that mortification from which vanity can rarely be expected to escape, when it chooses dulness for the minister of its gratifications. The learned author, after observing that a large army praying would be a much finer spectacle than a large army fighting, and after entertaining us with the old anecdote of Xerxes, and the flood of tears, proceeds to express his sentiments on the late scarcity, and the present abundance; then, stating the manner in which the Jews were governed by the immediate interference of God, and informing us, that other people expect not, nor are taught to look for, miraculous interference, to punish or reward them, he proceeds to talk of the visitation of Providence, for the purposes of trial, warning, and correction, as if it were a truth of which he had never doubted. Still, however, he contends, though the Deity does interfere, it would be presumptuous and impious to pronounce the purposes for which he interferes; and then adds, that it has pleased God, within these few years, to give us a most awful lesson of the vanity of agriculture and importation without piety, and that he has proved this to the conviction of every thinking mind. "Though he interpose not (says Mr. Nares) by positive miracle, he influences by means unknown to all but himself, and directs the winds, the rain, and the glorious beams of heaven to execute his judgment, or fulfil his merciful designs."-Now, either the wind, the rain, and the beams, are here represented to act as they do in the ordinary course of nature, or they are not. If they are, how can their operations be considered as a judgment on sins? and if they are not, what are their extraordinary operations, but positive miracles? So that the archdeacon, after denying that any body knows when, how, and why, the Creator works a miracle, proceeds to specify the time, instrument, and object of a miraculous scarcity; and then, assuring us that the elements were employed to execute the judgments of Providence, denies that this is any proof of a posi tive miracle. Having given us this specimen of his talents for theological metaphysics, Mr. Nares commences his attack upon the farmers; accuses them of cruelty and avarice; raises the old cry of monopoly; and expresses some doubts, in a note, whether the better way would not be, to subject their granaries to the control of an exciseman; and to levy heavy penalties upon those, in whose possession corn, beyond a certain quantity to be fixed by law, should be 1ound. This style of reasoning is pardonable enough in those who argue from the belly rather than the brains; but in a well-fed, and well-educated clergyman, who has never been disturbed by hunger from the free exercise of cultivated talents, it merits the severest reprehension. The farmer has it not in his power to raise the price of corn; he never has fixed and never can fix it. He is unquestionably justified in receiving any price he can obtain: for it happens very beautifully, that the effect of his efforts to better his fortune is as benefi cial to the public as if their motive had not been selfish. The poor are not to be supported, in time of famine, by abatement of price on the part of the farmer, but by the subscription of residentiary canons, archdeacons, and all men rich in public or private property; and to these subscriptions the farmer should contribute according to the amount of his fortune. To insist that he should take a less price when he can obtain a greater, is to insist upon laying on that order of men the whole burden of supporting the poor; a convenient system enough in the eyes of a rich ecclesiastic; and objectionable only, because it is impracticable, pernicious, and unjust.* # The question of the corn trade has divided society into two parts-those who have any talents for reasoning, and those who have not. We owe an apology to our readers for taking any notice of errors that have been so frequently and so unanswerably exposed; but when they are echoed from the bench and the pulpit, the dignity of the teacher may perhaps communicate some degree of importance to the silliest and most extravagant doctrines. No reasoning can be more radically erroneous than that upon which the whole of Mr. Nares's sermon is founded. The most benevolent, the most Christian, and the most profitable conduct the farmer can pursue, is, to sell his commodities for the highest price he can possibly obtain. This advice, we think, is not in any great danger of being rejected: we wish we were equally sure of success in counselling the Reverend Mr. Nares to attend, in future, to practical rather than theoretical questions about provisions. He may be a very hospitable archdeacon; but nothing short of a positive miracle can make him an acute reasoner. *If it is pleasant to notice the intellectual growth of an individual, it is still more pleasant to see the public growing wiser. This absurdity of attributing the high common nonsense talked in the days of my youth. I reprice of corn to the combinations of farmers, was the member when ten judges out of twelve laid down this doctrine in their charges to the various grand juries on instructed. the circuits. The lowest attorney's clerk is now better MATTHEW LEWIS.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.] "ACT I. SCENE I.-The palace-garden.