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LITERARY CHIT-CHAT AND VARIETIES.

A VOLUME is preparing for the press, entitled the Churchyard Lyrist, which is to contain five hundred original epitaphs. We recommend it to the attention of disconsolate widows and desolate orphans.

The Author of "Marriage" is engaged writing a new Novel. The title, we understand, is " Destiny."-Atherstone, the author of "The Fall of Nineveh," announces a prose work-The Sea Kings of England, a romance of the time of Alfred.

The Rev. Henry Tattam and William Osburn, jun. have clubbed their forces to produce a Lexicon of the Coptic, Sahidic, and Bashmuric dialects; containing all the words of the ancient languages of Egypt that have been preserved; with their signification in Greek, Latin, and English. The work is to be published in a cheap form, and by subscription.

Mr William Laurie, late teacher of Arithmetic and Book-Keeping in Edinburgh and Glasgow, is about to publish, by subscription, a new and improved system of book-keeping. Mr Laurie's certificates of ability as a teacher are very high, and his state of health, which has lately disqualified him from pursuing his profession, entitles him to the support of the public.

washed away footpaths, undermined walls, tore down trees, floated hay, destroyed grain, inundated the Nungate, and then threatened to wreak on the distillery the grudge that it has entertained towards that establishment ever since an unexpected visit of the gauger caused it to vomit forth a fiery death upon all the little fishes-Our county rooms are undergoing a repair just now; the new spire, which is to be 120 feet in height, is one-third up, and promises to become an ornament to the town.-Literature and the Arts flourish in Haddington; we have got an "East Lothian Literary and Statistical Journal," and we have made Macdonald a burgess.-We saw the beginning of the Eclipse, which is more than most of our neighbours can say.-Private theatricals are flourishing. An old acquaintance of yours has made her debut with great eclat in the character of Jeanie Deans.

CHIT-CHAT FROM AYR.-Green was a prodigious favourite in the west country, and we are glad the Literary Journal has done justice to him.-Our lofty steeple-the highest in Scotland (?)—has just received its pinnacle-a handsome Triton, nine feet high, and in the face a good likeness of the noble author of Childe Harold! The building gives another proof of the genius and refined taste of your townsman, Mr Hamilton.-Our aspiring authorities, not contented with raising a steeple of their own, are about to elevate our old and time-worn friend, "The Wallace Tower," fifty feet higher. Our patriotic and church-going Bailie Williamson has set a subscription

name, in an appropriate niche of the building. Thom is to be the sculptor. By the way, the dinner given to him and our ingenious friend Stevens, the portrait painter, is to be eaten in the very appropriate locality of the neighbourhood of Burns's monument.

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW AND THE PUFFING SYSTEM.-We have expressed ourselves, on more than one occasion, in terms of reprobation respecting the system, now so generally adopted by pub-a-foot for erecting a statue of the hero, from whom it derives its lishers, of circulating broadsides filled with ready-made extracts, for the use of lazy critics. We certainly did not expect to find the publishers of the Edinburgh Review condescending to such paltry shifts -nor have they-they have plunged infinitely deeper. We received, this week, from them, not a selection of quotations, but a goodly broadside, containing six pretty lengthy reviews of their last number, garnished with extracts. Each of these is drawn up in a different form, and each selects a favourite article as the object of its special patronage,-occasionally even a little censure is cautiously administered, as shadows are introduced by painters, to heighten the effect of their bright colours,—but the predominating tone is flattery. We never for a moment suspected that the Editor was aware of this shabby trick; and we have since learned that he was not.

