ing to the forms and processes of English Law, also by Mr. Sampson. I am delighted to see the manner in which the absurdities of English Law, or that which is called Common Law and Judical Process, are assaulted in America. Mr. Bentham has not laboured in vain.

Fourth. Is an "Oration delivered at Concord by Edward Everett, April 19, 1825," being the anniversary, as I understand, of what we, in this country, call the battle of Lexingtou, or the first hostile step towards the assertion of American Independence. The particulars of that day are so minutely detailed in this discourse, that, on reading it, I felt an ardent desire, to get it read by every man, woman, and child in this country; for, 1 fear, to get finally rid of a similar evil we must have a similar day, in some future reign.

Fifth. Is an address delivered at the laying of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, by Daniel Webster. La Fayette was present at this ceremony, and the reappearance of that gallant veteran in the cause of liberty and republicanism, in America, appears to have inspired the Americans, and to have roused them from comparative apathy towards that enthusiasm which republicans should feel, so long as there is a monarchial government on the face of the earth.

Sixth.-Is an oration delivered on the last anniversary of American Independence, before the President of the Country and the Council and Inhabitants of Boston, by Charles Sprague.

These orations have gone through several editions in America, which is quite unusual. They cannot all appear in one No. of this work. Everett's oration will fill a No. and a good No. it will be. The articles shall be inserted, so as none of them be broken, as, for my own part, as a reader, I always grieve to see a good subject broken with a "to be

continued."

These reprints will fairly shew the people of this Island the progress of American talent and the degree of ardour with which the Americans espouse and support their repub-. lican institutions. Priestcraft among them is still deplorable, and, I fear, that I shall have to export one of my brave fellows, to get a shop like mine opened early in New York, or in any other part of America. But there is one satisfaction, the Americans as well as ourselves are rapidly improving.

R. C.

INTELLECTUAL ECONOMY.

THE example of America has taught the world some half a dozen truths, of more consequence by far than all the vaunted discoveries of European science. This has been often said, but seldom we apprehend, distinctly understood. Even Americans are to be found who consider this country as indebted to the rest of the civilized world, in the great commerce of useful information and valuable truth. The balance of intellectual trade is supposed to be disgracefully against us, and much solicitude has been shown to devise the ways and means of repaying the obligations which threaten to overwhelm us. It has been sagaciously suggested, that for the honor of the country, we must pay back in literature and science, the literature and science we import, or we shall be inundated (to use a cant term of a certain school of political economy) with more knowledge than we can possibly dispose of. There is little reason, we believe, for these anxious apprehensions of intellectual insolvency. The benefits that Europe one day must derive from having witnessed the magnificent results of our political experiments, are worth all the scientific information, all the sources of literary gratification, which she can give us for centuries to come. We have discovered and demonstrated, for example, that a nation may be rendered capable of governing itself. This we confidently - produce, as a fair set-off to the discovery of a score of new acids, the detection of a myriad of double Dochmiacs, and the re-edification of a host of dilapidated Dactylics Dimeter Brachycatalectic. We have shown to the incredulous statesmen of the old world, that society may continue to subsist in freedom and tranquillity, when disencumbered of such nuisances as Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Viscounts, et hoc genus omne. This we think, is fairly worth a dozen epics and as many comic operas; and would, moreover, we venture to maintain, leave our trans-Atlantic brethren decidly in our debt. Again, we hold that we have established, beyond a doubt, the fact that Christianity is independent of political support-that it can flourish without tythes, and extend without intolerance. We shall probably be despised for what we say, by the savans of the old world; but we fearlessly assert, that we think we should be but scantily remunerated for this all-important truth, if every book that passes through our custom-house, brought to us the news of the discovery of some weed, shell, or bug unknowh before,'

or announced the bringing to light of the very newest overlying unconformable flötz trap formation.

Let it not be supposed that we are desirous of depreciating those departments of human knowledge which the polite world have agreed to denominate literature and learning par excellence. On the contrary, we profess to feel the highest admiration for those arts which which adorn and embellish human life,' and administer to the enjoyments of a cultivated taste. But we insist and shall never cease to insist, that in the estimate of what America has done, and what she may still hope to do, her deficiencies in the ornamental sciences have been charged against her a most extravagant price, while her attainments in the first and best of sciences-the art of so disposing of the elements of society as to make the resulting happiness the greatest which those elements will allow-have never, not even by her own citizens, been properly appreciated.

In a free country, where there exist no privileged orders, nor unequally protected institutions, it will generally happen that the value of every branch of human knowledge, as far as concerns such a community, will be very nearly indicated by the quantity of intellectual capital, to use the language of political economists, naturally determined to its cultivation. An analogous principle is now acknowledged to be true, with regard to the relative value of the various branches of mere material industry; and we see no reason why the doctrine may not be extended to the finer and less palpable fabrics of the intellect. The supply of literature and science will be in proportion to their demand, and their demand in proportion to their usefulness. The elements of really valuable information, the principles of serviceable, practical, and necessary knowledge, will receive the largest share of cultivation, because they will be most in request. Useful art and valuable science, will necessarily be in steadier demand, and maintain a much greater number of writers and instructors, than the mere elegancies and luxuries of learning, precisely for the same reason, that the necessaries of life command a surer market and give support to more producers, than those commodities which are called for by less natural appetites, or less imperative desires.