-Day-break. OTTILIA enters in a night-dress: her hair flows dishevelled. "OTTIL. Dews of the morn descend! Breathe sum mer gales: My flushed cheeks woo ye! Play, sweet wantons, play Ottilia at last becomes quite furious, from the conviction that Cæsario has been sleeping with a second lady, called Estella; whereas he has really been sleeping with a third lady, called Amelrosa. Passing across the stage, this gallant gentleman takes an opportunity of mentioning to the audience, that he has been passing his time very agreeably, meets Ottilia, quarrels, makes it up; and so end the first two or three scenes. ALFONSO, king of Castile had, many years | ing explanation which Ottilia gives of her early previous to the supposed epoch of the play, rising. left his minister and general, Orsino, to perish in prison, from a false accusation of treason. Cæsario, son to Orsino, (who by accident had liberated Amelrosa, daughter of Alfonso, from the Moors, and who is married to her, unknown to the father,) becomes a great favourite with the king, and avails himself of the command of the armies, with which he is intrusted, to gratify his revenge for his father's misfortunes, to forward his own ambitious views, and to lay a plot by which he may deprive Alfonso of his throne and his life. Marquis Guzman, poisoned by his wife Ottilia, in love with Cæsario, confesses to the king that the papers upon which the suspicion of Orsino's guilt was founded were forged by him: and the king, learning from his daughter Amelrosa that Orsino is still alive, repairs to his retreat in the forest, is received with the most implacable hauteur and resentment, and in vain implores forgiveness of his injured minis- Mr. Lewis will excuse us for the liberty we ter. To the same forest Cæsario, informed of take in commenting on a few passages in his the existence of his father, repairs and reveals play which appear to us rather exceptionable. his intended plot against the king. Orsino, con- The only information which Cæsario, imaginvinced of Alfonso's goodness to his subjects, ing his father to have been dead for many though incapable of forgiving him for his un-years, receives of his existence, is in the folintentional injuries to himself, in vain dis-lowing short speech of Melchior. suades his son from the conspiracy; and at last, ignorant of their marriage, acquaints Amelrosa with the plot formed by her husband against her father. Amelrosa, already poisoned by Ottilia, in vain attempts to prevent Cæsario from blowing up a mine laid under the royal palace; information of which she had received from Ottilia, stabbed by Casario to avoid her importunity. In the mean time, the king had been removed from the palace by Orsino to his ancient retreat in the forest: the people rise against the usurper Cæsario; a battle takes place: Orsino stabs his own son at the moment the king is in his son's power; falls down from the wounds he has received in battle; and dies in the usual dramatic style, repeating twenty-two hexameter verses. Mr. Lewis says in his preface, "To the assertion, that my play is stupid, I have nothing to object; if it be found so, even let it be so said; but if (as was most falsely asserted of Adelmorn) any anonymous writer should advance that this Tragedy is immoral, I expect him to prove his assertion by quoting the objectionable passages. This I demand as an act of justice." We confess ourselves to have been highly delighted with these symptoms of returning, or perhaps nascent purity in the mind of Mr. Lewis; a delight somewhat impaired, to be sure, at the opening of the play, by the follow Alfonso, King of Castile. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By M. G. LEWIS. Price 2s. 6d. "MELCH. The Count San Lucar, long thought dead Cæsario makes no reply; but merely desires In the few cases which have fallen under our observation, of fathers restored to life after a supposed death of twenty years, the parties concerned have, on the first intimation, appeared a little surprised, and generally ask a few questions; though we do not go the length of saying it is natural so to do. This same Cæsario (whose love of his father is a principal cause of his conspiracy against the king) begins criticising the old warrior, upon his first seeing him again, much as a virtuoso would criticise an ancient statue that wanted an arm or a leg. "CESARIO. "ORSINO enters from the cave. Amelrosa, who imagines her father to have first transports of joy for pardon, obtained by banished her from his presence for ever, in the earnest intercessions, thus exclaims: "Lend thy doves, dear Venus, What judge of human feelings does not re cognise in these images of silver wings, doves | queens! We anxiously look forward, in his and honey, the genuine language of the pas-next tragedy, to a fall of snow three or four sions? feet deep; or expect that a plot shall gradually unfold itself by means of a general thaw. If Mr. Lewis is really in earnest in pointing out the coincidence between his own dramatic sentiments, and the Gospel of St. Matthew, such a reference (wide as we know this assertion to be) evinces a want of judgment, of which we did not think him capable. If it proceeded from irreligious levity, we pity the man who has bad taste enough not to prefer honest dulness to such paltry celebrity. We beg leave to submit to Mr. Lewis, if Alfonso, considering the great interest he has in the decision, might not interfere a little in the long argument carried on between Cæsario and Orsino, upon the propriety of putting him to death. To have expressed any decisive opinion upon the subject, might perhaps have been