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And then the Spring, the smiling Spring,
The flowers, the fruit, the murmuring rill!
To chase the shadows o'er the hill
And dance within the fairy ring.
Ye flowers so bright and gay
Within the garden wall,

Ye'll meet again all smiling, all—
Ah! well a day!

Untir'd the Summer's heat to bear,
Beneath the flow'ry load to bend,
The mimic banquet to prepare,
And share it with some joyous friend!
How soon the day is done-

The longest summer day!

"Tis morn- -'tis noon- 'tis set of sun-
Ah! well a day!'

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The most promising of the younger writers of minor verse is Mr. Austin Dobson, whose Vignettes in Rhyme' betoken considerable poetic fancy, though his wit is far inferior to that of Mr. Locker. The following lines, which are a fair example of Mr. Dobson's style, are taken from his poem suggested by a chapter in Mr. Theodore Martin's Horace':

""HORATIUS FLACCUS, B.C. 8,"

There's not a doubt about the date,-
You're dead and buried:

As you remarked, the seasons roll;
And 'cross the Styx full many a soul
Has Charon ferried,

Since, mourned of men and Muses nine,
They laid you on the Esquiline.

Ours is so far-advanced an age!
Sensation tales, a classic stage,
Commodious villas!

We boast high art, an Albert Hall,
Australian meat, and men who call
Their sires gorillas!

We have a thousand things, you see,
Not dreamt in your philosophy.

Science proceeds, and man stands still;
Our "world" to-day's as good or ill,—
As cultured (nearly),

As

yours was, Horace! You alone,

Unmatched, unmet, we have not known.'

The author of the Carols of Cockayne' is deserving of men

tion for his humour and observation; but the writer of The 'Bab Ballads' scarcely comes under our category; his effusions partake too much of the character of broad farce. Mr. Calverley, again, whose parodies are very close and very clever, belongs to that school whose best exponents were James and Horace Smith, the incomparable authors of Rejected Addresses." Mr. Mortimer Collins is a much nearer approach to what we require, but he has by no means done such good work as was expected of him. Lord Lytton's Fables in Song' deserve to occupy a higher rank in poetry than such lyrics as form the subject of this article. They are full of thought-sometimes overburdened with it; but they have a graceful facility of versification which entitles their author to rank with the most cultivated poets of the day.

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The question may be asked, of what use is this Horatian poetry? but we apprehend it will be its own justification in the eyes of most lovers of the poetic art. The brooklet is not so imposing as the mighty river to which it is tributary, but its music may be as sweet and true. Men cannot always be climbing the magnificent passes of the Alps, but in the absence of sublime scenery does not the trimly-cut and ordered garden present many points of attraction? Thus, all singers have their proper seasons and uses. The minor poets unquestionably flourish best in seasons of national prosperity, not in those of stirring events. They are satisfied with what the world has to offer them, though in the best of them there is a strain of genuine regret, testifying that this is not sufficient to satisfy the cravings of the soul. In all the excellent writers of Venusian verse whom we have named may be perceived the shade of melancholy, which lends an additional charm to their gaiety. With the deeper questions of the heart they very rarely intermeddle. If they can touch the springs of laughter and emotion in others they receive their reward. These poets, however, have yet something to learn England has its Shakspeare but not its Horace. To write Horatian verse successfully requires all the earnestness and devotion which the greater poet exhibits in another field. But even these trifles are not without their use and their charm, for they may be accepted by posterity as a faithful commentary upon contemporaneous events, life, and manners. Who knows but that through their aid in some distant era the stranger in our deserted gates may obtain some glimpses of our nineteenth-century civilisation; just as we now, with Horace or Martial for our friend and guide, may walk through the streets and converse with the denizens of ancient Rome?

ART. IV.-1. Statistique de la France. Résultats généraux du Dénombrement de 1872. Imprimerie Nationale. Paris:

1874.

2. Récensement de la Population de la France en 1872. Par M. RAUDOT, Député de l'Yonne. Paris: 1874.

THE Census of France is taken every five years, and not, like that of the United Kingdom, at decennial periods. But on the last occasion the war and the disturbances which followed it interrupted the ordinary course of these inquiries, and an interval of six years elapsed between the census of 1866 and the census of 1872. It will be in the recollection of our readers that we have more than once adverted to former returns of the same nature, and endeavoured to draw from their instructive pages some general inferences as to the social and political state of France. Those inferences were not of a favourable character; for it was contrary to all experience and calculation that an industrious nation inhabiting a very fertile and by no means over-peopled country should increase in numbers more slowly than any other people in Europe; that the annual draft of military conscription should be so large as sensibly to affect the natural proportion of marriages and births; and while the rural population in many departments was not increasing, but rather diminishing, that a stream of emigration should still be flowing from the rural districts to the large towns, whose population is steadily increasing at the expense of the country. These facts appeared to us, and to the French writers by whom they were carefully examined and fairly discussed, to indicate the existence of a vicious and unwholesome state of society; and subsequent accounts have proved that these judgments were not exaggerated.

