ing to the manner in which it is solved -is still without a complete answer. There are many other topics in Political Economy of great practical interest and importance, on which there is still great diversity of opinion; especially such as relate to taxation, the National Debt, the Sinking Fund, &c. And if a person wishes to satisfy himself on any of these-if he wishes to learn, for instance, on whom taxes ultimately and really fall-out of what fund they are paid what, in fact, is the amount of the burden they inflict-what kind of taxes produce the most in the Exchequer, with the least loss and grievance to individuals: If he wishes to make up his mind on the subject of the National Debt, and to satisfy himself whether it is a piece of unmixed evil, or whether, as some maintain, it is no evil, or an evil mixed with, and productive of good-if he wishes to learn the real nature and operation of a Sinking Fund, and whether, under some circumstances, it may not be disadvantageous to social wealth, he will, indeed, find no want of treatises on these subjects; but if he really wishes to arrive at the truth, and applies himself to the study of these topics, with a mind impartial and able to determine, and, at the same time, not to be convinced, except by numerous relevant and undoubted facts, by clear and close reasoning, and by full and definite definition of terms, uniformly adhered to-he will rise from the study wearied and perplexed, rather than satisfied and convinced. Are there difficulties, obscurities, and contradictions, inherent in Political Economy? Is it a subject so refractory that it will not yield to the power of the human mind-so deep, that no line of intellect can fathom it-so high, that it is beyond the reach of man, whom it concerns, and from whose worldly interests it derives its being? It is natural to ask these questions, after the display which we have given of the various conflicting opinions that are entertained on some of its most fundamental and important topics. In our next Essay, therefore, we shall inquire whether Political Economy may not be reduced to a science, that is, whether it may not be founded on general principles derived from facts, and when thus founded, whether it may not be employed as a practical science, of the highest importance and utility to the social interests of man. POSTHUMOUS LETTERS OF CHARLES EDWARDS, ESQ. No. III. THANKS for your congratulations; and take mine in return, on your having escaped free with life, and, what is more important still, without disfigurement. Really, to see a man, in these times, go through ten years' service untouched-Talavera, Busaco, Salamanca, and Waterloo; besides duels, bye skirmishes, and occasional leaps out of window; might almost make one a believer in "The Special Grace," or the Mussulman doctrine of predestination. Your kind papers met me at Falmouth, where I landed, from a pilotboat, on the 14th, after contending thirty hours with such a gale as the very spirit of larceny might have given itself up for lost in. One whole night we had of it, and best part of two days, with top-masts struck, top-gallant masts rolled away, hatches battened down, dead-lights shut in, boats gone, spars washed off, (except a few that Medhurst, 1816. we lashed across the deck, to avoid being washed off ourselves,) and lower masts groaning, and creaking, and straining, as if well inclined, if the hubbub lasted, to make away after their companions. 66 Never was so frightened before in all my life-which I attribute entirely to my having lately become monied." In the onset of the affair, a trifle of a sea took us; beat in all the quarter boards on our weather side; and carried away six water casks, and four pigs, besides the cook-house, the cook in it, and the binnacle. It was night-dark as pitch, and raining. So black, that the man at the helm could not have seen shore if his bowspritend had run against it. And then, on a sudden, by the flashes of lightning half a minute long--the whole hopeless, interminable prospect of white foaming water opened before you; with the pigs, and the casks, and the hen-coops, each riding off upon a se» parate wave as big as Westminster Abbey. Beggary, time out of mind, has been valiant. He must be brave (perforce) who has no breeches; but the holder of exchequer bills hates instinctively to find himself one moment trespassing upon the moon-flying upwards, to impugn the dog-star, as if out of a swing nine times as high as the gibbet Haman was hanged upon; and, the next, to be sunk down into a cursed bottomless black chasm, with the water, on three sides at least of him, above the pitch of his top-gallant yard, the whole bed of sea, in the ordinary course of fluids coming to their level, being to close fifty feet over his head within the next half second. and desperate 'prentices, into water butts and fish ponds; but no adventurers (at least I don't recollect any) ever jump off London Bridge, where the flood has an angry, threatening appearance. Man, even where he is to be a slave and a fool, finds a satisfaction in being a slave and a fool in his own way. One gentleman conceits to die in battle; another has a fancy to pass in his bed. Many part by corrosive sublimate and laudanum, who would live on if they were bound to use the knife. There are obstacles to the application of the "bare bodkin" more than the high-souled Hamlet could descend to think of; and, for myself, if I were going to be drowned, I confess I should like to meet my fate in quiet water. "Man "and And then, in the midst of the pro- But here I am, my friend, on shore; voking darkness, which hides the ex- every thought of danger (and of watent of your danger, and enables you ter) over; master of