incorrect; but a few gentle hints as to that side of the question to which he leaned, might be fairly allowed to be no very unnatural incident. This tragedy delights in explosions. Alfonso's empire is destroyed by a blast of gunpowder, and restored by a clap of thunder. After the death of Cæsario, and a short exhortation to that purpose by Orsino, all the conspirators fall down in a thunder-clap, ask pardon of the king, and are forgiven. This mixture of physical and moral power is beautiful! How interesting a water-spout would appear among Mr. Lewis's kings and All is not so bad in this play. There is some strong painting, which shows, every now and then, the hand of a master. The agitation which Cæsario exhibits upon his first joining the conspirators in the cave, previous to the blowing up of the mine, and immediately after stabbing Ottilia, is very fine. "CESARIO. Ay, shout, shout, And kneeling greet your blood-anointed king, A page who clasped thy knees: And Melchior there For my soul's joyous!"-p. 86. The resistance which Amelrosa opposes to the firing of the mine, is well wrought out; and there is some good poetry scattered up and down the play, of which we should very willingly make extracts, if our limits would permit. The ill success which it has justly experienced, is owing, we have no doubt, to the want of nature in the characters, and of probability and good arrangement in the incidents; objections of some force. AUSTRALIA.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.] To introduce an European population, and to matter of fact, and judge of the rude state consequently, the arts and civilization of Eu- of society, not from the praises of tranquil rope, into such an untrodden country as New Holland, is to confer a lasting and important benefit upon the world. If man be destined for perpetual activity, and if the proper objects of that activity be the subjugation of physical difficulties, and of his own dangerous passions, how absurd are those systems which proscribe the acquisitions of science and the restraints of law, and would arrest the progress of man in the rudest and earliest stages of his existence! Indeed, opinions so very extravagant in their nature must be attributed rather to the wantonness of paradox, than to sober reflec-cient contrast of good, to know that the grosser tion and extended inquiry. To suppose the savage state permanent, we must suppose the numbers of those who compose it to be stationary, and the various passions by which men have actually emerged from it to be extinct; and this is to suppose man a very different being from what he really 18. To prove such a permanence beneficial, (if it were possible,) we must have recourse Account of the English Colony of New South Wales. By Lieutenant-Colonel COLLINS of the Royal Marines. Vol. ii. 4to. Cadell and Davies, London. literati, but from the narratives of those who have seen it, through a nearer and better medium than that of imagination. There is an argument, however, for the continuation of evil, drawn from the ignorance of good; by which it is contended, that to teach men their situation can be better, is to teach them that it is bad, and to destroy that happiness which always results from an ignorance that any greater happiness is within our reach. All pains and pleasures are clearly by comparison; but the most deplorable savage enjoys a suffi evils from which civilization rescues him are evils. A New Hollander seldom passes a year without suffering from famine; the small-pox falls upon him like a plague; he dreads those calamities, though he does not know how to avert them; but, doubtless, would find his happiness increased, if they were averted. To deny this, is to suppose that men are reconciled to evils, because they are inevitable; ard yet hurricanes, earthquakes, bodily decay, and death, stand highest in the catalogue of human calamities. Where civilization gives new birth to new | ishly believed, that the colony of Botany Bay comparisons unfavourable to savage life, with unites our moral and commercial interests, the information that a greater good is possible, and that we shall receive hereafter an ample it generally connects the means of attaining it. equivalent, in bales of goods, for all the vices The savage no sooner becomes ashamed of his we export. Unfortunately, the expenses we nakedness, than the loom is ready to clothe have incurred in founding the colony, will not him; the forge prepares for him more perfect retard the natural progress of its emancipa. tools, when he is disgusted with the awkward- tion, or prevent the attacks of other nations, ness of his own: his weakness is strength who will be as desirous of reaping the fruit, ened, and his wants supplied as soon as they as if they had sown the seed. It is a colony, are discovered; and the use of the discovery besides, begun under every possible disadvanis, that it enables him to derive from compari- tage; it is too distant to be long governed, or son the best proof of present happiness. A well defended; it is undertaken, not by the voman born blind is ignorant of the pleasures of luntary association of individuals, but by Gowhich he is deprived. After the restoration of vernment, and by means of compulsory labour. his sight, his happiness will be increased from A nation must, indeed, be redundant in capital, two causes;-from the delight he experiences that will expend it where the hopes of a just at the novel accession of power, and