CHIT-CHAT FROM LONDON.-Stanfield, who has so long wasted his powers as head scene-painter to Drury Lane, has left that establishment in a huff, at some neglect, real or fancied, of his sister-in-law, Mademoiselle Angelina.-The late inquest on Miss Cashin has not merely exposed the quack who killed her; it has shown in a striking light the credulity of the higher ranks, whose education ought to put them on their guard, wherever their own health is concerned. A man of no education whatever professed to cure, by one and the same specific, gout, consumption, inveterate ulcers, and, for aught I can see, every disease for which physicians have a name. Yet, undeterred by the palpable grossness of such pretensions, Peers and Peeressés, members of Parliament, grave Divines, and in short all the wealth, rank, and fashion of the country, submitted themselves to his pawing. The justice of the verdict, however, finding a charge of manslaughter competent against Mr St John Long, is questionable. If his infatuated patients, seeing the man's ignorance and presumption, put themselves under his charge, their blood rests upon their own heads. The best specific, administered by the most cautious and skilful physician, may at times prove fatal, and the present verdict might apply equally to such cases. The man has been thoroughly exposed, and no more can be done. The Editor of the Lancet has, by his exertions on this occasion, cstablished a claim upon the Londoners to the vacant office of Coroner, for which he is at present a candidate.

Theatrical Gossip.-First in importance to us are the arrangements of our own little snuggery, the Theatre Royal. The front elevation is to be advanced a foot, and a Doric is to be substituted for the present Ionic portico. The lessee attempted to secure some additional space behind, but the price asked was so high as to render this out of the question. The interior will be completely gutted. The boxes are to be as formerly, the pit a little more roomy, Improvements will be made in the entrances and lobbies. The greater part of the scenes are to be new. Mr Matthew is engaged to do the front elevation-Mr M'Gibbon to do the portion of the interior where the audience are accommodated-and Mr Jefferiss to do the east side of the building, the stage, and the decorations. It is calculated that the house will be opened about the middle of November, immediately after the preachings. Pritchard has been re-engaged. -Two new pieces have been produced at the Adelphi,-a far cical extravagance, entitled "The Deuce is in Her;" and a piece of the pathetic cast, called "The Foster Brothers." There is not much in either of them.-"The First of April," by Miss Boaden, has been acted several times at the Haymarket, and proves, as might have been anticipated from the title, a foolish piece of work. The two last-mentioned trifles are adaptations from the French stage-when shall we again see an English piece by an English author?-Laporte is recruiting on the Continent.-Pasta is to perform at the King's Theatre during the latter part of the season; Signora Jose has been treated with for the first part, but no definite arrangement has yet been made with her.-Miss Fanny Kemble received, during her late engagement at Liverpool, one half of the gross receipts. They amounted, for the whole period, to somewhat less than L.200. Miss Kemble received for her shave L.856-the lessees, having to pay the expenses of the house out of their moiety, pocketed only L.300.-The Dublin Theatre has passed to a new lessee. Mr Caleraft is to be acting manager, and is at present in London making arrangements.-Bass of the Caledonian went up in Green's balloon-Roland, prince of punsters as of swordsmen, says, to seek for stars-but he seems only to have found clouds, for the

nebulous as to be all but unintelligible.-Alexander has closed the season at Glasgow, with a speech which reminds us irresistibly of a royal harangue on the dissolution of Parliament.-Jones had a tolerable house at Perth on the night of his benefit. It is remarked that the taste for the drama has declined in that city ever since it had a regular theatre. We have observed the same anomalous fact in other country towns. St Andrews has not yet got a regular theatre, and therefore Ryder seems to have made a tolerable campaign there.

CHIT-CHAT FROM ABERDEEN.-This town is at present as dull as heart could wish.-We had no races last year, nor prospect of them this. Not but our gentlemen of the turf retain their old tastes-history of his flight, which he delivered to a crowded house, was so their poverty, but not their will, consents.-Our theatre is shut; panoramas, composition figures, wild beasts, even Punch's opera, have abandoned us. The sound of fiddlers and ballad-singers is low in our streets. Nay, the very Eclipse of the Moon, which, by right of position, we ought to have seen as well as our neighbours, was ob scured by clouds. Various remedies have been suggested for the depressed state of affairs here, but the only one likely to be adopted is a petition to Parliament.-The second number of the " Aberdeen Independent," and of the "Christian Investigator," have appeared. It has been intimated in the " Aberdeen Observer," that the Editor of the "Independent," disgusted at the trammels in which the coterie connected with it wished to place him, threw up his situation immediately after the appearance of the first number. He has been succeeded by a Mr Brown.-The "Aberdeen Journal" has got a new editor. This paper was started immediately after the battle of Culloden, and has already made the fortune of three generations.Our townsman, Dyce, is here just now, and has brought with him a most masterly landscape-a view of Aberdeen and the surrounding country. It is painted for the present proprietor of the Journal, whose classic mansion occupies a conspicuous place in it.

