iv The original plan of the MONTHLY REVIEW will be adhered to, with the exception of that portion of it embraced under the title of Monthly Catalogue, which was in a great measure limited to minor publications. These must, of necessity, give way to the more important works with which the press abounds, in order to enable the Review to keep pace, in some degree, with the teeming intelligence of the age, by noticing every new work of consequence as soon as possible after it is published. This object will be still further assisted by an enlargement of the pages, which will considerably augment their contents, without imposing any additional charge on the subscribers. It is the wish of the Proprietors not to diminish those facilities, which the present moderate price of each Number affords to all classes of readers, for possessing a literary Journal, popular in its form, and as compendious in its details as the variety of its matter will permit. t For the information of new subscribers it may be useful to add, that four Numbers of THE MONTHLY REVIEW, together with an Appendix, form a volume. The Appendix, which is published every four months and contains the Titlepage Table of Contents and Index for the volume, is of the same size as one of the monthly Numbers, and is chiefly dedicated to Foreign Literature. Arrangements have been made for securing the earliest copies of interesting works published in FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, and other parts of the Continent, as well as in the UNITED STATES, for the Appendix, in order that each volume of THE MONTHLY REVIEW may enable the reader to inform himself of the progress of literature in all the most civilized parts of the world. 1 10 1. The Principles of Political Economy. By J. R. M'Culloch...... 113 2. A Discourse delivered at the opening of the City of London Literary and Scientific Institution. By J. R. M'Culloch........... ib. Constable's Miscellany.-Vol. I. Hall's Voyage to the Eastern Seas 126 The Three Strangers. A Play. By Miss Lee......... Moss's Manual of Classical Bibliography........ 1. Friendship's Offering. A Literary Album..... 2. Janus; or, the Edinburgh Literary Almanack..... The Annual Biography and Obituary, for the Year 1826, Vol. X..... 233 An Introduction to Entomology. By W. Kirby and W. Spence. Gertrude de Wart. Translated from the German of Appenzeller... 248 Greece and her Claims. By Edward Blaquiere, Esq...... Memoirs of Madame de Genlis. Vols. VII. and VIII........... Disquisitions upon the painted Greek Vases. By James Christie.. 266 1. The Subaltern Officer. By Captain George Wood, of the Line. 278 2. The Adventures of a Young Rifleman. Written by Himself... ib. History of the United States, from their First Settlement as Colo- nies to the Close of the War with Great Britain, in 1815......... 291 Brambletye House; or, Cavaliers and Roundheads. A Novel. By One of the Authors of the "Rejected Addresses”........ ...... 302 1. Considerations on the State of the Currency. By Thomas Tooke 315 2. Observations on the Proceedings of Country Bankers, &c. By ..... The Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero to Titus Pomponius Atticus. Translated by William Heberden, M.D. F.R.S..... Revue Politique de l'Europe en 1825.... 1. Three Letters from Malachi Malagrowther, Esq., on the proposed 2. Two Letters on Scottish Affairs, from Edward Bradwardine Waverley, Esq., to Malachi Malagrowther, Esq.......... Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra, in 1823. ́By John Ander- ib. Physiologie des Passions; ou, Nouvelle Doctrine des Sentiments Moraux. Par J. L. Alibert,................................ . The Lusiad, translated by Thomas Moore Musgrave................... 470 Memoirs of the Court of Louis XV. By Madame du Hausset........ 479 Religions de l'Antiquité, considérées principalement dans leurs Formes Symboliques et Mythologiques; Ouvrage traduit de l'Al- lemand du Dr. Frédéric Creuzer, refondu en partié, complète et Lettres Physiologiques et Morales sur le Magnétisme Animal. Par J. Amédée Dupau, Docteur en Médecine...... De l'Ordre Légal en France, et des Abus d'Autorité. Par M. Du- vergier de Hauranne, ancien Membre de la Chambre des Députés 512 Archives des Découvertes et des Inventions Nouvelles, faites dans les Sciences, les Arts, et les Manufactures, tant en France que dans les Pays Etrangers, pendant l'Année 1825....... Briefe aus Sizilien von Justus Tommasini...................... Chinese Courtship. In Verse. By Peter Perring Thoms............. 