from the return are so very small. contrast he will always be enabled to make between his two situations, long after the pleasure of novelty has ceased. For these reasons it is humane to restore him to sight. It may be a very curious consideration, to reflect what we are to do with this colony when it comes to years of discretion. Are we to spend another hundred millions of money in discovering its strength, and to humble our selves again before a fresh set of Washingtons and Franklins? The moment after we have suffered such serious mischief from the escape of the old tiger, we are breeding up a young cub, whom we cannot render less ferocious, or more secure. If we are gradually to manumit the colony, as it is more and more capable of protecting itself, the degrees of emancipation, and the periods at which they are to take place, will be judged of very differently by the two nations. But we confess ourselves not to be so sanguine as to suppose, that a spirited and commercial people would, in spite of the example of America, ever consent to abandon their sovereignty over an important colony, without a struggle. Endless blood and treasure will be exhausted to support a tax on kangaroos' skins; faithful Commons will go on voting fresh supplies to support a just and necessary war; and Newgate, then become a quarter of the world, will evince a heroism, not unworthy of the great characters by whom she was originally peopled. But, however beneficial to the general interests of mankind the civilization of barbarous countries may be considered to be, in this particular instance of it, the interest of Great Britain would seem to have been very little consulted. With fanciful schemes of universal good we have no business to meddle. Why we are to erect penitentiary houses and prisons at the distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous expense of feeding and transporting their inhabitants to and at such a distance, it is extremely difficult to discover. It certainly is not from any deficiency of barren islands near our own coast, nor of uncultivated wastes in the interior; and if we were sufficiently fortunate to be wanting in such species of accommodation, we might discover in Canada, or the West Indies, or on the coast of Africa, a climate malignant enough, or a soil sufficiently sterile, to revenge all the injuries which have been inflicted on society by pickpockets, larcenists, and petty felons. Upon the foundation of a new colony, and especially one peopled by criminals, there is a disposition in Government (where any The experiment, however, is not less intecircumstance in the commission of the crime resting in a moral, because it is objectionable affords the least pretence for the commutation) in a commercial point of view. It is an obto convert capital punishments into transpor-ject of the highest curiosity, thus to have the tation; and by these means to hold forth a growth of a nation subjected to our examivery dangerous, though certainly a very unin- nation; to trace it by such faithful records, tentional, encouragement to offences. And from the first day of its existence; and to gawhen the history of the colony has been atten- ther that knowledge of the progress of human tively perused in the parish of St. Giles, the affairs, from actual experience, which is conancient avocation of picking pockets will cer-sidered to be only accessible to the conjectural tainly not become more discreditable from the reflections of enlightened minds. knowledge, that it may eventually lead to the possession of a farm of a thousand acres on the river Hawkesbury. Since the benevolent Howard attacked our prisons, incarceration has become not only healthy but elegant; and a county jail is precisely the place to which any pauper might wish to retire to gratify his taste for magnificence as well as for comfort. Upon the same principle, there is some risk that transportation will be considered as one of the surest roads to honour and to wealth; and that no felon will hear a verdict of "not guilty" without considering himself as cut off in the fairest career of prosperity. It is fool Human nature, under very old governments, is so trimmed, and pruned, and ornamented, and led into such a variety of factitious shapes, that we are almost ignorant of the appearance it would assume, if it were left more to itself. From such an experiment as that now before us, we shall be better able to appreciate what circumstances of our situation are owing to those permanent laws by which all men are influenced, and what to the accidental positions in which we have been placed. New circumstances will throw new light upon the effects of our religious, political, and economical in-. stitutions, if we cause them to be adopted as their non-existence. models in our rising empire; and if we do not, | a way, as to destroy the infant in the womb; we shall estimate the effects of their presence, which violence not unfrequently occasions the by observing those which are produced by death of the unnatural mother also. To this they have recourse to avoid the trouble of carThe history of the colony is at present, how-rying the infant about when born, which, when ever, in its least interesting state, on account of the great preponderance of depraved inhabitants, whose crimes and irregularities give a monotony to the narrative, which it cannot lose, till the respectable part of the community come to bear a greater proportion to the