continue to resort to Paris in vast numbers, and go the usual round of sights and introductions: occasionally take part with Ultras or with Liberals, with Bonapartists, with Bourbonists; but few have thought of inquiring what sort of thing the People of France actually is at this moment?--we do not mean the politicians of Paris only, but the thirty millions of souls which compose the population of the kingdom. We have lately taken some pains to inform ourselves upon this great question--and shall now lay before our readers the sum of the knowledge we have acquired. A very large proportion of the French nation, composed of mere country labourers, found themselves unexpectedly raised to the rank of Proprietors by the sale of national lands in small parcels at the beginning of the Revolution. A prodigious impulse was given to industry by this change of situation; and the love of property it originally produced has continued ever since to increase. The competition for the acquisition of land is such, that a farm in the neighbourhood of any village, if sold in small lots, is sure to bring a considerable advance of price. There are instances of sales at the rate of 80 or even 100 years' purchase--the new proprietor depending for his subsistence in a great degree on the produce of his personal labour and that of his family. Children usually inherit equal shares of the paternal property, although the law allows the father to dispose of one-third if he leaves only two children, and one-fourth if he leaves a greater number. This is another and a constantly increasing principle of division of property, and with it of population, every fractional proprietor thinking he can marry upon his small patrimony. A change, no less important, has taken place in the condition of Artificers: the Gothic system of corporate bodies of trades. men (Jurandes et Maîtrises) endowed with exclusive privileges, was abolished at the Revolution, as well as the regular course of apprenticeship, companionship, &c. Society has so far gained, that natural abilities, and superior industry have freer scope, and the skilful and the strong win the race easier than they would have done otherwise at the same time that those of inferior capacity are sooner distanced. Some of the old regulations were tyrannical and absurd: they might have been amended with evident benefits but it is not certain that the public or the workmen themselves have gained upon the whole by their indiscriminate abolition. The continental system had given to French industry a monopoly which some of the great manufactories established under EDINBURGH REVIEW, OR CRITICAL JOURNAL: FOR AUG. 1820..... NOV. 1820. TO BE CONTINUED QUARTERLY. JUDEX DAMNATUR CUM NOCENS ABSOLVITUR. PUBLIUS SYRUS. VOL. XXXIV. EDINBURGH: Printed by David Willison, LONDON. CONTENTS OF No. LXVIII. Art. I. The Comedies of Aristophanes. ' By T. Mitchell, A. M. late Fellow of Sidney-Sussex College, Cam bridge. Vol. I. - - . - p. 271 II. 1. Whitelaw's History of the City of Dublin. 2. Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population; M. P. 3. Gamble's Views of Society in Ireland - 320 HII, An Account of Experiments for Determining the Va riation in the Length of the Pendulum vibrating Kater, F.R.S. - - - - 338 V IV. Poems. By Bernard Barton - - 348 V. The Transactions of the Horticultural Society of Lon- . don. Vols. I. II. & III. • 357 VI. Mademoiselle de Tournon, par l'Auteur d'Adèle de. Sénange . - - 372 VII. Recherches sur les Bibliotheques Anciennes et Mo dernes jusqu'à la Fondation de la Bibliotheque Ma- - - - - 383 VIII. Journals of two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales, undertaken by Order of the British |