that frivolous age, was a surer passport to fame than any amount either of intellect or virtue, and which, as we have seen, mollified even the monarch himself in spite of his prejudices; Marvell preferred poverty and independence to riches and servility. He had learned the lesson, practised by few in that age, of being content with little-so that he preserved his conscience. He could be poor, but he could not be mean; could starve, but could not cringe. By economizing in the articles of pride and ambition, he could afford to keep what their votaries were compelled to retrench, the necessaries, or rather the luxuries, of integrity and a good conscience. Neither menaces, nor caresses, nor bribes, nor poverty, nor distress, could induce him to abandon his integrity; or even to take an office in which it might be tempted or endangered. He only who has arrived at this pitch of magnanimity, has an adequate security for his public virtue. He who cannot subsist upon a little; who has not learned to be content with such things as he has, and even to be content with almost nothing; who has not learned to familiarize his thoughts to poverty, much more readily than he can familiarize them to dishonour, is not yet free from peril. Andrew Marvell, as his whole course proves, had done this. But we shall not do, full justice to his public integrity, if we do not bear in mind the corruption of the age in which he lived; the manifold apostasies amidst which he retained his conscience; and the effect which such wide-spread profligacy must have had in making thousands almost sceptical as to whether there were such a thing as public virtue at all. Such a relaxation in the code of speculative mo-rals, is one of the worst results of general profligacy in practice. But Andrew Marvell was not to be deluded; and amidst corruption perfectly unparalleled, he still continued untainted. We are accustomed to hear of his virtue as a truly Roman virtue, and so it was; but it was something more. Only the best pages of Roman history can supply a parallel: there was no Cincinnatus. in those ages of her shame which alone can be compared with those of Charles II. It were easier to find a Cincinnatus during the era of the English Commonwealth, than an Andrew Marvell in the age of Commodus. The integrity and patriotism which distinguished him in his relations to the Court, also marked all his public conduct. He was evidently most scrupulously honest and faithful in the discharge of his duty to his constituents; and, as we have seen, almost punctilious in guarding against any thing which could tarnish his fair fame, or defile his conscience. On reviewing the whole of his public conduct, we may well say that he attained his wish, expressed in the lines which he has written. in imitation of a chorus in the Thyestes of Seneca :— Climb at court for me that will— Thus, when without noise, unknown, I shall die without a groan, An old honest countryman." He seems to have been as amiable in his private as he was estimable in his public character. So far as any documents throw light upon the subject, the same integrity appears to have belonged to both. He is described as of a very reserved and quiet temper; but, like Addison, (whom in this respect as in some few others he resembled,) exceedingly facetious and lively amongst his intimate friends. His disinterested championship of others, is no less a proof of his sympathy with the oppressed than of his abhorrence of oppression; and many pleasing traits of amiability occur in his private correspondence, as well as in his writings. On the whole, we think that Marvell's epitaph, strong as the terms of panegyric are, records little more than the truth; and that it was not in the vain spirit of boasting, but in the honest consciousness of virtue and integrity, that he himself concludes a letter to one of his correspondents in the words 'Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem; ART. IV.-1. Commercial Tariffs and Regulations of the several states of Europe and America, together with the Commercial Treaties between England and foreign Countries. Parts I. to XI. Presented to Parliament by command of her Majesty, 1842,-1843. 2. Report on the Prussian Commercial Union. By JOHN BOWRING. Presented to Parliament by command of her Majesty. 1840. 3. Copies and Extracts of Despatches from her Majesty's Ministers abroad, having reference to the recent Modifications of the Tariff of the German Customs- Union. Presented to the House of Commons by the Queen's command, February 1843. 4. Das Zollvereinsblatt, redigirt von Dr FRIEDERICH LIST. (The Customs- Union Newspaper, edited by Dr FREDERICK LIST.) 1843. THERE the the establishment of sound principles in our commercial and financial legislation, is to diffuse correct information upon subject as widely as possible. It is therefore with great satisfaction that we notice the publication, by authority, of a work of so much practical utility as that first mentioned at the head of this article. The eleven parts, already published, contain, we believe, the best accounts extant of the commercial relations of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Turkey, Greece, the African States, and Russia. We trust to see the entire series of these valuable compilations successfully completed. The Government is understood to have undertaken the expense of printing them, and the responsibility of presenting them officially to Parliament. But it is to Mr Macgregor, the well-informed Secretary of the Board of Trade, that the public is indebted for the care and labour of the work, and for the revision