tling the metres of a few Greek Choruses;-a fourth in decyphering illegible romances, or old grants of farms;—a fifth in picking rotten bones out of the earth;-a sixth in describing all the old walls and hillocks in his parish ;—and five hundred others in occupations equally liberal and important: each of them being, for the most part, profoundly ignorant of every thing out of his own narrow department, and very generally and deservedly despised by his competitors for the favour of that public which despises and supports them all.

Such, however, it appears to us, is the state of mind that is naturally produced by the great accumulation and general diffusion of various sorts of knowledge. Men learn, instead of reasoning. Instead of meditating, they remember; and, in place of the glow of inventive genius, or the warmth of a generous admiration, nothing is to be met with, in society, but timidity on the one hand, and fastidiousness on the other-a paltry accuracy, and a more paltry derision-a sensibility to small faults, and an incapacity of great merits-a disposition to exaggerate the value of knowledge that is not to be used, and to underrate the importance of powers which have ceased to exist. If these, however, are the consequences of accumulated and diffused knowledge, it may well be questioned whether the human intellect will gain in point of dignity and energy by the only certain acquisitions to which we are entitled to look forward. For our own part, we will confess we have no such expectations. There will be improvements, we make no doubt, in all the mechanical and domestic arts;-better methods of working metal, and preparing cloth;--more commodious vehicles, and more efficient implements of war. Geography will be made more complete, and astronomy more precise ;-natural history will be enlarged and digested; and perhaps some little improvement suggested in the forms of administering law. But as to any general enlargement of the understanding, or more prevailing vigour of judgment, we will own, that the tendency seems to be all the other way; and that we think strong sense, and extended views of human affairs, are more likely to be found, and to be listened to at this moment, than two or three hundred years hereafter. The truth is, we suspect, that the vast and enduring products of the virgin soil can no longer be reared in that factitious mould to which cultivation has since given existence; and that its forced and deciduous progeny will go on degenerating, till some new deluge shall restore the vigour of the glebe by a temporary destruction of all its generations.

Hitherto we have spoken only of the higher and more instructed classes of society,--to whom it is reasonable to suppose

that the perfection of wisdom and happiness will come first, in their progress through the whole race of men; and we have seen what reason there is to doubt of their near approach. The lower orders however, we think, have still less good fortune to reckon on. In the whole history of the species, there has been nothing at all comparable to the improvement of England within the last century; never anywhere was there such an increase of wealth and luxury-so many admirable inventions in the arts--so-many works of learning and ingenuity-such a progress in cultivation -such an enlargement of commerce:-and yet, in that century, the number of paupers in England has increased fourfold, and is now rated at one-tenth of her whole population; and, notwithstanding the enormous sums that are levied and given privately for their relief, and the multitudes that are drained off by the waste of war, the peace of the country is perpetually threatened by the outrages of famishing multitudes. This fact of itself is decisive, we think, as to the effect of general refinement and intelligence on the condition of the lower orders; but it is not difficult to trace the steps of its operation. Increasing refinement and ingenuity lead naturally to the establishment of manufactures; and not only enable society to spare a great proportion of its agricultural labourers for this purpose, but actually encourage the breeding of an additional population, to be maintained out of the profits of this new occupation. For a time, too, this answers; and the artisan shares in the conveniences to which his labours have contributed to give birth: But it is in the very nature of the manufacturing system, to be liable to great fluctuation, occasional check, and possible destruction; and at all events, it has a tendency to produce a greater population than it can permanently support in comfort or prosperity. The average rate of wages, for the last forty years, has been insufficient to maintain a labourer with a tolerably large family;-and yet such have been the occasional fluctuations, and such the sanguine calculations of persons incapable of taking a comprehensive view of the whole, that the manufacturing population has been prodigiously increased in the same period. It is the interest of the manufacturer to keep this population in excess, as the only sure means of keeping wages low; and wherever the means of subsistence are uncertain, and liable to variation, it seems to be the general law of our nature, that the population should be adapted to the highest, and not to the average rate of supply. In India, where a dry season used to produce a failure of the crop, once in every ten or twelve years, the population was always up to the measure of the greatest abundance; and in manufacturing countries, the miscalculation is still more sanguine and erroneous.

Such countries, therefore, are always overpeopled; and it seems to be the necessary effect of increasing talent and refinement, -to convert all countries into this denomination. China, the -oldest manufacturing nation in the world, and by far the greatest that ever existed with the use of little machinery, has always suffered from a redundant population, and has always kept the largest part of its inhabitants in a state of the greatest .poverty.

When

The effect then which is produced on the lower orders of society, by that increase of industry and refinement, and that multiplication of conveniences which are commonly looked upon as the surest tests of increasing prosperity, is to convert the peasants into manufacturers, and the manufacturers into paupers; while the chance of their ever emerging from this condition becomes constantly less, the more complete and mature the system is which had originally produced it. -manufactures are long established, and thoroughly understood, it will always be found, that persons possessed of a large capital, can carry them on upon lower profits than persons of any other description; and the natural tendency of this system, therefore, is to throw the whole business into the hands of great capitalists; and thus not only to render it next to impossible for a common workman to advance himself into the condition of a master, but to drive from the competition the greater part of those moderate dealers, by whose prosperity alone the general happiness of the nation can be promoted. The state of the operative manufacturers, therefore, seems every day more hopelessly stationary; and that great body of the people, it appears to us, is likely to grow into a fixed and degraded caste, out of which no person can hope to escape, who has once been enrolled among its members. They cannot look up to the rank of master manufacturers; because, without capital, it will every day be more impossible to engage in that occupation,and back they cannot go to the labours of agriculture, because there is no demand for their services. The improved system of farming, furnishes an increased produce with many fewer hands than were fermerly employed in procuring a nuch smaller return; and besides all this, the lower population has actually increased to a far greater amount than ever was at any time employed in the cultivation of the ground.

