This, it must be admitted, was deplorable enough. It is alleged that we are more subject to such crises than any other nation. Assuming this to be true, the sufferings which they bring to our people are seldom or never so severe as that described by his lordship. But, lest there may be any who doubt this, we will adduce further evidence. In a speech delivered in the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, in July, 1842, on the distress then prevailing in the manufacturing districts, his lordship described the condition of the operatives as follows:

"In Leicester, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, wages were reduced, houses left untenanted, rents had fallen one-half or less, able-bodied and healthy men-at least, men who were once in health-men well skilled in their respective branches of trade, men able and but too anxious to work, were thrown out of employment by thousands. Wages were reduced in some instances to sixpence a week, rather less than one penny for each and every day. The poor's rate increased in some places four-fold, and in others double that amount, and the defalcation of rateable property has gone on from 20 to 30, 40, and sometimes 50 per cent. There have been found such occurrences as 7, 8, and 10 persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole days without a morsel of food. They have remained on their beds of straw for two successive days, under the impression that, in a recumbent posture, the pangs of hunger were less felt. Members of religious congregations have been frequently taken from the places of worship fainting from illness and weakness, brought on from want of proper sustenance."*

Lest it may be supposed that the picture of Lord Brougham is overdrawn, we will quote one or two other authorities on the same subject, men who could have no object in misrepresenting the facts, and who were well competent to form a reliable opinion. Colonel Torrens, in one of his letters to Sir Robert Peel, observes: "The English artisan must exchange his wheaten loaf for the black bread of the continent; must reduce his accustomed supply of

* It can hardly be pretended that our war has been the cause of greater disturbances, at home or abroad, than those caused in England, in 1830, by the prevailing distress and want of employment. We quote the best authority: "The disturbances began in the county of Kent. The rioters did not assume the character of disorderly mobs, nor did they profess to seek any political objects. They appeared at first as lurking incendiaries, and wreaked their vengeance on property, the destruction of which could only aggravate their misery. Night after night new conflagrations were lighted up by bands of incendiaries; corn-stacks, barns, farm-buildings, live stock, were consumed indiscriminately. Bolder bands attacked mills, and demolished the machinery; all threshing-mills, in particular, were condemned. Threatening letters were circulated, demanding the raising of wages, or the disuse of machinery; and the nightly exploits of the writers insured attention to their demands. The evil spread and increased. During October, November, and December, it made its way from Kent into the counties of Herts, Wilts, Bucks, Sussex, and Surrey. Throughout the whole of that district, all protection to property appeared to be at an end. Bands of rioters pillaged and destroyed during the day, and, as soon as night fell, simultaneous conflagrations, starting up in different quarters, spread over the country havoc and dismay. The military force was increased, and a special commission ordered." -Ann. Register, 1830, p. 149.

animal food, and relinquish the tea and sugar, hitherto regarded among the necessaries of life. The condition of the industrious classes in England will sink below that of the same classes on the continent. In what spirit will the calamitous vicissitude be borne? Should there be a total repeal of the corn-laws, agricultural districts will appear under the form of an acute paroxysm, followed by reaction and convalescence; should the corn-laws be retained, chronic constitutional disease, falling on the functions of life, will terminate in hopeless debility and decline."*

Still more startling, if possible, are the descriptions of Dr. Taylor, in his Tour in the Manufacturing Districts. "We entered," he says, "one house (at Bolton) tenanted by a young couple, whom I at first mistook for brother and sister; they were a husband and wife, about six years married, but fortunately without children. On a table of the coarsest wood, but perfectly clean, stood what we were assured was the only meal they had tasted for twenty-four hours, and the only one they had a reasonable prospect of tasting for twentyfour hours to come. It consisted of two small plates of meal porridge, a thin oaten cake, some tea, so diluted that it had scarcely a tinge of color, and a small portion of the coarsest sugar in the fragment of a broken bowl. Their furniture had been sold piecemeal, to supply pressing necessi ties; their clothes had been pawned. They had hoped for better times, but they felt that their condition had been growing worse. The man would have gone to a foreign land, but he would not leave his wife alone to die. My friend asked him whether, under the circumstances, he did not repent his early and imprudent marriage. He paused, looked fondly at his wife, who returned his gaze with a melancholy smile of enduring affection; he dashed the tear aside, and with calm firmness replied, 'Never! We have been happy and have suffered together; she has been the same to me all through." (pp. 41, 42.) At page 83, of the same work, the condition of Colne is described thus: "The misery was fearful, but could not offend the fastidious. The children were in rags, but not in filth. Between two boys, the sons of a widow, only one suit could be mustered. Never shall I forget the agony with which a young widow described to me her parting with a wooden clock, which her late husband had given her the day of her marriage."

*Torrens' Letter to Peel, pp. 28 and 29.

Our limits preclude us from multiplying proofs; but we think it will be conceded that we have adduced sufficient to show that, long before there was any rebellion in this country, there was much more distress in England than there is at present; that specie was quite as scarce in the same country, when there was no war, as it is now in this country; and that, when England has been at war, her expenditure weighed more heavily on her people, in proportion to her wealth and resources, than our expenditure does on ours, for the reason that she has had to spend a large proportion of her money on the Continent, while nearly the whole of ours is spent at home.

