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time; but these are not they who can guarantee an author's influence, or secure his popularity. The bulk of the reading public, whether or not on the scent of utility, cannot be interested without a larger share of philosophy, or a graver purpose in fiction, than formerly; and the writer who would effect most for himself and others in this department must take his heroes and heroines from a different class than any which has yet been adequately represented. This difference of character implies, under the hands of a good artist, a difference of scenery and incident; for the incidents of a fiction are worth nothing unless they arise out of the characters; and the scenery, both natural and moral, has no charm unless it be harmonious with both. Instead of tales of knightly love and glory, of chivalrous loyalty, of the ambition of ancient courts, and the bygone superstitions of a half-savage state, we must have, in a new novelist, the graver themes-not the less picturesque, perhaps, for their reality-which the present condition of society suggests. We have had enough of ambitious intrigues; why not now take the magnificent subject, the birth of political principle, whose advent has been heralded so long? What can afford finer moral scenery than the transition state in which society now is? Where are nobler heroes to be found than those who sustain society in the struggle; and what catastrophe so grand as the downfal of bad institutions, and the issues of a process of renovation? Heroism may now be found, not cased in helm and cuirass, but strengthening itself in the cabinet of the statesman, guiding the movements of the unarmed multitude, and patiently bearing up against hardship, in the hope of its peaceful removal. Love may now be truly represented as sanctified by generosity and self-denial in many of the sad majority of cases where its course runs not smooth. All the virtues which have graced fictitious delineations, are still at the service of the novelist; but their exercise and discipline should be represented as different from what they were. The same passions still sway human hearts; but they must be shown to be intensified or repressed by the new impulses which a new state of things affords. Fiction must not be allowed to expire with Scott, or to retain only that languid existence which is manifest merely in imitations of his works: we must hope,-not, alas ! for powers and copiousness like his, but for an enlightened application of his means of achievement to new aims the higher quality of which may in some measure compensate for the inferiority of power and richness which it is only reasonable to anticipate.

It appears, then, from the inquiry we have pursued, that the services for which society has to be eternally grateful to Walter Scott are of three distinct kinds. He has vindicated the character of genius by the healthiness of his own. He has achieved marvels in the province of art, and stupendous benefits in that of morals. He has indicated, by his own achievements, the way to larger and higher achievements.— What a lot for a man,-to be thus a threefold benefactor to his race! to unite in himself the functions of moralist, constructor, and disco verer! What a possession for society to have had! and to retain for purposes of amelioration, incitement and guidance! He can never be lost to us, whatever rival or kindred spirit may be destined to arise, or whether he is to be the last of his class. If the latter supposition should prove true,—which, however, appears to us impossible,—he will stand a fadeless apparition on the structure of his own achievements, distanced, but not impaired by time: if the former, his spirit will mi

grate into his successors, and communicate once more with us through them. In either case, we shall have him with us still.

But, it will be said, the services here attributed to Scott, were, for the most part, rendered unconsciously. True; and why should not the common methods of Providence have place here as in all other instances? Scott did voluntarily all that he could ; and that he was destined to do yet more involuntarily, is so much the greater honour, instead of derogating from his merit. That some of this extra service was of a nature which he might have declined if offered a choice, is only an additional proof that the designs of men are over-ruled, and their weakness not only compensated for by divine direction, but made its instruments. Great things are done by spontaneous human action: yet greater things are done by every man without his concurrence or suspicion; all which tends, not to degrade the character of human effort, but to exemplify the purposes of Providence. Scott is no new instance of this, nor deserves less honour in proportion to his spontaneous efforts than the sages of Greece, or the historians of Rome, and the benefactors of every age, who have been destined to effect more as illustrators than even as teachers and recorders. He was happy and humbly complacent in his creative office: it is so much pure blessing that we can regard him with additional and higher complacency as a vindicator of genius, and an unconscious prophet of its future achievements.

SONNETS TO IONE.

I.

THOU say'st, the earnestness of love like thine,
Man's lighter faith, occasion's sport, exceeds :—
Not well each hasty glance, sweet boaster, reads
The bosom's secrets, pairing line with line.
Oft deepest springs are bare of outward sign,

And fair inscriptions, hid with clinging weeds,
But follow manly love through noble deeds.
See pride his place, see hate her wrath resign;
Watch his fond sacrifice-his guardian care,

With reverence, as for angels, tamed, and blest
His conflict's prize, his balm for toil's unrest ;
The power that bids him suffer, yield, or dare ;
A jewel treasured in the hardest breast:-
Such is man's love,-is mine,-now question, and compare!

II.