myself, ten years to add just two hundred per cent to it, of life and youth, and a hundred thouarises a vast array of multifarious clat- sand pounds of fortune that I never ters, to terrify those who don't know hoped for. Your letter is most weltheir import, and those who do. First, come. For excuses, let them trouble your jeopardy is suggested by the lively neither of us. A lapse of intercourse rattling of the thunder, the pelting of is not necessarily a breach of friendthe rain, and the hoarse roar of the ship; and, if it were, the act that wind in the rigging. Next, you be made the lapse was mine. come interested in the rending and proposes," as somebody says, shivering of sails, the rocking and God disposes ;"-few sublunary resqueaking of yards and masts, the solves can stand against the force of choking and hiccuping of pumps, circumstances. I took my course seven and the frequent crashes of " some- years since at least I think so-not thing gone!"-expecting the next as a man who was without friends, thing that goes" to be yourself. The but like a man who wished to keep lighter accompaniments consisting, them. When the sheet-anchor could chiefly, in a perpetual rush of boiling not hold my vessel, it was as well to water under your bow, and the blow-drive, and keep the kedge on board. ing of a score of grampuses (who are evidently waiting for you) in it; these last performers (doubtless the original tritons) spouting, and committing all kinds of singeries in their hilarity; obviously esteeming it a mistake of Providence that it should not be a tempest always! A man may be as stout as Hercules, and yet not care to be eaten by cetaceous fishes. Did you never observe that the people who bring themselves to subaqueous terminations in and about London, almost always choose to conclude in something like smooth water? Nursery maids take the New River and the Paddington Canal,lovers, the "Serpentine," and the "Bason" in Hyde Park ;-stock-jobbers go to Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars ;-whipped school-boys, Fools "try" their friends, and lose them-pressing on a toy of glass, as though it were a rock of adamant. They forget the very first condition upon which they hold the feeling they are trusting to; void the lease, and yet marvel when the lord enters for breach of covenant. A man must perish-this is an arrangement in nature You before he can be regretted. The tragic poet dares not, for all Parnassus, save his hero in the last scene. are mistaken, and you do me injustice, when you say, that I had no "friend" (at the time you refer to) but yourself. I tell you, that at the very moment when, upon deliberation, I" took service" as a private soldier-an act of which I am more proud than of any I ever performed in my whole life!-at that very moment I had a letter in my should take again. Assistance from "friendship" is always bought dearly, and turns out generally to be good for nothing when you have it. You part, in a sad state of the market, with, perhaps, a good character; and, after the bargain is concluded, find that you have got in payment a bad shilling. hand from a woman-God bless her! She was the widow of an officer whom I had once served, and she suspected my condition-entreating me, in terms which I can never forget, though I will not quote them, to share her means (and they were slight ones) till my embarrassments were over. If friendship could have helped me, Heaven knows! here it was in its most agreeable form. But there is a principle of re-action, among the first ordinances of nature, which makes it impossible to profit by such an offer. It seemed a jewel, the thing that was held out to me; but, had I grasped, it would have turned to ashes in my hand. I was famishing, and cool water stood at my lips; but it would have fled and mocked me, had I sought to taste it. Here lies no failure; for, on the point, there is no power in the will of the proposing individual; the obstacle, which is insurmountable, is a parcel of the very system under which we breathe. The precise qualities which procure a man offers of assistance, are those (nine times in ten) he would sacrifice by accepting it. Few people will give away, even their money, to a crouching coward a dependant-a hanger-on; and yet what else than these can he be who consents to live upon the bounty of another? The romantic generosity of Mrs's character was excited by what she took to be a corresponding principle of chivalry in mine. She would have saved a man, (she guessed from death,) whom certain qualities, which she liked, went to endanger; and forgot to think of the folly which had brought him into peril, in surprise at the unshrinking obduracy with which he stood to meet it. Why, you see, a man's very vanity, in a situation like this, leaves him no choice but to be cut up and devoured. From the moment that I listened to a thought of safety, I ceased to be the hero that the lady took me for. I should have been absolutely an impostor if I had accepted her offer; for, the very instant that I even paused upon it, it became the property of somebody else. You must be burned-there is no help for it-if you wish to be a martyr. You must die (though it is unpleasant) before your name can be emblazoned on your tomb. I desire to wrong no man's feeling; but the course you complain of is the course which I But a truce to past troubles, unless it be to laugh at them-Did I not tell you, even when I was falling-did I not tell you that I should rise again? It is but yesterday that I stood in the world alone, without rank, reckoning, or respect; that I was a nameless creature, without rights, without possessions, without even personal liberty; and to day, I, the same "Charles Edwards"-helped by no man-thanking none-I breathe my horse on ground that is mine own, and am a "lord" and a gentleman of worship! I went forth as a sold and purchased slave; and, Mameluke like, I have returned as a chief and a conqueror. Charles Edwards-(" rogue Wellborn !")