the tribunal of sentiment and taste. Honoured, beloved, every to-be-regretted author of my life! Never were the ashes of an eastern monarch attended with so magnificent a funeral! The deep glen of the dark and tranquil lake of Uri was the cathedral in which the rites were solemnised! The chapel of the immortal Tell tolled out its bell to proclaim the ceremony! The patriots who, five centuries ago, established the independence of Switzerland, composed the procession that attended thee to the grave! All these images are for ever worked up together, and constitute in my memory one melancholy and indelible scene!' We have to except the above from what we said concerning the commonness of the scenes in which the character of Fleetwood is developed. The episode also of the early life of M. Ruffigny; where he sets out for Paris from Lyons, alone, and on foot, at nine years of age, is sufficiently improbable. In the last volume too there are some striking situations-particularly that in which the wife of Fleetwood is found (page 81): and the atrocious character Mr. Godwin has called "Gifford,' is certainly as boldly drawn as the warmest admirer of the marvellous and horrible could desire. Of the softer scenes, the one at the conclusion of the second volume is very beautifully painted; it is upon the marriage of Fleetwood to a very amiable girl, the daughter of a deceased friend, bequeathed to the care of this new man of feeling, who uses her most cruelly from an unjust suspicion of her infidelity instilled into him by his perfidious kinsman Gifford, and is afterwards reconciled to her: but we have already made an extract of greater length, from a work of so small importance as a novel, than we should have done, had it not proceeded from the pen of so well-known an author as Mr. Godwin. We wish we could present our readers with two further extracts; one relating to the character of Rousseau, and the other strongly descriptive of Mr. Godwin's idea of the proper style of novel-writing; which is not to make us acquainted with his hero by a minute relation of the incidents of his life, as Fielding and others have done; but by favouring us with his soliloquies and reflections upon men and manners. His chief characters are all metaphysicians; who are reasoning when they should be acting; but who reason in so extraordinary a manner, that they rivet our attention. In Vol. II. page 153-4, the reader will find what we think rather a tantalizing picture of what Mr. Godwin might have done, had he pleased, in this book. Of Rousseau too we are told (vol. ii. p.179) that our hero was in possession of several curious anecdotes, but they are withheld from us; for Mr. Godwin confines himself to generals'—to drawing character, not by the exposure of its own traits, but by presuming that they exist, and animadvérting upon them. " The story of Fleetwood is chiefly intended, we conclude, to inculcate the folly of ill-sorted marriages, in point of age.' The remarks upon the force of habits, unalterably fixed bythe peculiarity of an early education in solitude, and working upon a naturally selfish disposition during a long single life, are forcible and judicious-old things well repeated. But we are at a loss to conceive why a man, who turns misanthrope from disappointment, who is most savage in jealousy without caring to ascertain the cause of it, can be called the New Man of Feeling, unless in absolute contradistinction to the old. Upon the whole, we think the present publication likely to add much to Mr. Godwin's literary character, from the entertainment its story will, we are confident, afford to a numerous class of readers, and from the improved purity of the author's style. Nor will there be wanting those, we hope, in a candid public, who will, in justice, welcome Fleetwood' the more warmly, as it is a perfectly harmless book, coming from the pen of an individual, upon whose more early writings that justice has pronounced the severest censure. < ART. VII.-Newenham's Inquiry into the Population of Ireland. (Concluded from page 201.) WE left Mr. Newenham on the point of entering into a discussion on the foreign and domestic trade of the sister kingdom. We find that the exports and imports of Ireland, in 1783, were about 6,000,000l. ; in 1788, above 8,000,000l. ; in 1793, 9,000,000l.; in 1798, about 7,600,000l. only; in 1803, above 11,000,000l.; and that there was a decrease of nearly 1,000,000l. in the succeeding year. To 1799 the exports exceeded the imports; since which time the imports have gained the ascendancy. We have an account of the balance of trade between England and Ireland during the last century; some indistinct ideas upon the rate of exchange; and a most erroneous statement of the number of guineas sent to and received from Ireland. Much more extensive and extremely useful information, upon these subjects, may be extracted from the minutes of the Irish exchange committee; but we are at a loss to see how any of these things afford decisive proofs of the rapidity of increasing population, much less how they can distinctly shew that Ireland will double its population in forty-six years; or that the present annual increase amounts to above 91,000 ouls. 5 Upon the subject of specie in Ireland, we have the following remark. Those who attribute the disappearance of specie in Ireland to an unfavourable balance of trade, are certainly in error. The payment of the balance, during these last five years, admitting the balance to have been unfavourable, could scarcely have produced a perceptible effect in that country, wherein specie had been accumulating during many years. From the following account of guineas sent to, and received from Ireland, we may infer that the balance of trade had no great effect in diminishing the mass of gold in that country: Sent to. 1795.633,782. 2,821,649 Received from. 53,200 29,430 5,600 . By the Holyhead mailcoach; and exclusive of the guineas for which in . 1800.. 66,000 |surance was not paid. .. 