To remedy all these evils, which are likely, as we conceive, to be aggravated, rather than relioved, by the general progress of refinement and intelligence, we have little to look to but the beneficial effects of this increasing intelligence upon the lower orders themselves;--and we are far from undervaluing this influence.

By the universal adoption of a good system of education, habits of foresight and self-control, and rigid economy, may in time no doubt be pretty generally introduced, instead of the improvidence and profligacy which too commonly characterize the larger assemblages of our manufacturing population; and if these lead, as they are likely to do, to the general institution of Friendly Societies among the workmen, a great palliative will have been provided for the disadvantages of a situation, which must always be considered as one of the least fortunate which Providence has assigned to any of the human race.

There is no end, however, we find, to these speculations; and we must here close our remarks on Perfectibility, without touching upon the political changes which are likely to be produced by a long course of progressive refinements and scientific improvement-though we are afraid that an enlightened anticipation would not be much more cheering in this view, than in any of those we have hitherto considered. Luxury and refinement have a tendency undoubtedly to make men sensual and selfish; and, in that state, increased talent and intelligence is apt only to render them more mercenary and servile. Among the prejudices which this kind of philosophy roots out, that of patriotism is among the first to be surmounted;-and then, a dangerous opposition to power, and a sacrifice of interest to affection, speedily come to be considered as romantic. Arts are discovered to palliate the encroachments of arbitrary power; and a luxurious, patronizing, and vicious monarchy is firmly established amidst the adulations of a corrupt nation. We proceed now to Mad. de Staël's History of Literature.

Not knowing any thing of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, she takes the Greeks for the first inventors of literature, and explains many of their peculiarities by that supposition. The first development of talent, she says, is in poetry; and the first poetry consists in the rapturous description of striking objects in nature, or of the actions and exploits that are then thought of the greatest importance. There is little reflection-no nice development of feeling or character-and no sustained strain of tenderness or moral emotion in this primitive poetry; which charms almost entirely by the freshness aud brilliancy of its colouring-the spirit and naturalness of its representations-and the air of freedom and facility with which every thing is executed. This was the age of Homer. After that, though at a long interval, came the of Pericles:-When human nature was a little more studied and regarded, and poetry received accordingly a certain cast of thoughtfulness, and an air of labour→

age

eloquence began to be artful, and the rights and duties of men to be subjects of investigation. This, therefore, was the era of the tragedians, the orators, and the first ethical philosophers. Last came the age of Alexander, when science had superseded fancy, and all the talent of the country was turned to the pursuits of philosophy. This, Mad. de Staël thinks, is the natural progress of literature in all countries; and that of the Greeks is only distinguished by their having been the first that pursued it, and by the peculiarities of their mythology, and their political relations.

It is not quite clear indeed that they were the first; but Mad. de Staël is very eloquent upon that supposition.

Les anciens étoient animés par une imagination enthousiaste, dont la méditation n'avoit point analysé les impressions. Ils prenoient possession de la terre non encore parcourue, non encore décrite; étonnés de chaque jouissance, de chaque production de la nature, ils y plaçoient un dieu pour l'honorer, pour en assurer la durée. Ils écrivoient sans autre modèle que les objets mêmes qu'ils retraçoient; aucune littérature antécédente ne leur servoit de guide; l'exaltation poétique s'ignorant elle-même, a par cela seul un degré de force et de candeur que l'étude ne peut atteindre, c'est le charme du premier amour; dès qu'il existe une autre littérature, les écrivains ne peuvent méconnoître en eux-mêmes les sentimens que d'autres ont exprimés; ils ne sont plus étonnés par rien de ce qu'ils éprouvent; ils se savent en délire; ils se jugent enthousiastes; ils ne peuvent plus croire à une inspiration surnaturelle.' p. 71.

The state of society too, in these early times, was such as to impress very strongly on the mind those objects and occurrences which formed the first materials of poetry. The intercourse with distant countries being difficult and dangerous, the legends of the traveller were naturally invested with more than the modern allowance of the marvellous. The smallness of the civilized states connected every individual with its leaders, and made him personally a debtor for the protection which their prowess afforded from the robbers and wild beasts which then infested the unsubdued earth. Gratitude and terror, therefore, combined to excite the spirit of enthusiasm; and the same ignorance which imputed to the direct agency of the gods, the more rare and dreadful phenomena of nature, gave a character of supernatural greatness to the reported exploits of their heroes. Philosophy, which has led to the exact investigation of causes, has robbed the world of much of its sublimity; and by preventing us from believing much, and from wondering at any thing, has taken away half our enthusiasm, and more than half our admiration.

The purity of taste which characterizes the very earliest poetry of the Greeks, seems to us more difficult to be accounted for.