How oft my heart, whereon that curled hair

Lay in rich waves, half wandering o'er thy cheek,

Flushed with sweet dreams, now swelled, and now grew weak

With joy and fear, while scarce I could forbear

From desolate tears, to think of love so fair,

Wrack'd by life's bitter winds; when glad and meek,

Thy heaven-blue eyes unclosing, turned to seek

Mine earnest gaze, and finding, rested there,

I kissed thy lips and trembled; for I saw,
E'en that thou art most soft, and needing aid,

As though a breath might wound thee, I have made
This heart a fane, where love and thoughtful awe
Encompass round thy presence, still afraid,

As though, each hour, the guest were fluttering to withdraw!

V

THE CURRENCY JUGGLE.*

ALL friends of "The Movement"-all persons, be they Ministers, Members of Parliament, or public writers, who look for the safety and wellbeing of England, not through the extinction, but through the further progress of the spirit of reform,-commit, in our opinion, an egregious blunder, if they devote themselves chiefly to setting forth what innovations ought not to be made. Once open a door, and mischief may come in as well as go out-who doubts it? But our fears are not on that side; else, like so many others, we should be Conservatives. We are as conservative as anybody of what we deem worth preserving; but we have judged that Improvement, and not Conservation, is the prize to be striven for just now. This being a settled point with us, our conduct shall not vary from it. The tide of improvement having once begun to rise, we know that froth and straws, and levities of all kinds, will be floated in multitudes up the stream. We regard it as nowise our business to watch for their appearance, and break each successive bubble the moment it shews itself on the surface. We leave these to burst of themselves, or to be swept away by the efforts of such as feel themselves called upon by their duty to make that their occupation. Be it ours to find fit work for the new instrument of government; it is enough that our silence testifies against the unfit. No one can suffice for all things; and the time is yet far distant when a Radical Reformer can, without deserting a higher trust, allow himself to assume in the main, the garb and attitude of a Conservative.

There are, however, cases in which the rule of conduct which we have prescribed to ourselves must be departed from; and the serious evil incurred, of a conflict between reformers and reformers, in the face of the common enemy. Purposes may be proclaimed by part of the multitudinous body of professed Radicals, which, for the credit of the common cause, it may be imperative upon their fellow-Radicals to disavow; purposes such as cannot even continue to be publicly broached, (not being, as publicly protested against,) without detriment to public morality. In this light, we look upon all schemes for the confiscation of private property, in any shape, or under any pretext; and upon none more than the gigantic plan of confiscation which at present finds some advocates,—a depreciation of the currency.

In substance, this is merely a round-about (and very inconvenient) method of cutting down all debts to a fraction. Considering it in that light, it is not wonderful that all fraudulent debtors should be its eager partisans; but what recommends it to them, should have been enough to render it odious to all well-meaning, even if puzzle-headed, persons, That men who are not knaves in their private dealings, should understand what the word depreciation means, and yet support it, speaks but ill for the existing state of morality on such matters. It is something new in a civilized country. Several times, indeed, since paper-credit existed, governments, or public bodies, have got into their hands the power of issuing a paper-currency, without the restraint of convertibility, or any limitation in the amount. The most memorable cases are those

* Evidence of Thomas Attwood, Esq. before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the Bank Charter.

NO. X.-VOL. II.

of Law's Mississippi Scheme, the Assignats, and the Bank Restriction in 1797. On these various occasions a depreciation did, in fact, take place ; but the intention was not professed of producing one; nor were its authors in the slightest degree aware that such would be the effect. The important truth, that currency is lowered in value, in proportion as it is augmented in quantity, was known solely to speculative philosophers, to Locke and Hume. The practicals had never heard of it; or if they had, disdained it as visionary theory. Not an idea was entertained that a paper-money, which rested upon good security, which represented, as the phrase was, real wealth, could ever become depreciated by the mere amount of the issues.

But now, this is understood and reckoned upon, and is the very foundation of the scheme. All mankind, Mr. Rothschild excepted, now know, that increasing the issues of inconvertible paper-money lowers its value, and thereby takes from all who have currency in their pos.. session, or who are entitled to receive any fixed sum, an indefinite aliquot part of their property or income; making a present of the amount to the issuers of the currency, and to the persons by whom the fixed sums are payable. This is seen as clearly as daylight; and thereupon do men recoil from the idea? No; they coolly propose that the thing should be done; the novæ tabulæ issued; the transfer to the debtor of the lawful property of the creditor, and to the banker, of part of the property of every man who has money in his purse, deliberately and knowingly accomplished. And this is seriously entertained as a proposition sub judice; quite as fit to be discussed, and as likely, a priori, to be found worthy of adoption as any other.

