, post free, price Two. pence halfpenny. Printed by William Bradbury, of No. 6, York Place, and Frederick Mullett Evans, of No. 7, Church Row, both of Stoke Newington, in the county of Middlesex, printers, at their office, Lombard Street, in the precinet of Whitefriars, and city of London; and Published (with permission of the Proprietors, W. and R. CHAMBERS,) by WILLIAM SOMERVILLB OKR Publisher, of 3. Amen Corner, at No. 2, AMEN CORNER, betb in the parish of Christchurch, and in the city of London-Saturday, February 22, 1845. EDINBURGH CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. No. 61. NEw Series. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1845. SEVENTEEN FORTY-FIVE AND EIGHTEEN FORTY-FIVE. THE arrival of the year forty-five in this century has produced a slight sensation-in Scotland particularly over and above what the commencement of a new year generally occasions. We are all set a-thinking of that former forty-five in which such a remarkable series of domestic occurrences took place, deciding the fate of a dynasty with which an obsolete system of government and of faith was connected, and determining the current of public affairs and of social progress into a channel which it has never since left. We also recollect the extraordinary character of the transactions of the last forty-five, so highly calculated to take hold of the imagination and feelings; a piece of medieval romance, as it were, which had by chance wandered into the age of whiggery and hoop-petticoats; sounding, amidst hosts of the commonplaces by which we are still surrounded, the expiring trumpet notes of chivalry. That great round in the markings of time, a century-impressive because it is just the first grand period which living man must all but despair of seeing accomplished in his own life-has now been completed since a disinherited prince, tartanned, targetted, pedestrian, but an Apollo of youthful grace and natural dignity, trailed his cloud of self-devoted Highlanders through Lowland Scotland and Central England, to regain the crown of a hundred ancestors (the faith made it a reality), or die in the attempt. How much was there concentrated in that strange pageant! -divine right breaking its head in madness against the impregnable walls of popular privileges-the Celt, in his dress and arms older than Romulus or Pericles, perishing in a last attack upon the overwhelming force of the higher-endowed Goth-generous feelings, eagerness to redress what were thought personal wrongs, anselfish worship of an ancient idea almost identified with religion, meeting a murderous rebuke from the cannon-mouth and the scaffold, and, in the inexorable sternness of human contendings, ridiculed as folly and condemned as crime! Since all this happened, a hundred years have passed, and laid everything but a memory beneath the sod. It will be all the same a hundred years hence,' some rustic philosopher might have said at the time, as he heard the shouts of strife and the ailings of wo; and behold those hundred years have passed, and it is the same in the sense he meant it. We are only a few historical chapters the richer. But the recurrence of a 'forty-five' is not to awaken these romantic associations alone. We are also called upon as a nation to reflect with grateful feelings upon the progress which has been made by our country since the last of our civil wars, showing, as the retrospect powerfully does, the benefits which flow from intestine PRICE 11d. peace. The England, and still more particularly the Scotland, of 1745, how different from those of 1845 ! Hardly in any one particular is there not an improvement; while, taking the whole together, and considering it either by itself absolutely or relatively towards other states, an advance of a most remarkable nature is apparent. In that time Great Britain has acquired India, and planted far more colonies than are required to make up for the few New England states of 1745, which she has since lost. She has bound Ireland to her in incorporating union, making a United Kingdom, which probably contains not less than three times the population which existed on the same space in 1745. The national debt of 1745 has indeed increased from fifty, to be now not less than eight hundred millions; a somewhat alarming fact at first sight; and yet it cannot be doubted, considering the relative population and wealth, that the debt of a hundred years ago was a heavier burden than that of the present day. David Hume prophesied that when the national obligations came to a hundred millions, England must be ruined; but that sum has been multiplied by eight without insolvency, and no one would now expect that an advance to a thousand millions would be fatal to our national fortunes. The annual expenditure is now somewhat above the whole amount of the debt in 1745—a fact which may be partly to be deplored; but does it not indicate also a vast increase in the national resources? Since 1745, the productive powers of the soil, especially in the northern section of the island, have been more than doubled, in consequence of improved methods of agriculture and husbandry; but the improvement in this respect is small compared with that which has taken place in other branches of industry. The cotton manufacture has been created since 1745, and all the other great manufactures have been prodigiously increased. The shipping of the country has gone on in equal paces. See the best exponents of these facts in the rise of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow, from the small towns which they were in 1745 to what they now are. Liverpool was not so important a town in 1745 as to have a newspaper. Manchester had only one. There were but twenty-eight in all provincial England, two in Scotland, and four in Ireland (in the two last cases, confined to the respective capitals). London was then a town of under half a million of population-about one and a half of the present Manchester. Edinburgh had forty, and Glasgow twenty thousand: now the latter is computed to have 311,000. Lancashire has since then added just about one million to her population! The whole annual revenue of the country from customs in 1745 (about a million and a half) was not a third of what is now drawn on that account in Liverpool port alone. The entire annual revenue of the empire during the reign of George II. (about eight millions on the average of thirty-three |