CHIT-CHAT FROM HADDINGTON.-The picturesque river Tyne, which waters our picturesque town and country, has lately played the very deuce with our pleasure-groun Is and promenades. It

TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

"R." of Migvie requests an impossibility-the verses accompanying his letter won't do.-An Edinburgh Correspondent asks whether we receive anonymous communications? Yes: if they be good.How long has the gentle and fair" Elgiva" been doomed to the uncongenial drudgery of a lawyer's office ?—" W. D." asks, “ Wall this do?" No.-The churchyard of “Q. S. Q." is too like other churchyards. Our friend from West-houses ventures on ticklish ground.-Our Clauchen-pluck corespondent is under consideration. "D. F." says, if his productions do not get a place in our Jour nal, he has seen much worse in it. That is impossible.

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LITERARY CRITICISM.

The History of the Netherlands. By Thomas Colley Grattan. (Cabinet Cyclopædia, Vol. X.) London. Longman and Co. 1830.

THE kingdom of the Netherlands comprises at present nearly all the provinces which, under the same title, were ceded by Charles V., on his abdication, to his son Philip II. of Spain. The internal wars excited by the latter monarch's attempts to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into these lands, occasioned a separation between the southern and northern provinces; and this circumstance, as well as the different forms and spirit of government, and different characters of the neighbouring and kindred nations to which it gave occasion, render a short review of their history indispensable to a right understanding of their present relations.

The Netherlands were, at the period of Philip's accession, from their commercial and manufacturing industry, the richest portion of his inheritance. Art, science, and literature, were there in as flourishing a condition as in any country in Europe. The spirit of resistance to the bigotry of their monarch showed itself earliest, and with most turbulence, in the provinces south of the Rhine; but soon spread over the whole country. The southern provinces, destitute of any definite purpose, and incapable of union, fell back, one by one, under the sway of Spain, from whose hands they subsequently passed into those of Austria. The northern provinces, chiefly through the influence exercised over them by the manly spirit of William of Orange, presented a more organised resistance to the Spaniard, and after a long and bloody struggle, achieved their independence. The constitution which they adopted can only be regarded as a compromise, on the one hand, between the mutual jealousies of the Seven Provinces composing the Republic, on the other, between the gratitude which all of them felt to be due to the House of Orange, and their fears of its power. Each state retained the exclusive management of its own internal affairs, and adhered bigotedly to its old laws and forms of administering justice. The transactions of the united republic-hostile or friendly-with foreign nations, were managed by a convention of delegates from the different states, each having only one vote. The office of Stadtholder was virtually heritable in the family of Orange, but its functions and privileges were vaguely defined. This interim constitution-for it deserves no better name-enjoyed a much longer existence than could have been predicated from its natural weakness, supported partly by the virtue of its rulers, and partly by the enmity of its neighbours towards each other.

By the permanent separation of Belgium from Holland, some original peculiarities were heightened into more marked difference, and some new ones were evolved. The republican institutions of the latter country repressed the spirit of aristocratic refinement, while the almost exclusively maritime occupations of the inhabitants served even to exaggerate the rudeness of manners superinduced by that circumstance. As a nation of merchants, they

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were purse-proud; that is, capable of any expenditure which was likely to raise them in the estimation of other

nations, or of their fellow-citizens; yet, in their daily avocations, careful, and even penurious in their habits. Accustomed from infancy to struggle with the elements, they were insensible to danger; but there was no tone of romance in their character, no love of war for its excitement, or the glory to be obtained by it. Intellectual exertion had taken the direction of theological controversy and the investigation of general jurisprudence. These topics were not, until very lately, emancipated from the fetters of the Latin language; and the neglect into which the mother tongue fell by this means, at once excluded the great mass of the population from the cultivation of literature, and deprived them of the softening power, insensibly exercised over a people's mind by the general diffusion of a refined dialect. The political arrangements, which left to the body of the people the exercise of duties which elsewhere devolved upon the government, necessarily called into existence a strong body of practical talent. The dampness of their climate rendered an attention to cleanliness in their dwellings so indispensable, that it became, to a striking degree, a feature in the Dutch character. The necessity of conciliating all classes, had introduced toleration of every kind of religious belief. All these circumstances, operating upon a rather phlegmatic national temperament, contributed to render the Dutch a very peculiar people.

