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landlords from all duty? God forbid that our observations should have any such tendency-most assuredly we have no such intention. On the contrary, it is because we estimate highly the good which may be effected by private exertion, that we are indisposed to check its efficacy;-it is because we appreciate justly the responsibility which Providence and humanity affix to the different stations of life, that we are unwilling that such responsibility should be lessened ;-it is because we believe that industry can earn its own reward, that we deprecate any bad laws which may repress its energy. But, independently of the operation of such causes, (on which, however, our main reliance is placed,) we think that much good may be attained through the interposition of the Legislature. We began by stating, that should it appear that the provision for the sick, the blind, the lame, and the impotent poor, is inadequate, the most generous, indeed we would say, the most lavish relief should be provided for these suffering classes. For the young, the system of education now so triumphantly successful, should be generally extended. No town, no village, should be left without a wellordered school; and, where it is possible, instruction in industry should be combined with instruction in letters. Local taxes, levied on the owners of land, may safely be raised for these wise and useful purposes. Such contributions may safely be made compulsory. Farther, we are of opinion that, in order to meet the necessities of some districts, an enlarged system of emigration should be organized by the State; but supported at the expense of the landlords whose property will be relieved, and at the expense of those whose interests will be promoted. We also think, from the evidence laid before Parliament, by the Commissioners of Public Works, that the system already so advantageously introduced under the act of 1 and 2 William IV., may be carried much farther. Works of great and acknowledged utility, not only furnishing employment for a season, but developing and extending the future demand for labour, may be carried on at the expense of the districts benefited. In these works, relief and charity should not be the object, but the incident. The colder calculations of return, and profits of capital, must here direct the proceedings of the Government and the enactments of the Legislature. If to measures of this description be added an earnest and effectual determination not only to improve the Law and punish Crime, but to remedy abuses, and remove all just causes of discontent, we feel the utmost confidence that Ireland will yet be happy and prosperous. There is no short cut, no royal road, to secure the well-being of nations. It has not been the enactment

of the 43 Elizabeth, which has made Britain what she is. The control of religious principle, an obedience to moral duty, the enjoyment of constitutional freedom, the operations of commercial industry, the firm administration of impartial laws,—these are the real causes of national prosperity. All the rest,' as Mr Burke observes, 'is mere fraud.' We believe that many of these principles are now in active operation in Ireland. Such,' says Mr Roe, Report, 1830, p. 6,) are the true and efficient causes, from 'the agency of which, the future progress of Ireland may be anticipated. I believe that, on the whole, she is advancing rapidly in a course of improvement; the foundations of her prosperity are now laid; and time will complete and perfect the 'structure.'

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No. CXX. will be published in July.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

JULY, 1834.

No. CXX.

ART I.-1. Letter to Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. P.R.S., on the application of Machinery to Calculate and Print Mathematical Tables. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. F.R.S. Printed by order of the House of Commons.

4to.

2. On the Application of Machinery to the Calculation of Astronomical and Mathematical Tables. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Memoirs Astron. Soc. Vol. I. Part 2. London: 1822. 3. Address to the Astronomical Society, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq. F.R.S. President, on presenting the first gold medal of the Society to Charles Babbage, Esq. for the invention of the Calculating Engine. Memoirs Astron. Soc. Vol. I. Part 2. London: 1822.

4. On the determination of the General Term of a new Class of Infinite Series. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Transactions Camb. Phil. Soc. Cambridge: 1824.

5. On Errors common to many Tables of Logarithms. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Memoirs Astron. Soc. London: 1827.

6. On a Method of Expressing by Signs the Action of Machinery. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Phil. Trans. London: 1826. 7. Report by the Committee appointed by the Council of the Royal Society to consider the subject referred to in a Communication received by them from the Treasury, respecting Mr Babbage's Calculating Engine, and to report thereupon. London: 1829.

TH HERE is no position in society more enviable than that of the few who unite a moderate independence with high intellectual qualities. Liberated from the necessity of seeking their support by a profession, they are unfettered by its restraints, and are enabled to direct the powers of their minds, and to concentrate

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their intellectual energies on those objects exclusively to which they feel that their powers may be applied with the greatest advantage to the community, and with the most lasting reputation to themselves. On the other hand, their middle station and limited income rescue them from those allurements to frivolity and dissipation, to which rank and wealth ever expose their possessors. Placed in such favourable circumstances, Mr Babbage selected science as the field of his ambition; and his mathematical researches have conferred on him a high reputation, wherever the exact sciences are studied and appreciated. The suffrages of the mathematical world have been ratified in his own country, where he has been elected to the Lucasian Professorship in his own University-a chair, which, though of inconsiderable emolument, is one on which Newton has conferred everlasting celebrity. But it has been the fortune of this mathematician to surround himself with fame of another and more popular kind, and which rarely falls to the lot of those who devote their lives to the cultivation of the abstract sciences. This distinction he owes to the announcement, some years since, of his celebrated project of a Calculating Engine. A proposition to reduce arithmetic to the dominion of mechanism, to substitute an automaton for a compositor,-to throw the powers of thought into wheelwork could not fail to awaken the attention of the world. To bring the practicability of such a project within the compass of popular belief was not easy to do so by bringing it within the compass of popular comprehension was not possible. It transcended the imagination of the public in general to conceive its possibility; and the sentiments of wonder with which it was received, were only prevented from merging into those of incredulity, by the faith reposed in the high attainments of its projector. This extraordinary undertaking was, however, viewed in a very different light by the small section of the community, who, being sufficiently versed in mathematics, were acquainted with the principle upon which it was founded. By reference to that principle, they perceived at a glance the practicability of the project; and being enabled by the nature of their attainments and pursuits to appreciate the immeasurable importance of its results, they regarded the invention with a proportionately profound interest. The production of numerical tables, unlimited in quantity and variety, restricted to no particular species, and limited by no particular law ;-extending not merely to the boundaries of existing knowledge, but spreading their powers over the undefined regions of future discovery-were results, the magnitude and the value of which the community in general could neither comprehend nor appreciate. In such a case, the judgment of the world could only rest upon the autho

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