time and oft bewildered such students of the dialogues of Cicero as would have been gladly guided by his authority, provided they could ascertain it. The escape from this dilemma, on the part of our author, is more than once effected by a dogmatism equally unsatisfactory to a searcher after truth. The poetical nature of her fictions, the field which they open to a fertile imagination, the rapidity and fervour with which, at an exciting crisis, her spirit warms and rushes forward, expose her to much greater risks than those of purely didactic writers. Of the errors, to which we have felt obliged to advert, some are errors of principle, others only errors from haste. Very different processes will be required, but we trust that the cure of both is still within her power.

Labour makes capital: it is the original price paid for all our comforts. This is the text of Life in the Wilds,' her first story. Every picture given us of savage life-the struggles of Robinson Crusoe for subsistence, on an island all to himself-show plainly enough the difficulty of turning the raw material of nature to account. In order to point out what are the elements of wealth, and describe the progress of society towards its acquisition, Miss Martineau abandons to the Bushmen for a night a flourishing little settlement at the Cape, and then traces, step by step, its gradual restoration to prosperity. Some readers, on laying down the volume, have felt disposed to ask, Is this all? We answer them (and properly), that the merit of a proof is heightened by its simplicity. The gossip of a community thus thrown on its resources; the insignificance of Beau Arnold and his bag of gold; the estimation of this or that kind of labour, according as it happens to be most wanted-whether agricultural or commercial-productive or unproductive-more or less genteel-are part of the circumstances described, and are the best possible evidence of the truths intended to be taught. What appropriate suggestions follow on the division of labour by the boys over their bows and arrows, and by the women in their household arrangements-upon Mrs Stone's listlessness in her sick-room for want of books-on the rational rejoicings at Richard's return with his waggon-load of wood and iron, Bibles, and newspapers-and on the facility with which Kate's marriage is settled in a new country where society has its happiness within its own reach! We have heard the lecture-like dialogues objected to as out of place and improbable. The objection rests on an ignorance (which we noticed at the outset) of the distinction, by which mere nature is always separated from the arts. A certain kind of improbability is inherent in the present scheme, and, indeed, in every work of

art. The arts are very much matters of convention; and in a case of this sort, the only proper question is a question of degree. To take the present story: the discussion on wealth at the mouth of the cave, within which the whole colony is housed, does not appear to us to call for a much greater stretch of conventional indulgence, than the dialogue at the cavern's mouth in Cymbeline. Then, how instantaneously the story recalls us to the scene, and how skilfully the suitable South of Africa learning, and the expedients of most probable adoption in these extremities, keep up the delusion! The accessories of the flitting honey-bird, of the chestnut-throwing monkeys, of the buffalo-pits, and the ostrich hunt, cast a foreign and rural air over the narrative, and have succeeded in turning a school-room of political economy into an As you Like it' forest at the Cape. The author is evidently quite at home with that most agreeable of all company-little children-whose sayings and doings are prettily interposed between the graver arguments. Whilst they are always natural and childlike, they are never obvious and commonplace. The death of George Prest, by the bite of a horned snake, is very pathetically told; and has the further merit of saving Arnold from unmitigated contempt. The same imagination which has enabled her to step back to the origin of society, endows her with the power of transmigration, and throws her as it were at once into the forms which she successively conjures up. At the same time, her presence of mind and steadiness of aim are preserved throughout. She never loses sight of the lesson which she is teaching, all the while that she is playfully embroidering into the canvass the colours and the figures which are to ornament her plot.

Here, however, in her first story, and before she was emboldened by success, controverted opinions are broadly stated as undoubted truths; and inconsiderate expressions more than once are hazarded, with an unguardedness quite unbecoming the pulpit, which otherwise she so successfully has scaled. Does Miss Martineau (p. 96) really mean that the right principle,' on which the advantages of a gradation of ranks in society' can practically depend, is 'superior merit,' and that, too, to be ascertained by universal suffrage? This is rather too summary a disposal of so serious a matter. We should have supposed that she intended to restrain the maxim to occurrences similar to those related; or to that visionary hereafter,' where alone Milton looked for the 'perhaps to be' of his just equality.' But we find again (at page 56 of her eleventh number) mention of natural laws,' according to which rank and wealth are some day to be distributed; and that there are signs of the

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'times discernible' when, accordingly, all interests are to be harmonized. Miss Martineau assumes (p. 96), that the line can be readily drawn between those public officers who must continue to be paid by public salaries, and such private individuals as ought to be left to make separate bargains with their employers. She assumes also that clergymen and schoolmasters fall within the second line. As far as the Church is concerned, this doctrine is laid down in Ireland' in still more unmeasured terms. Her call for education, apparently at the public charge, both there and in Cousin Marshall'-the supposed necessity, also, which has established public schools throughout even America, seem inconsistent with the universality of her principle. But, on principle, and experience, is it not clear, that although the labour in question may be labour of the most valuable kind, nevertheless, yet it may not properly come under the laws of Political Economy? It is not fairly in demand, wherever, in point of fact, a people is not sufficiently sensible to its moral and intellectual, in the same way as to its physical wants. The hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and knowledge, requires artificial exciting, before its actions can be relied upon, as surely as the natural demand for our daily bread. this there can be no more competent judge, nor can more favourable circumstances for a trial of the fact be well imagined, than a teacher like Dr Chalmers, speaking on his own experience among such a people as the Scotch. The question is one of those which is still upon its trial, and where much further evidence on both sides yet has to come in. Is Miss Martineau's reader to believe (p. 113), that it is of course the fault of the ' constitution of society,' whenever labour, thrown out from one sort of employment, does not immediately find out another? Surely the limit of human intelligence,' acting on the 'mate'rials of nature,' may be at a stand-still at certain periods. Steam-engines are not invented, nor new markets opened every year. It is admitted in other places (pp. 75 and 92), that a government cannot make employment, but only remove restraints, and allow every one to find employment wherever it is to be found.