The conquest of the Belgians by their former masters had re-established the old superstition in all its power, and checked the free play of the human mind. The Austrian Netherlands, no longer the seat of government, sunk into the character of a colony. The high commercial rank which they had attained, could not be altogether taken from them, but their enterprise was checked and disheartened, and their industry decayed. National spirit disappeared with national independence; and what accomplishments were cultivated by persons in easy circumstances, were copied in a servile manner from the fashionable circles of France. The dialects of the different provinces were regarded as vulgar patois, and French became the exclusive language of all who aspired to be considered as ranking above the mere vulgar. With all these disadvantages, the fertility of the soil in most parts of the Austrian Netherlands, and the industry of the peasantry and manufacturers, diffused a considerable degree of opulence and comfort through the country. The inhabitants were of a lively and susceptible temperament, more akin to their French, than their Dutch neighbours.

Such were the almost incompatible tempers of two nations, who were, in 1815, ordained, by the high fiat of the Congress of Vienna, to be incorporated into one. But there were yet other sources of mutual dislike. They were inhabitants of adjoining territories, and it is an axiom in moral and political science, that neighbours are always inimically disposed. Moreover, the Prince of Orange was identified by the history of two centuries and a half with the Dutch nation, while, in Belgium, he was a foreigner. The Dutch, on their first rising against Napoleon, had spontaneously called upon him to be their

sovereign-the Belgians had never once thought about him. The priests, and the old aristocracy, wished to return under the wing of Austria,-the class of wealthy commoners, which had risen into consequence during the incorporation of Belgium with France, wished to remain a portion of that kingdom; but into the heads of neither party had the idea entered of submitting themselves to the sway of William I. of Holland. The powers, however, who composed the Congress of Vienna, were jealous of the ambition of France, (no wonder, while they were still smarting from its effects,) and wished to see some more powerful state upon its northern frontier, than the numerous petty principalities that lie along the banks of the Rhine. After this attempt to sketch the character of the two hostile nations who were intrusted to the charge of William of Orange, we proceed to submit to the reader a short account of the organization of his kingdom.

The executive government is exclusively in the hands of the monarch; the legislative power he shares with the .States-general, which consist of two Chambers. The first Chamber is composed of from forty to sixty members, each of whom must have attained his fortieth year. Every member is appointed by the king, and the appointment is for life. The president is chosen by the Chamber at the beginning of every session. The second Chamber contains one hundred and six delegates from the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, and four from the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg. The number of delegates sent by each province is in proportion to its population. They are elected by the States of each province, from their own body. The States of a province consist of deputies from the three orders of each—the nobility, the burghers, and the peasantry. The members of the second Chamber of the States-general are elected for three years, and one-third of their number go out yearly in rotation. The king nominates the president of this Chamber from a list of three, which it presents to him. The king has the initiative of all laws; any suggestion of a new law to him, on the part of the Chambers, must originate in the second. In it also the budget is discussed once in every ten years.

