contract their issues; and this was followed by measures of the same kind on the part of the country banks.

The consequences of these alterations in the value of money, and its necessary effect upon prices, have been evident to us all. Ten years ago, a man died, leaving an estate to his heir, charged with portions to the younger branches of the family, which were settled according to the then value of the land. If the estate were now sold, it would, owing to the changes that have taken place in the value of the currency, scarcely pay the portions charged upon it, and the heir is reduced to beggary. Again, a man at the same period purchased a property, paying half the purchase money at the time, and leaving the remaining moiety on mortgage; he is now called upon to complete the transaction; the consequence is, that the property is again sold, but from the alteration in the times, it will now do little more than satisfy the mortgage. A hundred cases like these might be instanced, and too many, we fear, will occur to our readers within their own experience. But such individual cases, calamitous as they are, do not comprehend the whole mischief, which has flowed from this fatal source. The general distress, under which all classes are now suffering, has been attributed to a variety of causes;-to the transition from war to peace ;-to the amount of the taxes;-to the poor laws;-to the want of protecting duties, in favour of our domestic agriculture. But any or all of these, though some may have had a certain influence, seem to us inadequate to account for the universal depression, which pervades the whole empire. If our embarrassments were connected with the amount of the taxes, more relief would have been felt from the great diminution which they have undergone since the conclusion of peace. To us it appears, that the reduction, which has been made in the amount of the circulating medium, by the measures which the Bank of England has been constrained to take, in contracting the issues of its paper, in order to resume cash payments, will be in itself sufficient to account for all the difficulties of the present moment. For, if the advantages of an increasing stock of money be beneficial to a state, the evils attending a decrease are to an equal degree pernicious. "There is

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always an interval, (to quote once more from Hume) before matters be adjusted to their new situation; and this interval is as pernicious, when gold and silver are diminishing, as it is advantageous, when these metals are increasing. The workman has not the same employment from the manufacturer and merchant, though he pays the same price for every thing in the market. The farmer cannot dispose of his corn and cattle, though he must pay the same rent to his landlord. The poverty and beggary and sloth which must ensue are easily foreseen." This passage seems to be written in a prophetic spirit, and describes with a mefancholy fidelity, the phenomena of our present state. The time is out of joint, and the most hopeless part of the prospect is, that bad as the present is, there is no recovery, but worse remains behind." The manifest evils of the paper system have induced the legislature to determine upon a return to cash payments; but it is to be feared, that the remedy will prove worse than the disease. The preliminous steps which have been already taken, have occasioned a fearful shock; and if it were to be carried into effect as a simple measure, it would be difficult to say who would ride out the storm. If it were now for the first time, a question, whether there should be an unrestricted paper currency or not, there would be no difficulty in deciding it in the negative; but the case is different when such a currency has been so long established, that, like a wen upon the natural body which has become assimilated with the constitution, and can neither be cut out nor cured, all that can be done, is to administer palliatives. It is thus with the poor laws, and the corn bill; there is no one who does not admit the impolicy of such enactments abstractedly considered, but they have become so interwoven with our system, that any immediate repeal of them is impossible. And thus also, with the question of the currency, which cannot be considered alone. Any alteration in this particular, must be attended with other changes of the most extensive kind. We venture to suggest, that it can never be brought about, without a great depreciation of the coin of the realm, or a great reduction of the national debt, though this last measure would not be so comprehensive as the former, which would

extend to all private transactions between individuals, as well as to those between the nation and the public creditor. These are the questions which demand the attention of the legislature; and it is upon such subjects that we wish to see the talents of the senate exercised; for if some general plan of reformation cannot be devised, the prosperity of the country is at an end. All other reform is a mere mockery, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And as to parliamentary reform, we cannot conclude our remarks upon that subject better

than by quoting a passage, which is well entitled to notice, as coming from one, who had been himself a determined reformer. "As to parliamentary reform, I have tried it long enough to be convinced, it never can be adop ted upon any sound principle, that would be at once safe in its operation, and effective to its purpose. The people are well enough represented. The milk throws up the cream. No change in the form will mend the materials. I am sure, you will find it, as I have done, a vain attempt to build Grecian temples with brick-bats and rubbish.”