We have been sneered at, and declared to be on the verge of bankruptcy, because Congress has thought proper to make a circulating medium, for the time being, of postage stamps as well as treasury bills; but be it remembered that our lowest tender, even now, is one penny, or its equivalent in stamp form; whereas, in 1843, so scarce was change in England that Parliament had to authorize the issue of halffarthings-thus legalizing a coin equal to about one fourth of

a cent.

We have already shown that one of the most certain effects of war is, to drain the country engaged in it of its specie. But, did a similar scarcity occur in times of profound peace, it would be no proof that there was any danger of bankruptcy; nor would it prove that we had lost the confidence of foreign nations. This, too, is demonstrated by English testimony. Thus, the records of the Bank of England, for the great panic year, show that the amount of gold and silver in circulation, June 21, 1845, was £21,315,717. This was found amply sufficient for all the purposes of trade. The demand for specie was so little that the Bank offered its money in vain, at as low a rate of discount as 23 per cent., and at the same time had reserve notes to the amount of £9,837,175. In two months, nearly a million in gold and silver had been added to the circulation, and nearly two millions of notes, so as to diminish the reserve of the latter to £7,959,390. This was virtually an addition to the circulation of three millions; but, instead of money becoming more abundant in proportion, it became comparatively scarce. On the 18th of the following October, nearly three millions more had been added to the circulation, and the increase had scarcely taken place when the great crisis commenced! The

best political economists in Europe were unwilling to believe this, so flatly did it contradict all their theories. They could not understand that gold and silver could be at once plenty and scarce; but now the fact is no longer denied. The financial history of every country in Europe contributes evidence to prove it; and no country will have furnished more conclusive evidence than our own, when the present war is over. Nor is the explanation of the seeming anomaly by any means difficult; it is to be found in the very nature of commercial transactions; for, all other things being equal, money is abundant or scarce, according as the sales exceed the purchases, or vice versa. Thus, for example, it matters not how large an amount of woolen cloths is sold by A to B ; if B sells an equal amount of silks to A, no money has to be paid. But if, for any cause, B can only sell half or one-third as much to A as he has bought, he has to pay the cash for the balance; and of course, if many similar balances have to be paid, the natural result is a scarcity of specie. That war has a depressing effect on business in general, none will dispute. We could not expect to be exempt from the operation of so universal a law. Accordingly, when the present rebellion broke out, commercial transactions diminished; and in proportion as the sales exceeded the purchases, and vice versa, as already shown, money became scarcer, until the relief usual in such cases was given by Congress. In all this there is nothing to excite the apprehension of the most timid; nothing more than has occurred to the most wealthy and ancient nations in the world under similar circumstances; nothing which could not be remedied in one year after the restoration of peace.

ART. V.-1. Hymni Latini mædii ævi, quos collegit JOSEPHUS MONE, notisque illustravit. Wurtzburg.

2. Dies Irae. By ABRAHAM COLES, M. D. New York. 1859. 3. Hymns of the Ages. Boston. 1859.

RELIGIOSITY is the peculiar characteristic of the middle ages. They may aptly be called ages of faith, for religion was then the ruling motive of action throughout Christendom. This is apparent from the history of that period. It was faith which prompted those fearless missionaries to undertake dangerous journeyings by sea and land to chris

tianize the heathen; which incited men to erect those grand cathedrals and massive monasteries which stand like the triumphal arches of Christianity; which urged the restless medieval cavaliers to don their burdensome armor and battle with the Moslemni for Christ's sepulchre. The arts and sciences, and literature too, are then made to subserve the cause of religion. When, by the aid of science, the calendar is rectified, the correction is valued only in connection with the changes introduced into the festive seasons of the church. When the printing press of Faust and Guttenburg is erected at Mentz, the first publication emitted is an edition of the Bible. When painting, sculpture, and architecture awake from the torpor induced by the barbarism succeeding the fall of the Roman Empire, their wondrous powers are at once exerted in the service of the altar. But it is especially in the literature of the middle ages that this religious tendency is most apparent. Tomes interminable are written upon sacred subjects, and no book goes forth to the world without the imprimatur of the ecclesiastical authorities. In the poetry of these ages especially, the religious element prevails to the greatest extent. It was then that Dante's mystic pen described the mysterious realms beyond the tomb, and that Calderon dramatized incidents in the life of our Saviour. They are the days of Christmas carols and miracle plays.

The opposition manifested in the eighteenth century to everything mediæval, is attributable to the inherent antagonism between infidelity and faith. The eighteenth century, permeated as it was with a pantheistic or atheistic spirit, could find little that was admirable in a period so strongly characterized by religiosity as the middle ages; but our own generation, which is not of an infidel tendency, is less loudly denunciative of those aspersed times. In fact, our own epoch has produced the noblest vindication of those ages, and is manifesting most unequivocally its appreciation of them in its art-movements. The return to Gothicism in architecture, and the adoption of pre-Raphaelite models in our schools of painting, are evident proofs that we are at last renouncing the boast of the ignoble Capaneus: Τῷ μή μοι πατέρας ὁμοίη ἔνθεο τιμῇ. "We are better than our sires:" We gain nothing by depreciating the creations of the mediaval mind. If they really possess merit, and that they do we are slowly learning, we should not hesitate to acknowledge it.