The king manages the affairs of state by means of his councils and ministers. He has a council of state, consisting of four-and-twenty members, for extraordinary occasions, and a cabinet council, to which only his ministers and the secretary of state have access, for the general routine of business. The ministers are seven in number: -the minister of justice, the minister for foreign affairs, the minister of the interior, the minister of war, the minister of the marine, the minister of finance, and the minister of the water and other public works. To these may be added the commissary-general, to whom is intrusted the control of the public institutions for education. There are also some "Chefs de departement," for managing certain details of business which do not exactly belong to the province of any minister; such as, trade and the colonies, the posts, the affairs of the Catholic and Protestant churches, &c. The ministry and council of state accompany the king at Brussels and the Hague, which are the two capitals of the kingdom. There are, however, some subsidiary offices of state, which have a permanent domicile. There is a supreme board of control at the Hague, and a board of control at Brussels; a council of the mint at Utrecht; a council of the nobles at the Hague; and one or two others of less importance. The arrangement of the courts of justice, which stand under the control of the minister of that department, is in a great measure borrowed from the French. The code for the United Netherlands, which has been many years preparing, has never yet been officially promulgated. In the meantime, the decrees of the judges are conformed, in the northern provinces, to the old municipal and provincial laws, with the subsidiary help of the Roman and Canon feudal systems; in the southern provinces the

French code is still acknowledged. As in France, the justice of peace courts pronounce in civil and police questions of minor importance. In the country, the jurisdiction of a justice of peace extends over a whole canton; in the larger towns, and in cities, the number of these officers is in proportion to the number of inhabitants. In every province there is a civil court, which judges in appeals from the tribunals of the justices, and in matters which are of too much value to come within their jurisdiction; and a criminal court. There are also "Chambres de Commerce" in twenty-eight of the wealthier cities. There are three supreme courts, which decide in all cases, criminal as well as civil, without admitting of further appeal. The supreme court at the Hague for the seven northern provinces; the supreme court at Brus sels for South Brabant, East and West Flanders, Hainault, and Antwerp; the supreme court of Liege for Limburg, Liege, Namur, and Luxemburg. To these may be added the court of finance at the Hague, (for the northern provinces alone,) and the military court at Utrecht, to which the military and seamen are subject without appeal.

The minister of the interior stands at the head of the departmental organization of the country. Under him stands a governor at the head of every province, except Holland, which, on account of its great extent, is divided into two governments-North and South Holland. The provinces are subdivided into arrondissemens, each of which stands under the superintendence of a commissary or intendant. The different commoners have magistrates, termed in the north, Bürgermeister, and in the south, Maires. The governors are assisted in the discharge of their office by the provincial states; the maires by their town-councils. Each of these provincial dignitaries makes his report immediately to the minister.

The minister of war conducts the affairs of the army, which varies in number from forty to sixty thousand men, without reckoning the militia. The army, with the exception of a small body of Swiss, and some troops from Nassau, consists exclusively of native Netherlanders; and is kept up by the conscription. The kingdom is divided into six commandos, whose seats are, Utrecht, Deventer, Ghent, Antwerp, Maestricht, and Namur. Upwards of fifty fortresses, some of them the strongest in Europe, form a triple line of defence along the landward frontiers. A considerable portion of the kingdom can also be inundated, with a view to oppose a barrier to an invading enemy. army are all of home manufacture. The arms and munition of the

The minister of marine manages the affairs of the royal navy, which consists of about ninety-three sail, of which thirty are in active service in the Mediterranean and the colonies. The rest are distributed in the ports of the Texel and the Maas. The coast is divided into three departments-that of the Zuiderzee, which has its head stations at Amsterdam, Medenblick, and Nieuwediep; that of the Maas at Helvoetsluys and Rotterdam; and that of the Scheld at Vliessingen.

The minister of water-works sounds strange to an English ear; but the importance of his office is apparent when we are told that the preservation of the dykes alone costs yearly twenty millions of guilders. The minister for foreign affairs has in every country nearly the same duties to perform. We need not, therefore, take up our readers' time by enumerating them; but pass at once to the consideration of the office of the general commissary for the management of public education, and of the two "chefs" who conduct the affairs of the Catholic and Protestant churches.