THIS is a very entertaining book to those who are fond of long stories and narrations, and who are not, like the good author, particularly scrupulous as to the truth or falsity of those materials which conduce to their amusement. It is a collection of relations of God's judgments against the several sorts of sins, marshalled according to the order of the Ten Commandments, -full of sanguinary details of cruelties and slaughters, of horrible crimes and horrible punishments,—of devils and diabolical visitations,-of tyrants and their dismal ends, and of events and occurrences chiefly of a dark and gloomy tineture, related throughout with the utmost simplicity and earnestness, and interesting from their variety and descriptive naiveté. There was a time when books of this kind were more attended to than at present; and as the fact is indicative of the thorough change which has taken place in manners and methods of instruction, we will just currently notice its developement. With our forefathers, at least with the most illiterate part of them, the mode of teaching by example, was of all others the most efficacious: It supplied the place of a thousand disquisitions, and theories of morality, by affording living impersonations of all that morality teaches us to imitate or shun, by presenting what only could be effective with the vulgar, parabolical delineations, at once too plain to be mistaken, and too vivid not to be highly impressive. Speculative inquiries, which are at best of little use in the direction of life, they could not understand; their little modicum of light and knowledge,

was drawn from other and more intelligible sources, not from the nicer and more delicate intricacies of reason ing, but from the grosser and more substantial images of reality. Hence those ponderous tomes pregnant with stories of the fatal exits of the wicked, and the sure rewards of the good, which used formerly to be the highly prized occupants of the cottage and the hall window, which were handed down from father to son with a kind of superstitious reverence, which were to their possessors as a body of practical divinity, from which they could and did educe all that was necessary to give to virtue its firmness, and to piety its fervour. These are now no more to be seen; they have given place to newer and less interesting inmates, to the trash of morbid fanaticism, and the ravings of republican

gloom. It may be true, that this change is partly owing to the increasing intelligence of the people, that as they have grown wiser, they have learned to despise the simplicity and credulity of their forefathers; but from whatever cause it may arise, nothing can be clearer, than that the reverence and regard which was formerly paid by the common people to example and practice, has vanished and departed; and that now they have lost nearly all the humility of disciples, without gaining much of the knowledge of teachers. Unfortunately, superficial learning is neither favourable to the qualities of the head or the heart, and adds to the obstinacy of intellect, while it facilitates the depravation of morals. We do not wish the people to be kept in ignorance,

but certainly that state of mental cultivation is best for them which best enables them to discharge their duty to their God and king. Whether that which existed in the times of our forefathers had this effect, we shall not decide; but certainly that which now exists, has had a very contrary operation.

This change, too, we think to be lamented for its tendency to innovate on the manners of our ancestors, and produce, instead of the old English character, a new species of national habits, with none of those endearing peculia rities which made that character valuable. We never take up, for instance, such a work as the present, without its bringing to our minds times long past, when the father of a family read aloud to his eager assembly, the dolorous and tragical events it records, heard with breathless anxiety and solemn awe, of which the credulity had something of the simplicity of innocence, and the sanctity of religion.

We have, however, another purpose for making the extracts which follow from this work, with which we will acquaint our readers. It is with great regret we have observed in many respectable characters, otherwise able bodied men, a great deficiency in those organs which assist to deglutition, in other words, a very limited ability to swallow. This we have perceived on other occasions, but particularly in the extraordinary difficulty which has been experienced by many worthy persons, of whom we have received accounts from our correspondents, in attempting to swallow the lying extravagancies and fanfaronades of some late numbers of a certain Cockney periodical publication. We shall not at present speculate upon, the circumstances, or inquire from what cause this inability proceeds, or whether it arises from too great a stricture in the passage of the throat or otherwise; but certain it is, that some alarming accidents, not less dangerous than that which happened to the Hunch Back, in the Arabian Nights Entertainments, have lately occurred, arising from this unfortunate source. Amongst others, we have been credibly informed, that a very worthy and respectable tradesman in Manchester, was actually choked in the very act of attempting to swallow certain portions of the aforesaid obnoxious work; and that, notwithstand