In Europe, this self-directing, self-adjusting principle, is seldom or never left to operate. Nothing is considered as well done, which is not done by the eternally intruding interference of the law. The distribution of knowledge is determined by the same impertinent control which attempts to regulate the distribution of wealth. Certain manufactures and certain sciences are not in demand, or may be more cheaply imported. The consequence is, that an absurd and premature attempt to get them up proves abortive, and they languish, as it is termed. And so they ought to do; for unless political restrictions impede their exercise and growth, it is a sign, and a sure one, that capital and intellect are occupied more profitably elsewhere. Common sense, in this case,

would suggest that the best policy would be that which left industry and talent to find out their most appropriate employments. But legislators then would have little left to do, and that is not to be endured. Some pretence is accordingly devised for the application of the system of encouragement and restraint, a system which was engendered in tyranny and bigotry and folly, which has been sustained by fraud and prejudice and pride; a system which has been the cause of more misery and desolation than pestilence or famine-which plunders without the courage, and - oppresses without the apology of despotism-a system, which we venture to predict, will one day stand as a monument of the barbarous policy and stupendous folly of an age that believed itself

arrived at the last limits of civilization and refinement.

By the operation of this preposterous system, millions have been exacted from the savings of the industrious and the pittances of the poor, under the wretched pretext of supporting industries and talents, the products of which the contributors never saw, or at least never consented to receive on the terms thus impudently thrust upon them. So enormous an abuse would have soon worked out its own remedy, if it had not been maintained by the strength or the stratagem of those who were the gainers by it. Accordingly we find that were priviledged orders and institutions could no longer be supported by the arbitrary power of the sovereign, they have been upheld by duping and deluding the payers of the tax into a belief that these monopolies were essential to the welfare or glory of the state. On the continent of Europe, where the voice of the people is never heard in the business of legisla tion, the principle of force is, to this day, in full operation, in determining the exercise of industry and intellect. In Great Britain, where something like representation is to be met with, it has been for many years past, found necessary to cheat the multitude into measures, into which it would be unwise, if not impossible, to compel them. By a system of chicanery and swindling, (unparalleled in the annals of the world, because, under all other governments, force answers all the purposes of fraud) the people of Great Britain have been led to believe that the necessaries of life may be too plentiful and cheap for their good, and have therefore consented that the price of provisions shall be kept up by that compound of absurdities and cruelties denominated the "Corn Laws." By another wretched sophism, they have been gulled into a belief that the interests of religion, literature and science, require that they should pay into the common treasury of the state twenty-five millions of dollars annually, for the support of the clergy, literati and savans, who have generously and disinterestedly undertaken to humanize their manners, improve their morals and enlighten their understandings. It may, perhaps, have occured to some of the more sagacious of the dupes, to ask why this expenditure might not be entrusted directly to him who is interested in it- why A must pay the state to pay

B for

what B does not give, or at least for what A does not want; and if A does want it, why it is required that A should pay C to pay D, and so on through the alphabet, till Z pays B what A might have paid him at once. But the B's have provided for these troublesome inquiries, and have convinced the great majority of the A's that these doubts of the perfection of the existing state of things are shockingly blasphemous and desperately wicked, so that it is odds but the A's are the first to cry out against any attempt to relieve them.

Every distribution of the public funds for purposes not immediately connected with the necessary expenses of a state, may be shown to be ineffectual, wasteful and unjust. If as much capital is not employed in some of the departments of industry as some sage, legislator thinks ought to be employed, it is in ninety nine cases in a hundred, because the legislator is ignorant of the best disposition of the property of the capitalists. If, (as sometimes takes place, but we believe very rarely) the public man is right and the moneyed man is wrong, the evil is precisely that which will the soonest remedy itself. And if it does not, the loss which results to the community is a trifle in comparison to the injury, the violence, and the wanton oppression, that would inevitably result from an attempt to direct or control the occupations of the citizen. An argument in all respects analagous to this, will show the folly and injustice of restraining or encouraging by law, particular intellectual propensities. Let intellect enjoy the same freedom which political economy has shown to be so favourable to the progress of industry and wealth-let no part of the public. funds be forcibly appropriated to the encouragement of such arts and such sciences as the very neglect which they experience demonstrates to be useless-let no law but public opinion (the best of all laws in an intelligent community) restrain the free developement of knowledge, the free tendencies of taste and the free expression of opinion-and the amount of national intelligence, the sum total of all the useful knowledge in the state, will be incalculably greater than under the most judicious operation of the system of restriction.

What then will become of the fine arts, the abstrucer sciences, polite literature and profound scholarship? They will be furnished, we reply, precisely in proportion to the demand for them which exists in the community, and every thing beyond this supply, we are heretics enough to believe, is useless, frivilous, and hurtfully expensive. When any branch of human industry is stimulated into more activity and growth than the natural demand would have created and sustained, there results a superfluous expenditure of talent, an unwise and unprofitable diversion of the intellectual energies of the nation, precisely similar in its effects to that injurious disposition of the property of the citizen which