First, of the church. Roman Catholic religion is called the religion of the state; In the southern provinces the in the northern the Calvinistic. In reality, however, there is no established church in the sense which we attach to the word. Every mode of belief is alike free, and all stand under the protection of the state. The

money expended upon the religious establishments of all next object is, to attempt to convey to them an idea of the communities in the Netherlands (with the exception the condition, physical and intellectual, of the people of the Jews) amounts to about L.252,056. The Re- which constitute the state. The surface of the United formed and Catholic churches, we have already remark- Netherlands comprises upwards of six millions of boned, stand each under the management of its own "chef niers, of two acres and a half each. The ratio of unde departement." The Walloons also stand under a spe- productive land to the productive, is less than a fourth. cial ecclesiastical commission. The Catholic church is The population in 1825, exceeded six millions. The divided in the Netherlands into the Roman Catholic and northern districts are almost a dead level, some of them the Jansenists. The former has four bishops, eight lying beneath the niveau of the sea. The province of vicars and arch-priests, and three thousand and twenty- Luxemburg alone, bordering upon France and the Prustwo congregations; the latter, one archbishop, one bishop, sian Rhine provinces, can be esteemed hilly. The southand fifty-four churches, with seventy-four preachers. ern provinces are highly cultivated, and produce more The adherents to these two communities may amount in corn than is required for the support of their dense ponumber to about three millions. The Reformed (or pulation. On the other hand, Friesland and Groningen Calvinistic) church is subdivided, in eleven of the pro- alone, of the northern provinces, cultivate enough of vinces, into forty-four classes, containing one thousand grain to supply their own wants. The breeding of cattle two hundred and twenty pastorships, the duty of which is pursued with success both in the northern and southern is discharged by one thousand four hundred and forty- provinces. Holland and Friesland are, properly speaking, eight preachers. At the head of the Reformed church is dairy countries. Even in the southern provinces, wood the general synod; subordinate to which are the provin- is scarce-in the northern, none is to be had but what is cial synods, which, in their turn, exercise a sort of super-floated down the rivers from Germany. Turf is almost intendence over the classes. The Remonstrants have of late been received again into the bosom of the church, and the number of its adherents now amounts to about a million and a half. There are subject to the ecclesiastical commission of the Walloons, fifty congregations, with ninety preachers. The adherents of other Christian sects are comparatively few. The Jews, whose religious expenses alone are not defrayed by the state, are about eighty thousand in number; and are divided into three sects, the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese Jews.

The educational institutions of the Netherlands stand under the immediate control of a commissary-general, in virtue of an article in the charter, recognising the instruction of the people as one of the first cares of government. The sum annually expended for the attainment of this object, the manner in which the public expenditure is stated in the budget does not admit of our ascertaining. It must amount, however, one year with another, to nearly a million and a half of florins. This sum supports elementary schools, which afford education to 633,859 children; colleges, or Latin schools, attended by 7038 boys; and six universities, with 2774 students. To these must be added the students of theology, educated at the various Catholic seminaries throughout the southern provinces; and the scholars of the military and naval schools. Of the elementary schools, 285, exclusively appropriated to the children of the poor, are attended by 56,617 pupils; while 90,000 other children, coming under the denomination of paupers, are received into the other schools.

the only fuel used throughout the kingdom. The vegetables of the Netherlands have long been famous. The capital employed in agriculture, has been estimated to exceed ten thousand millions of florins.

The manufactures of the Netherlands are in a condi

tion equally prosperous. There are mines of copper, iron, lead, and coal, worked with success in Liege, Namur, Hainault, and Luxemburg. Most of these minerals are manufactured in the provinces which produce them. The annual value of manufactured iron alone, exceeds ten millions of francs. The principal seat of the cloth and cassimere manufactures, is Vervier and its neighbourhood, as far as Liege and Maestricht. The value of this manufacture cannot be less than eighty millions of francs yearly. In East Flanders alone, upwards of thirty thousand looms are employed in weaving flax. This is a most important manufacture, owing to its tendency to spread from the great towns to the villages. The cotton trade has revived since the overthrow of Napoleon's continental system. Ghent, the head-quarters of this manufacture, receives annually forty thousand bales of cotton, and contains sixty-eight steam-engines for spinning and weaving. The distilleries and breweries of the Netherlands produce annually a value of one hundred and forty millions of Francs. The sum of the manufacturing industry of the Netherlands exceeds six hundred millions of francs per annum.'