criminal. These Memoirs of Colonel Collins resume the history of the colony from the period at which he concluded it in his former volume, September 1796, and continue it down to August 1801. They are written in the style of a journal, which, though not the most agreeable mode of conveying information, is certainly the most authentic, and contrives to banish the suspicion (and most probably the reality) of the interference of a book-maker-a species of gentlemen who are now almost become necessary to deliver naval and military authors in their literary labours, though they do not always atone, by orthography and grammar, for the sacrifice of truth and simplicity. Mr. Collins's book is written with great plainness and candour: he appears to be a man always meaning well; of good, plain common sense; and composed of those well-wearing materials, which adapt a person for situations where genius and refinement would only prove a source of misery and of error. We shall proceed to lay before our readers an analysis of the most important matter contained in this volume. The natives in the vicinity of Port Jackson stand extremely low, in point of civilization, when compared with many other savages, with whom the discoveries of Captain Cook have made us acquainted. Their notions of religion exceed even that degree of absurdity which we are led to expect in the creed of a barbarous people. In politics, they appear to have scarcely advanced beyond family-government. Huts they have none; and, in all their economical inventions, there is a rudeness and deficiency of ingenuity, unpleasant, when contrasted with the instances of dexterity with which the descriptions and importations of our navigators have rendered us so familiar. Their numbers appear to us to be very small: a fact, at once, indicative either of the ferocity of manners in any people, or, more probably, of the sterility of their country; but which, in the present instance, proceeds from both these causes. "Gaining every day (says Mr. Collins) some further knowledge of the inhuman habits and customs of these people, their being so thinly scattered through the country ceased to be a matter of surprise. It was almost daily seen, that from some trifling cause or other, they were continually living in a state of warfare: to this must be added their brutal treatment of their women, who are themselves equally destructive to the measure of population, by the horrid and cruel customs of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage, which their female acquaintances effect by pressing the body in such | it is very young, or at the breast, is the duty of the woman. The operation for this destructive purpose is termed Mee-bra. The burying an infant (when at the breast) with the mother, if she should die, is another shocking cause of the thinness of population among them. The fact that such an operation as the Mee-bra was practised by these wretched people, was communicated by one of the natives to the principal surgeon of the settlement."(p. 124, 125.) It is remarkable, that the same paucity of numbers has been observed in every part of New Holland which has hitherto been explored; and yet there is not the smallest reason to conjecture that the population of it has been very recent; nor do the people bear any marks of descent from the inhabitants of the numerous islands by which this great continent is surrounded. The force of population can only be resisted by some great physical evils; and many of the causes of this scarcity of human beings, which Mr. Collins refers to the ferocity of the natives, are ultimately referable to the difficulty of support. We have always considered this phenomenon as a symptom extremely unfavourable to the future destinies of this country. It is easy to launch out into eulogiums of the fertility of nature in particular spots; but the most probable reason why a country that has been long inhabited, is not well inhabited, is, that it is not calculated to support many inhabitants without great labour. It is difficult to suppose any other causes powerful enough to resist the impetuous tendency of man, to obey that mandate for increase and multiplication, which has certainly been better observed than any other declaration of the Divine will ever revealed to us. There appears to be some tendency to civilization, and some tolerable notions of justice, in a practice very similar to our custom of duelling; for duelling, though barbarous in civilized, is a highly civilized institution among barbarous people: and when compared to assassination, is a prodigious victory gained over human passions. Whoever kills another in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay, is compelled to appear at an appointed day before the friends of the deceased, and to sustain the attacks of their missile weapons. If he is killed, he is deemed to have met with a deserved death; if not, he is considered to have expiated the crime for the commission of which he was exposed to the danger. There is in this institution a command over present impulses, a prevention of secrecy in the gratification of revenge, and a wholesome correction of that passion by the effect of public observation, which evince such a superiority to the mere animal passions of ordinary savages, and form such a contrast to the rest of the history of this people, that it may be considered as altogether an anomalous and inexplicable fact. The natives differ very much in the progress |