ing two gentlemen of the profession were promptly called in to adminis ter assistance to the sufferer, all attempts to extricate the adhesive matter proved totally ineffectual. It was so exceedingly heavy and lumpish, that it stuck fast and immoveable, and it was impossible either to get it down or out again. We understand that legal proceedings are now taking by the relations of the deceased against the proprietors of this very offensive publication. We are informed also, that even in Cockaigne, where the people are proverbially noted for the latitude of their gullets, similar accidents have occurred; and that deaths by choking, form a most alarming addition to the weekly bills. We are sorry to add, that the profession do not appear thoroughly to understand the treatment of this case; and, from the reports of our correspondents, we really think it necessary to put some stop to the evil. In order, therefore, to prevent the recurrence of similar melancholy events, we have come to the resolution of prescribing a regular course of diet, which, we think, by gradually enlarging the dimensions of the gullet, may in time fit it for compassing the arduous task before mentioned, with the least possible danger. Our prescription is this :-Let the patient swallow, with all due precautions, the several extracts which follow after, in the order they are placed, taking one in the morning, and one in the evening, whole and entire, and without mincing the same in any wise. He will, at the finishing of the last, we think, be almost competent to the successful execution of the business: he must, however, cautiously make the experiment. If he find, as we fear, that his organs are still inadequate to the office he wishes to assign to them, let him take in the same manner, but gradually increasing his matutinal and nocturnal portions, the whole of the Travels of Sir John Mandeville and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, and we have little doubt of his ultimate success. Should, however, extreme cases occur, in which even this preparatory course should prove inefficacious, we request the patient to favour us with a statement of his case, and we will answer, that the promptest and most attentive consideration shall immediately be paid to it.-N. B.

We will not answer for refractory pa

tients.

But to return to the book.-Our worthy author seems particularly partial to the tales of diablerie. Not an instance is there recorded of the bodily appearance of his Satanic Majesty, which has escaped his industrious zeal and praiseworthy diligence. So used does he seem to these kind of visitations, that he relates the hoisting up of sundry unfortunate creatures by their Mephistophiles, as if it were merely the lifting up of a bag of cotton or a bale of calicoes, or merely the harm less flight of some aspiring aeronaut. His devils, too, seem fiends of some gout, and by no means so incapable of participating in the pleasures of a good dinner as we have been led to believe. In one of the extracts following, our readers will perceive, that the banquet was the only article injured by the diabolical incursion. This, how ever, would be no pleasing circumstance, especially to a confirmed gastrophilist; and we think we could point out some gentlemen to whom it would occasion as much maceration of spirit as an actual transit of themselves, diabolo duce et auspice. Another thing remarkable in our author is, his extraordinary facility in converting every occurrence into a judgment. Be it what it was before it went into his forge, an accident the most common, a death the most natural, out it issues immediately from thence, a most manifest and unquestionable judgment, impossible to be mistaken. Let a notorious sinner make any given exit, and he will immediately demonstrate the fitness of it to the case, the adaptation of the punishment to the sin, and the sin to the punishment. This is all, however, certainly harmless; and if it be not very sensible, is yet, we think, very entertaining.

We will now proceed to our extracts. The first is the following story of rats:-Whether it has any mystical meaning or reference to the present times, we cannot pretend to judge. Certainly Pharoah's case, including the Red Sea, was preferable to this.

Among all the strange examples of God's judgements that euer were declared in this world, that one that befell a King of Poland, called Popiell, for his murders, is for the strangenesse thereof most worthie to be had in memorie: he reigned in the yeare of our

Lord 1346. This man, among other of his particular kinds of cursings and swearing, whereof he was no niggard, vsed ordinarily this oath, If it be not true, would rats might devour me; prophecying thereby his owne destruction; for he was deuoured euen by the same means which he so often wished for, as the sequele of his historie will declare. The father of this Popiell feeling himselfe neere death, resigned the gouernment of his kingdome to two of his brethren, men exceedingly reuerenced of all men for the valour and vertue which appeared in them. He being deceased, and Popiell being growne vp to ripe and lawfull yeares, vvhen he saw himselfe in full libertie, without all bridle of gouernment to doe what he listed, he began to giue the full swindge to his lawlesse and vnrulie desires, in such sort, that within few days he became so shamelesse, that there was no kind of vice which appeared not in his behauour, euen to the working of the death of his owne vncles, for all their faithfull dealing towards him, vvhich he by poyson brought to passe. Which being done, he caused himselfe forthwith to be. crowned with garlands of flowers, and to be perfumed with precious ointments: and to the end the better to solemnize his entrie to the crowne, commaunded a sumptuous and pompous banket to be prepared, vvhereunto all the Princes and Lords of his kingdome were inuited. Now as they were about to giue the onset vpon the delicate cheare, behold an armie of rats sallying out of the dead and putrified bodies of his vncles set vpon him, his wife, & children, amid their dainties, to gnaw them with their sharp teeth, insomuch that his gard with all their weapons and strength were not able to chase them away, but being wearie with resisting their daily and mightie assaults, gaue ouer the battaile: wherefore counsell was giuen to make great coale fires round about them, that the rats by that meanes might be kept off, not knowing that no policie or power of man was able to withstand the vnchangeable decree of God; for, for all their huge forces, they ceased not to run through the midst of them, & to assault with their teeth this cruell murderer. Then they gaue him counsell to put himselfe, his wife, and children into a boat, and thrust it into the middest of a lake, thinking that by