The home trade of the Netherlands enjoys great facilities from the number of canals and excellent roads which intersect the country. The circulation of capital is facilitated by the State Bank at Amsterdam, chartered in 1814 for twenty-five years, with a capital of five millions of guilders, the exchange banks and chambers of commerce in all the great cities, and different insurance companies. The most important export articles are, butter, tobacco, linen, spirits, cloth, and oil. The imports are, corn, salt, wine, wood, bullion, and colonial produce. The annual profits of the home trade may be valued at two hundred and thirty millions of francs per annum ; of the foreign, at five hundred and sixty millions.

The minister of finance raises, by means of his subordinate officers, the direct taxes, furnishes the ministers of the different 'departments with the sums required for their estimated expenditure, and manages the national debt. Every province has a director, under whom stand an inspector and several controllers, whose business it is to collect the direct taxes. The sums collected are paid into the offices of the district-receivers, who are accountable to the receivers general of the provinces, and they, in turn, to the minister. The indirect taxes are collected by a special commission; and one or two institutes of the In attempting to estimate the moral and intellectual kingdom, the royal domains, the fisheries, the post, &c., culture and manners of the inhabitants, we must keep in collect their own revenue, and defray their own expenses, view the historical sketch, in the beginning of this article, independent of the general pecuniary management of the of the developement of the national character in the two country. The average income of the state of the Nether-grand divisions of the United Netherlands. In the north lands, for the last eleven years, has exceeded eighty-eight there is no aristocracy but that of wealth; in the south, millions of florins. Its annual average expenditure has the nobles have withdrawn themselves in a great measomewhat exceeded this sum, amounting, one year with sure from public business, to brood, in domestic retireanother, to upwards of ninety-eight millions. The national debt amounts to eight hundred and thirty-two millions of florins, and pays interest at four per cent. The foregoing sketch, brief and unsatisfactory as it necessarily is, will serve to give our readers a general idea of the political organisation of the Netherlands. Our

ment, over their former importance. The Dutch are like the English, a nation trained in practical freedom. The Belgians are, as far as intellectual culture goes, nearly in the state of France at the commencement of the Revolution, composed of a haughty and prejudiced aristocracy, and an illiterate commonalty, with a sprinkling of

sociation, we pledge ourselves to prove our assertion in a couple of paragraphs.

Imprimis, then, it is a fact not likely to be questioned, that the most characteristic feature of Sir Walter's poetry is the subdivision of each poem into a number of cantos, composed in a flowing and varying measure, with a profusion of prose notes tacked to their tails to explain their meaning. This is exactly the outward form assumed by Miss Bourke. Then, in regard to the matter, Sir Walter, it is known, takes an old story for his theme, and clothes it in the refinement of modern manners. Exactly so does Miss Hannah Maria. Her tale is of the earthly fortunes of the great O'Donoghue, of him who still rides out from the lake of Killarney, every May morning, on a white horse-a radiant Star of Brunswick galloping on the fa

wealthy and intelligent capitalists and restless literary theorists. In this, however, they differ from France at that period, that the power of the feudal aristocracy and of the priesthood has been completely broken. The universities of the north richly deserve the satirical description of log-lines of the human understanding; those of the south are but newly organized; and the King has been obliged to seek his professors in foreign countries. The average number of children at school throughout the kingdom is in the ratio of one to every nine inhabitants. The most northern provinces are the best educated; Limburg and Liege are the worst. In 1826, the persons accused before the Courts of Assize were as one out of every 4383 inhabitants. This ratio, of course, is exclusive of the delinquents accused before the Tribunaux Correctionels. Out of every hundred accused, twenty-mily arms. But it is only nominally that her story betwo were for crimes against the person. Heinous crimes longs to former ages: her characters are such as still were in the proportion of one to sixteen. Only sixteen haunt the broad daylight of the world. Take, for examout of every hundred were acquitted. The accusations ple, her king of Limerick, who makes a tour to Killarney for second offences were about thirteen in every thousand. exactly as the present Sovereign of the city might be supThe proportion of female to male criminals was as one to posed to do: 314. Among every hundred delinquents were four under sixteen years of age; twelve between sixteen and twentyone; the rest above twenty-one. The circulation of political journals in the Netherlands is sixty thousand sheets a-day; giving an average of one for every hundred inhabitants. The average number of works published annually in the Netherlands exceeds eight hundred. It must be kept in mind, however, that a large proportion of these are pirated editions of works published in other countries. There is a Royal Institute of Art and Science at Amsterdam; a Royal Academy of Art and Science at Brussels; a Royal Society of Painting at Antwerp; a Society of Natural History and Literature at the Hague; a Society of Science at Haarlem; and a Society of Art and Literature at Ghent.