At the head of the depreciation party are the two Messrs. Attwood, Matthias and Thomas: the first, of the genuine Tory stamp, a nominee of the Duke of Newcastle; his brother, the chairman of the Birmingham Union, one who, as a man of action, willing and able to stand in the breach, the organizer and leader of our late victorious struggle, has deserved well of his country. But the ability required for leading on a congregated multitude to victory, whether in the war of politics or in that of battles, is one thing; the capacity to make laws for the commerce of a great nation, or even to interpret the vulgarest mercantile phenomena, is another. If any one still doubts this truth, we refer him to Mr. Thomas Attwood's evidence before the Bank Committee.

Mr. Attwood has there given vent to speculations on currency, which prove that, on a topic to which he has paid more attention than to any other, he is yet far beneath his recent antagonist, Mr. Cobbett. Mr. Cobbett, in truth, sees as clearly as any one, that to enact that sixpence should hereafter be called a shilling, would be of no use except to the man who owed a shilling before, and is now allowed to pay it with sixpence. And, it being no part of Mr. Cobbett's object to produce any gratuitous evil, he has sense enough to see that it would be absurd, for the sake of operating upon existing contracts, to render all future ones impracticable, except upon the footing of gambling transactions, by making it impossible for a man to divine whether the shilling he undertakes to pay will be worth a penny or pound at the time of payment. Mr. Cobbett, therefore, is for calling a spade a spade, and cancelling, avowedly, a part, or the whole, as it may happen, of all existing debts; permitting the pound sterling to be worth twenty shillings, as before. Future creditors would thus have the benefit of knowing what they bargained for; though they might, indeed, feel a slight doubt whether it would be paid. In this

scheme there is only knavery-no folly; except the folly of expecting that a great act of national knavery should be a national benefit. Mr. Attwood, on the other hand, is for the robbery too; but then it has not so much the character of a robbery in his eyes; for, if it is done in his way of a depreciated paper-money, such a flood of wealth, he fancies, will be disengaged in the process, that the robber and the robbed, the lion and lamb, may lie down lovingly together, and wallow in riches. At the bottom of the fundholder's pocket, Mr. Attwood expects to find the philosopher's stone. As great a man as Mr. Attwood, the King of Brobdingnag, declared it to be his creed, that the man who calls into existence two blades of grass where one grew before, deserves better of his country than the whole tribe of statesmen and warriors. Mr. Attwood has the same exalted opinion of the man who calls two pieces of paper into existence, where only one piece existed before.

But first, we must have a few words respecting the robbery itself: we will dispose, afterwards, of the accompanying juggle.

There is, there has been, but one sophism, which has enabled many well-intentioned men to disguise from their own consciences the real character of the contemplated fraud upon creditors. This sophism, we acknowledge, has some superficial plausibility. More than half (it is argued) of the National Debt, as well as a great multitude of private engagements, were contracted in a depreciated currency; if, therefore, the interest or principal be now paid without abatement, in money of the ancient standard, we are paying to our public and private creditors more than they lent.

To this fallacy there are as many as three or four sufficient refutations, every one standing upon its own independent ground. But the most conclusive and crushing of them all is not unfrequently overlooked, such is the shortness of men's memories, even about the events of their own time. Many who abhor the "equitable adjustment," join in condemning the restoration of the currency in 1819; admit that Peel's Bill plundered all debtors for the benefit of creditors; but contend, that the present fundholders, and other creditors, are, in great part, not the same men who reaped the undue benefit; and that to claim damages from one set of men, because another set have been overpaid, is no reparation, but a repetition, of injustice. This is, indeed, true and irresistible, even though it stood alone-there needs no other argument; yet there is another, and a still more powerful one.

The restoration of the ancient standard, and the payment in the restored currency of the interest of a debt contracted in a depreciated one, was no injustice, but the simple performance of a plighted compact. All debts contracted during the Bank Restriction were contracted under as full an assurance as the faith of a nation could give, that cash payments were only temporarily suspended. At first, the suspension was to last a few weeks, next a few months, then, at furthest, a few years. Nobody dared even to insinuate a proposition, that it should be perpe.. tual, or that, when cash payments were resumed, less than a guinea should be given at the Bank for a pound note and a shilling. And to quiet the doubts and fears which would else have arisen, and which would have rendered it impossible for any minister to raise another loan, except at the most ruinous interest, it was made the law of the land, solemnly sanctioned by Parliament, that, six months after the peace, if not before, cash payments should be resumed. This, therefore, was distinctly one of the conditions of all the loans made during that period.

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