reason of the waters the rats would not approch vnto them: but alas in vaine; for they swum through the waters amaine, and gnawing the boat, made such chinckes into the sides thereof, that the water began to run in: vvhich being perceiued of the boatmen, amazed them sore, and made them make post hast vnto the shore, vvhere he was no sooner arriued, but a fresh muster of rats vniting their forces with the former, encountred him so sore, that they did him more scath than all the rest. Whereupon all his gard, and others that were there present for his defence, perceiuing it to be a judgement of God's vengeance vpon him, abandoned and forsooke him at once: vvho seeing himselfe destitute of succour, and forsaken on all sides, flew into a high tower in Chousuitze, whither also they pursued him, and climbing euen vp to the highest roome where he was, first eat vp his wife and children (shee being guiltie of his vncles death) and lastly gnew and deuoured him to the verie bones."

As the two next narrate procreations rather out of the ordinary way, they deserve to go together :

"After the same sort was an Archbishop of Mentz, called Hatto, punished in the yere 940, vnder the reigne of the Emperour Otho the great, for the extreame crueltie which he vsed towards certaine poore beggers, in time of famine, who being requested by one of his poore subiects to sell him some corne for his money, when there was none to be gotten elsewhere; answered, he could spare none, by reason hee had scarce ynough for his owne hogs which hoggish disposition the Lord requited in its owne kind, for his wife at the next litter brought forth seuen pigs at one birth to increase the number of his hogs: that as he had preferred filthie and ouglie creatures before his poore brethren, in whom the image of God in some sort shined forth, so hee might haue of his owne getting more of that kind to make much of, since hee loued them so well."

"Another not so cruell and disdainfull as the former, yet cruell and disdainfull ynough to plucke downe vengeance vpon his head, would not see his father beg indeed, nor yet abjure him as the other did; but yet vndertaking to keepe him, vsed him more like a slaue than a father, for what

should bee too deere for him that gaue vs life? yet euerie good thing was too deere for this poore father. Vpon a time a daintie morsell of meat was vpon the boord to be eaten, which as soone as hee came in he conueied away, and foisted in courser victuals in the roome. But marke what his dainties turned to: when the seruant went to fetch it againe, hee found in stead of meat snakes, and of sauce serpents, to the great terrour of his conscience: but that which is more, one of the serpents leaped in his face, and catching hold by his lip, hung there till his dying day, so that hee could neuer feed himselfe, but hee must feed the serpent withall. And this badge carried hee about as a cognisance of an vnkind and vngratefull sonne.'

We now proceed to our diabolical quotations, and hope our readers will imitate the example of our author, and give all due faith and credit to them. The following we particularly recommend to our readers, for the good moral it inculcates :*

"Diuers noblemen were striuing together at a horse race, and in their course cried the diuell take the last. Now the last was a horse that broke loose, whom the diuell hoisted vp into the aire and tooke cleane away. Which teacheth vs not to call for the diuell, for he is readie alwaies about vs uncalled and vnlooked for, yea many legions of them compasse vs about euen in our best actions to disturbe and peruert vs."

We think such executioners of the law as the following would startle the worshipful Court of Session :

"In the towne of Rutlinquen a certaine passenger came into an Inne, and gaue a budget to his host to be kept, in the which there was a great summe of money: but when he demaunded it againe at his departure, the host denied it, and gaue him injurious words, with many mockes and taunts: vvhereupon the passenger calleth him in question before the Iudge, and because he wanted witnesses, desireth to have him sworne, vvho without all scruple offered to sweare and protest, that he neuer receiued or concealed any such budget of mony from him, giuing himselfe to the diuell if he swore falsely. The passenger seeing his forwardnesse to damne himselfe, demanded respite to consider of the matter, and going out, he meets with two men, who en