This was not long ago a correct likeness of the kingdom of the Netherlands, erected into a constitutional monarchy by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and left to develope its institutions by the co-operation of the monarch and the people. Although not equal in the scale of national prosperity and intelligence to either France or England, it stood second only to these states, and was rapidly gaining upon them. It possessed a fertile soil, rising manufactures, flourishing commerce, a population daily advancing in knowledge, and unequalled capabilities of defence against invaders. Its laws and institutions were slowly, but surely, approaching to maturity. Its king was a plain, sensible man, beloved and trusted by his people. Yet a paltry feeling of national jealousy, artfully exaggerated by the incendiary artifices of discontented and ambitious men, threatens to dissolve the internal union, and put all these prospects of national power and prosperity to the hazard, in a contest by which nothing can be gained.

All this while we have not said one word of Mr Colley Grattan, or his History. The truth is, (we whisper it in the ears of our readers, and beg that it may be kept a secret,) that we cannot conscientiously say any thing in favour of the book, and we never yet could bring ourselves to speak harshly of any author.

O'Donoghue, Prince of Killarney; a Poem, in Seven Cantos. By Hannah Maria Bourke. Dublin. William Curry, jun. and Co. 1830. Post 8vo. Pp. 284. WE might call Miss Bourke the Walter Scott of Ireland; only we do not wish to stand in the way of her marriage, by awaking, through such a masculine appellation, any fear in the mind of her intended that she might incline to assume the dress, as well as the name, of her illustrious prototype. If our readers, however, will promise to struggle manfully against the unwarrantable as

"The king of Limerick, and his suite➡
He comes to spend a month or two,
The beauties of the lakes to view."

Or the still more decidedly modern conduct of Hengist
the Ostman, who, instead of stealing a ship, which the
prejudices of those times would naturally have suggested
as the more honourable mode of procedure, proposes, with
a truly chivalrous feeling, to hire a steam-boat to convey
him back to Denmark:

"Little of wealth I now can boast-
Some few gold pieces, at the most:
Barely sufficient do I keep,

To pay our voyage o'er the deep."

Having thus satisfactorily established the strong resemblance between Sir Walter and the gifted maid, we proceed to point out the charming peculiarities by which the green isle "marks her for its own." In the first place, her Arcadian dialect would of itself be enough to establish her Milesian paternity:

Again,

"While, joyous over hill and dale,
Rung loud the merry matin peal."

"Grieve not, he said-we are but slaves→→→→ Under whose government, who leaves It not in our own power to choose," &c. a stronger circumstance is, the peculiar mythology which represents nectar as a sort of “ 66 now the goblets fill

But

potteen :"

With nectar, which the gods distil
From fruits that grow above the sky."

Last, though not least in the list of nationalisms, is a
lowing passage as rather a happy specimen of this pro-
slight tendency to perpetrate bulls. We quote the fol-
pensity, requesting, at the same time, our readers' parti-
cular attention to the rich and varied intonation of the
first line:

"Now on M'Gilly Cuddy's Reeks,
Where first grey twilight slowly breaks,
The sun his lengthen'd shadows threw
In many a form of sober hue."

In our hyperborean clime the sun diffuses light, not shade;
but "they order these things better in Ireland.”
notion of innumerable beauties which sparkle in Miss
We wish much to convey to our readers some faint
Bourke's lines, but

"Where bright eyes so abound, boys,
'Tis hard to choose."

There is deep pathos in the picture of the heroine when
threatened with a husband :

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