540 THE MONTHLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1826. ART. I. Substance of the Speech of Francis Jeffrey, Esq. delivered at the Public Dinner given at Edinburgh to Joseph Hume, Esq. M. P. on Friday, the 18th November, 1825. Edinburgh, A. Constable and Co.; London, Hurst, Robinson, and Co. 1825. THIS brief address recommends itself to our earliest attention, not only as it discloses the views of an individual who occupies an influential station among the patrons of liberal opinions, but as the subject of it is one upon which the public and the Parliament will soon be required to form a deliberate and perhaps a permanent decision. We may presume that Mr. Jeffrey expresses the sentiments of Mr. Hume, and of those of his friends, by whom the repeal of the Combination Laws was supported, as well as of the assembly before whom this speech was delivered, and at whose unanimous request it has been published. Of the independence and public spirit of the members of the Scottish bar, and the citizens of Edinburgh generally, we are disposed to speak in terms of the highest praise; and we will do them the justice to say, that, in sitting in judgment upon the present question, they have the merit, at least, of being an impartial jury; for we conceive that few, if any, of them have any direct interest in its decision but we think, at the same time, that it would have been desirable to have seen Mr. Hume surrounded by individuals of a more mercantile class, and that more practical information had been evinced before deciding so unequivocally on a measure, re garding which a great diversity of opinion exists among the best informed statesmen, and in which the interests of trade are so vitally involved. It is admitted, on all sides, that at the present juncture considerable depression and embarrassment pervade the commercial and manufacturing community,-that the silk trade is on the brink of ruin, that the price of the raw material of our cotton manufactures has fallen, while that of the manufactures themselves has advanced, from a cause altogether novel, that in several districts of England and Scotland property is as insecure as it is any where in Ireland, — that machinery is rusting from being unemployed, and that VOL. I. NO. I. NEW AND IMPROVED SERIES. B bands of mechanics are at this moment subsisting upon the savings of past times, idle from principle, profligate from idleness, and yet complaining of inadequate wages; while the immense capital invested in that machinery, and which gave employment to those men, instead of yielding proportionate profits is, like the workmen, consuming the gains formerly acquired. This is a fearful state of things; and yet, with the exception of what relates to the silk-trade, it is not denied that it has resulted, in no slight degree, from the wanton and vitiated conduct of those persons for whose express benefit the legislature repealed certain statutes, which Mr. Jeffrey characterises as unjust' and 'mischievous' restrictions on the freedom of labour. What renders this condition of things the more deplorable, as it respects the future, is, that the repeal of these laws was not an experiment attempted upon a limited portion of the labouring population, or carried through Parliament with a small majority. Had this been the case, Parliament, with a better grace, could have retraced its steps. But it was carried with acclamation, it was unbounded in its application, it was hailed, not only as a measure of longdelayed justice, but as the precursor of a new era of enlightened, policy, by which the workman would be admitted within the pale of liberty, and bound more closely and cordially to the interests of his employer, Never, indeed, was an act of the legislature lauded more enthusiastically; and never was there one that so instantaneously recoiled upon its advisers in deeds of more revolting outrage; or one, every clause in which might be said to operate as an encouragement to the contravention of the criminal code. Had we not crime enough?. Were our provincial gaol-deliveries not sufficiently alarming, that a constitutional license had to be given to acts of insubordination, intimidation, assault, arson, and murder? But what were these restrictive statutes, in abrogating which, such deeds of violence were hazarded? They enacted, that all combinations to raise the rates of wages were indictable offences. In other words, combination was deemed so grievous an evil in a country so extensively commercial as this, that the law visited it with fine and imprisonment. The learned gentleman therefore states only one side of the case, when he affirms, that it was made an offence for the whole workmen to leave their employer at once if he refused to give the wages they required.' Every workman was left to the unshackled exercise of his own judgment. The law could not take cognisance of his individual acts. He might leave his employer when he chose. But the moment he entered into a compact with his fellow-workmen, to compel his master to accept those terms which he conceived would be most advantageous for himself or the trade, then, and not till then, the law. interfered, and the coalition was punished. These restrictions, however, Mr. Jeffrey pronounces 'fundamentally unjust in their principle, and mischievous in their oper |