of its multifarious details. It is due to this gentleman to acknowledge not only the zeal which has induced him to undertake so onerous a charge in addition to the ordinary business of his office, but the liberality with which he has himself defrayed the cost of procuring a large portion of the materials necessary to the publication. There is not one of these Tariffs which does not furnish instructive lessons, showing how much national prosperity is dependent upon a sound and liberal system of commercial policy. The Tariffs of most countries are, indeed, so many specimens of vicious taxation, teaching governments by their results the lesson taught so long, So oft, so wisely,-learn to do no wrong!' We do not, however, intend, on the present occasion, to enter into any detailed examination of the contents of the series, being of opinion that a general judgment in this respect would be pronounced more fitly after its entire completion. Our present remarks will be confined to the subject of the fifth part,a subject which has a separate and peculiar interest,-namely, the Tariffs and Regulations of the German Customs- Union, and of the other German States; upon which we have a less recent dissertation in the elaborate official report made five years since to Lord Palmerston by Dr Bowring. The Zollverein is an association whose proceedings have long been watched with anxiety by the manufacturing interests of this country, and naturally so, on account of the magnitude and importance of our trade with Germany. There is, however, much misapprehension abroad, both as to the objects and the effects of this association, and we are therefore glad of an opportunity of stating some facts, by which we hope to lead the enquirer to a more just view of its character than he will be likely to find in the columns of the periodical press, devoted to class interests, on either side of the German ocean. The commercial policy of Germany very materially concerns Great Britain as an exporting country. For some years past the Germans have been our best customers. They have taken a larger proportion of the entire exports of British produce and manufactures than any other nation. The declared value of our produce and manufactures exported to all countries, upon an average of the five years ending with 1841, was L.49,681,269.* Of this amount we find, L.5,450,278, exported to Germany, (including Prussia) direct; and L.4,376,280 to Holland and Belgium, of which it is known that a very considerable part were in transit for German consumption. Taking this at no more than one half, we have an annual export to Germany (exclusive of Austrian ports) of the value of above seven millions and a half sterling, or more than one-sixth of the whole amount exported. This is equal to one-half of the value of the entire exports to the British colonies-it exceeds our exports to the United States of America, during the same period, by very nearly a million. * Official Tables, presented to Parliament, 1843, The United States were at one time our best market, but we regret to find, that the British exports to that quarter, which on an average of the five years ending with 1836, had amounted to L.8,575,404, had fallen to L.6,700,370, on the average of the five years ending with 1841. Whereas, on a comparison of the same periods, our German exports had risen from the average of L.6,524, 694, to that of L.7,638,418, as already stated. The importance to British interests of retaining the command of so valuable a market is self-evident. We may well rejoice that it has been so long preserved to us. In every point of view, whether politically or commercially, we can have no better alliance than that of the great German nation, spreading, as it does, its forty-two millions of souls, without interruption, over the surface of central Europe. Nor is it an unnatural sentiment for Englishmen to entertain towards Germany feelings of the same kind, as the better class of Americans uniformly cherish for England, namely, those of reverence for the land of our forefathers, and of sympathy with that Teutonic race of which we are ourselves a continuing branch. Whenever the Continent shall be cursed with another war, the weight of the Germanic body will probably be sufficient to turn any doubtful balance, at its option, in favour of the East or the West of Europe. We think it clear that English feeling and English policy ought to move alike in the direction of maintaining and strengthening our connexion of friendship and alliance with the states of Germany. That these sentiments are in accordance with those which many enlightened minds in Germany entertain towards England, we are well assured. We wish we were as well satisfied with the spirit and tone of the Zollvereinsblatt, and of certain correspondents of the Allgemeine Zeitung. We regret that the talents of these writers have not been engaged in a more worthy cause. It is easy for men of boldness and ability to place themselves in the front of a popular movement, by an unscrupulous derision of principles which militate, or are believed to militate, against the views of their self-interested supporters. Dr List, with whose doctrines we have, on a former occasion, made our readers acquainted, accordingly pursues his career, with a supreme contempt for those great economical writers who have successfully diffused scientific truth. His tone is Tell arts they have no soundness, And vary by esteeming; Tell schools they want profoundness, If arts and schools reply, Give arts and schools the lie!' The Zollvereinsblatt, conducted by him, has acquired a large |