Of

The second story is the reverse of the first. Capital makes labour-that is, employs it. This effect is excellently exemplified by the rise and progress of some iron works in a Welsh valley. Competition at home and abroad bring the proprietors to the point;-a reduction of wages and the introduction of machinery offer the only chance of keeping possession of the market, on which manufacturers more favourably situated are gaining ground. Disturbances take place, the machinery is destroyed,

and the works are abandoned altogether. The scenery, incidents, and persons are happily sketched. We pass backwards and forwards between the Hill and the Valley.' The scene is varied by a Welsh Camp-meeting. The death of a boy, by an accident from the machinery, his funeral, the sacking of the manufactory by the infuriated workmen, the calling in of the military, and the marching off of the criminals among the lamentations of their families, pass rapidly before us. The tale ends by a warning against machine-breaking, in a speech which one of the partners delivers to the remaining men, whom he is obliged to discard on breaking up the establishment. Two equally decided characters are skilfully contrasted, Armstrong and Paul, in order to bring out the poetry of the ancient controversy between the merits of a contemplative and of an active life. The first is a bankrupt tradesman, who has retired in disgust among the mountains, and who represents the hermit philosophy of complete independence of the world. The other is a humourist, of even greater strength of purpose-one who connects his own pride of resolve with the most dependent drudgery of society-and seeks for a justification in political economy. The character is taken from Foster's Essays. It is that of a ruined spendthrift, who is bent on working his way back to his former wealth by the severest labour and privations. We have heard it objected, that this story will not satisfy artisans in any given case that their master cannot carry on his business by a farther reduction of his profits. It is said, they always will believe that he has the alternative of taking on himself the fall of the times, instead of putting it on his workmen. When such a man as the late Robert Hall, at the time of the statement prices at Leicester, allowed the misery which he was hourly witnessing, without being able to relieve it, so far to overpower his understanding, there is no foreseeing whither society may be driven by the passions of a starving population. But as far as argument can have force, the class of honest and intelligent witnesses may be relied upon, who have been examined before Committees of the House of Commons. Among the members of mechanics' institutes, trustworthy guides of their companions will not be wanting, except at periods when want no longer leaves a man master of his reason. We believe that there is scarce a labourer employed in farming, or in manufacture, or in trade, who may not be convinced, not only that there is such a thing as a losing business, but that some particular branch may be in the particular crisis described in this story, and which is referred to also in the Manchester strike.' They are well aware that the question, whether business shall be closed immediately, or whether a arther trial shall be attempted, must often turn on the pos

sibility of being able to lower the charges of production. The fault which we are disposed to find in her history of the collision and arbitration between the rights and interests of these two parties, is not that Miss Martineau has not dwelt longer on so plain a case, but that she does not point out with sufficient prominence another duty, equally unpopular, and less understood, which is also imposed upon the masters. The truth is, on all occasions where the above question shall arise, that it is the master's duty to enquire from the very first, whether the embarrassments which he is experiencing depend on temporary or on permanent causes; and whether it may not be better for all parties to lessen the shock by a gradual decrease, rather than risk, by increasing the amount of the article produced, the prolongation of a contest which nature has decided. When an old manufactory is undersold by rivals, who can afford, from local advantages, to manufacture the same article at less cost, the policy is to be deprecated, and not to be recommended, (as in page 90,) which would add to the quantity in the market, from the hope of keeping entire the capital through increase of sale. A competition thus carried on can only augment the glut and the distress, in which such a struggle must ultimately close.

The interest which so much of the public, as are consumers only, have in le harag is obvious enough. But it is said that this advantage Society Se always at the expense of those labourers who are producers as well as consumers, whenever they lose by it more in their former than they gain in their latter character. We would propose to the two great classes of producers-manufacturing and agricultural labourers—the following consideration. They will perhaps see in it the grounds of a reasonable compromise, as much for their own sakes as for the sake of the public at large. To take first the case of manufactures. Manufacturing machinery enables the great body of consumers of all classes to obtain the manufactured article at a much cheaper rate. This, it is admitted, is an unmixed advantage to all classes, except to the manufacturing mechanic. He He may be out of pocket, in reduced wages, and by non-employment, more than he will gain on the cheapness of so much of the article produced as he has occasion to consume. On this supposition the mechanic is understood to proceed. Judge in his own cause, and deciding in his own favour, he destroys the power-loom, which threatens in some degree to supersede himself. The consequence is, as far as he is successful, that he makes the rest of society (the agricultural labourers as well as others) pay the difference of his wages, in the increase of price on the whole amount of the national consumption. Every ploughman