1801..235,000 389,230) The fact is, that nine-tenths of the gold which has been withdrawn from circulation, are actually hoarded up. We are not a little surprised that Mr. Newenham should have asserted a fact so contrary to the clearest evidence. By the examination of Mr. Frank before the Irish committee, it appears that 3,000,000 of guineas have been sent out of Ireland since the first of January 1799, and that none have been received. Above 1,000,000 of this passed through his own hands, and the remainder is pretty distinctly accounted for. The amount of gold now in Ireland is estimated at 2,000,000, of which half a million is supposed to be in circulation in the north of Ireland; about 700,000 in the Bank of Ireland; and the residue, or 800,000, in circulation in other parts of the country, and hoarded. *A great variety of anecdotes, illustrative of this fact, might be related, the following one will suffice: A representative of one of the southern counties of Ireland, a gentleman, on whose scrupulous veracity I have long been in the habit of relying; whose character, indeed, exhibits an extraordinary bright assemblage of all the more amiable and exalted moral qualities, informed me that shortly before he left his country residence last spring, in order to attend parliament, he was waited on by one of his tenants, a farmer, who holds from him about 200 acres, but whose mode of living, with respect to diet, like that of most persons of his description, at least in the provinces of Munster and Connaught, differs, notwithstanding, but very little from the mode of living which prevails among the Irish labourers. The object of the farmer's visit was, as he said, to accommodate his landlord with a few guineas; as he heard they were as scarce in England as Ireland. The latter thanked him; but declined accepting his offer, having provided a sufficiency for his In the eighth section we have rather an amusing digression concerning absentees. In a pamphlet, said to be written by Mr. Thomas Prior in 1729, it is stated, that the annual remittances to absentees amounted to 627,799l.-In 1778, Mr. Arthur Young computes the landlords' rents in Ireland at six millions, and was of opinion that the money remitted to absentees exceeded one million. Our author thinks there can be no doubt that the rental of Ireland has more than doubled within the last six and twenty years, that the absentees have become more numerous, and that the actual remittances to them do not fall much short of three millions, or one fourth part of the whole amount.-We cannot but think this statement highly exaggerated. The report of the Irish committee states these remittances at only two millions. It is sufficient, however, to impress Mr. Newenham's mind with most alarming considerations, and he proposes to remedy the evil, in some degree, by imposing a tax on the incomes of absentee landlords. By a law of the state of South Carolina, persons who absent themselves two years are liable to pay double the amount of the direct taxes, until they return. Though a measure of little consequence, as applicable to one of the United States, its general policy may be much doubted, and at any rate the plan here proposed is so vague, and apparently impracticable, that it does not merit much attention. The imposition of such a tax is not likely to conciliate the minds of landlords, or to induce more constant residence upon their estates. When by the gradual progress of civilization and the growing prosperity of the surrounding country, an invitation is held out to opulent landlords to visit their estates, interest as well as pleasure will frequently bring them where more than in any other place they can enjoy their influence and consequence with undisturbed comfort and security. Besides, though the non-residence of men of fortune on their estates is in many respects a great misfortune to Ireland, its effects upon the productive industry of the country are not of the alarming nature Mr. Newenham supposes. We are not inclined to give more credit to his assertions on this head than to the report of the committee, of which Mr. Foster was chairman; but to enter further into this subject at present would withdraw our attention too much from the proper object of the present inquiry. occasions. The farmer was greatly distressed by the refusal, and entreated his landlord to take the goid, as he feared to keep it any longer in his house. This occasioned an inquiry as to the amount of the sum; and the landlord was not a little surprised at the farmer's producing a bag containing 500 guineas.' Mr. Newenham next gives us a circumstantial account of different branches of the export trade of Ireland, as an illustration of a rapid increase of its inhabitants. We shall not follow him through his minute details, but will give the result in his own words: 'Let us now, for the better illustration of the subject before us, compress within a narrow compass the substance of the information which we have obtained from a comparative view of the trade of Ireland at different periods. We have seen that notwithstanding an evident increase of pasturage, the exportation of corn from Ireland has been trebled in the last twenty-one years; and we have found ample reason for being persuaded, that agriculture, which Montesquieu calls an immense manufacture, is actually six times as extensive in that country as it was anterior to the year 1783. We have seen that the exportation of pork, whereby we are sufficiently warranted in measuring the increase of the lower orders of the country people, has been doubled in the last three-and-twenty years, under the operation of contingent circumstances, tending, in a conspicuous manner, to diminish its exportation; and that before the operation of all, but during that of one of these circumstances, its exportation had nearly trebled in eighteen years. We have seen that the products of the breweries and distilleries of Ireland have experienced a prodigious and unprecedented increase. We have seen that the linen manufacture, which directly and eventually affords employment to such multitudes of people, and of which the value of the surplus produce last year amounted to 3,751,8291. has (a suitable allowance being made for the increase of the home consumption) almost doubled in the last twenty-one years. We have seen from the total cessation of the exportation of an immense quantity of wool and yarn from Ireland, and from the existing evidences of an increase of sheep, that the manufacture, at least of the inferior woollen fabrics, has been greatly extended in that country. We have seen that the importation of the raw materials for the cotton manufacture, which gives employment to so many thousands, has increased in an unparalleled degree. We have seen that the exports of glass, paper, candles, soap, &c. have more than doubled in the last three-and-twenty years; and we have sufficient reason for believing that the aggregate produce of these manufactures is thrice as great as it was five-and-twenty years ago. We have seen some new articles in the list of the exported manu factures of Ireland, and there exists no evidence of the decline of any manufacture in that country, except, perhaps, the silk. We are then, it seems, perfectly enabled by public documents, of indisputable authenticity, to affirm that, upon the whole, the demand for labour, in Ireland, has doubled in the last one-andtwenty years. And we find ourselves compelled by considerations, which cannot be set aside, to entertain a persuasion that such demand has been much more than doubled in that period of time; |