It is well known that the thrift and slow increase of the French people were long upheld by economists of the Malthusian school, and especially by Mr. John Stuart Mill, as an example highly conducive to the happiness, welfare, and, we suppose, to the morality of mankind. The time is not very distant when over-population was the bugbear of economists and statesmen, to be resisted by any means and at any cost; and no doubt, all things remaining the same while population increases, the fears of Mr. Malthus would not be vain. But things do not remain the same. The improvement of agriculture, the application of capital and machinery even to a small territory, have demonstrated the possibility of maintaining a vast increase of population upon it; at a certain level, emigration to

VOL. CXL. NO. CCLXXXVI.

C C

new lands carries off a large portion of the surplus; and the truth seems to be that hardly any limit can be assigned to the beneficial increase of population as long as the productive resources of the country increase in the same ratio. On the other hand, it may be inferred that where population decreases on a fertile soil, the productive resources of the country (which comprise all the elements of its prosperity and power) are not in growth. Nobody who knows anything of the natural resources of France can doubt that the territory of that country could, with great advantage, support a far larger population. The state of agriculture is still extremely backward. The subdivision of landed property among peasants of scanty capital is adverse to high farming; and the disposition of the rural population is rather to seek to render their existing circumstances tolerable than to improve them.

But if these considerations suggest themselves to the mind on a general survey of the condition of France, the census now before us, which was taken in 1872, has very peculiar claims on our notice. It presents to us, in the irrefragable shape of arithmetic, the effects upon the population of the great convulsion through which the French nation passed between the years 1866 and 1872. It shows the actual cost in human life of those deplorable scenes of foreign and of civil war; and it demonstrates that the effect of these calamities in checking the natural progress of population is even greater and more. disastrous than the waste of life caused by war and exceptional disease. These facts are indeed of a most extraordinary character; and although figures and statistics are not usually attractive to the reader, we think we can promise those who will take the trouble to accompany us through a succinct résumé of these returns, that they will learn some facts which will surprise them. We borrow them from the official record published by the Minister of the Interior, and we shall avail ourselves of the labours of M. Raudot to complete our analysis. We have had occasion to quote this gentleman once or twice before. He is an upright and patriotic member of the Assembly, who has had the courage to point out for the last twenty years to what ends the legislation and the excesses of the French revolution are gradually bringing the country; though, like Cassandra, nobody chooses to listen to or believe him.

The total population of France at the time of the census of 1866 was 38,192,064, including the forces by sea and land at home and abroad; in 1872, it had fallen to 36,102,921, the diminution being 2,089,143. It appears however, from the

returns that the population of the districts of Alsace and Lorraine ceded to the German Empire was 1,597,238; so that the actual decrease in the population of the territory of France is 491,905-or, as we may say in round numbers, half a million of men in six years, or 1.29 per cent. of the whole people.* If the population had gone on to increase in the ratio of the preceding period between the census of 1861 and 1866, which was 130,650 per annum, the total augmentation in six years would have been 816,900. The difference between what might have been, even at that low rate of progress, and what is, amounts to nearly 1,300,000 lives. These figures are taken from the official returns; those quoted by M. Raudot are rather lower. But even this statement does not include the whole of the case. This estimate includes 126,243 Alsatians who gave their option to remain French, and also 740,668 foreigners residing in France.

We may here observe in passing that the number of foreigners in France has increased by 85,000 since 1866, in spite of a notable diminution of 62,000 Germans formerly settled in France, but who have now left it. The Spaniards have increased by 20,000, in consequence of the disturbed state of their own country. The Belgian emigrants amount to no less than 347,000, the English in France to 26,000, and of these three-fifths are females, owing probably to the number of Englishwomen sent to France for their education.

The fact of the large decrease of the general population of France in these six years is confirmed by M. Raudot from collateral evidence. Thus he shows that between 1867 and 1871 the number of deaths was 5,075,397, the number of births 4,704,817, the difference being 368,580.

It is natural to suppose that this enormous and unprecedented decline in the population of a great nation which has taken place whilst other nations of an equal or even inferior number of inhabitants are increasing at the rate of about 250,000 a year, is mainly attributable to the loss of life caused by war and revolution. But this inference must not be hastily adopted, more especially for two reasons.

In the first place, the decrease of population is by no means

It is probable (though there are no means of ascertaining the fact) that in the last years of the Second Empire, from 1867 to 1870, the population continued to increase slowly in the same proportion as in the preceding quinquennial period. If that was so, it only renders the fall and the decline of the subsequent years more astonishing and rapid.

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