→ "Lord" of the manor of Medhurst! and the "lance-prisade" hath two bankers;-the "rough-rider" knows when it shall be "quarter day!" Yesterday my estate was an empty stomach, and Chelsea was my inheri tance! and to-day, there is a gentleman who cannot stand straight in my presence, shews the rent-roll of my "landed property;" and talks of "rents," 66 farms," "feoffiments," fisheries," " waifs," "strays," and "commonable rights!" 66 Come to me, if possible, for I am full of business; and my head might be in a better condition for transacting it. People who inherit fortunes from their fathers, never guess even at the real advantages of wealth. You never got a true feeling of the deliciousness of having money-no, not even from seeing half your acquaintances go without it. But, for me! I am just bursting as from darkness into the broad blaze of sunshine-from bondage into freedom uncontrolledfrom childish helplessness, into the strength and power of a giant! My quarrel always with life was, that a man could not work his way into a house in Grosvenor Square, until a narrower house might serve his desires, and be more than sufficient for his necessities. There was no path by which a man could make a fortune to himself, and sit down to dissipate it in profusion, even at thirty. I had a thought once of going to the bar-I scarcely know how or why. But, when I peeped into a court of law, and saw the bare results of years of puzzlement!-the "damned Hebrew, or parchment as thick as a board," what was the net product of eyes pored out, and brains distracted! and the Chancellor himself, the enfant guté of forensic fortune,-suffering arguments, and reconciling absurdities, for eight or ten hours every day-even if he got off for that! I found myself, (with the power of locomotion, and two shirts,) incomparably the richer man of the two! His lordship had the peerage; but I could walk "i' the sweet air." He held the seat of honour; but I was at liberty to "depart the court." Like the Frenchman in Montaigne's tale, who had his choice to be hanged or married, I cried, "Drive on the cart!"-it was cheaper to starve than (on such terms) to earn the money! But now-when I have the money, Robert-and have it-as only it becomes worth having-without the earning !-when I have it honourably too, and conscientiously-in my own undoubted right! no kidnapped prodigy of ninety to break in upon my graceful leisure, with fables of cajolement, plunder, and desertion! no heiress wife, even though young and beautiful, made bold by an unreasonable settlement, to hint that my extravagancies, or infidelities, are committed, in all senses, at her cost! -the luxury-the splendour-the free agency-that all my life I have been thirsting for, are mine! Not a wild scheme that I have dreamed of but takes a "local habitation," and a shew of accomplishment! Not a light wish but now seems feasible, fittingonly unpossessed, because I may possess it when I will. How many a woman have I adored-and fled from -lest I might make her estate as desperate as my own! How many a man, whom I could have trampled, have I suffered to insult over me, when those I loved might have been injured by my triumph! I was prudent, and forbearing, and humble, where the tempers of some would have given way. I was modest, and shunned collision, where I felt myself the weaker vessel. I did not care even to be fought with, where the contest would have been felt a matter of hardship by my anta gonist. I "abode my time" in suffering and in silence-but that time is come at last! and what I owe in the world, both of good and ill, please Heaven! shall now be paid to the utmost farthing. If it was sport while the poor bear was chained, the scene may change now he has broke free. I have never complained of the abuse of strength by others, let none complain of its reasonable exercise by me. I will ask no account for what has been done in the past, but the right shall be mine to do now for the future. I will seek for no combat with any man alive; but it shall go hard, if, with some, I have not the benefit of a victory. And this seems very heroical, all of it, and very foolish, when I meant to be in the best humour in the world? But the fact is, I have had a touch or two of the piquant here-my recollection just a little stirred up-since my arrival. I came to England, prepared to be pleased at all points. Home shews delightfully, to the imagination at least, after six years' absence. And then there was the white bread in the hotels of Falmouth, and its blue-eyed Saxon beauties-and the incomparable fresh butter-and the cream!-I felt my heart cleave to my country the moment I sat down to breakfast. So I saddled at once, finding my cavalry sain et sauf, (which I had shipped from Figuera a week before me,) and rode at a round rate through Cornwall, Devonshire, and Somerset, purposing, as greatness" was "thrust upon me," to lose no time in taking possession of it; but, when I got to Bath, an idea struck me-it was for the first time-that Sir Walter Beauvoir-(my grandfather's executor)—that it might not be pleasant, under all" existing circumstances," for me to have to introduce myself to the worthy Baronet. We had not been always strangers, in times past, the Beauvoir family, and your very devoted servant; and there had been a cessation of usual attention to him, at a certain time when perhaps he was not acting so cautiously as he might have done. Whether I distrusted my own merits, or their 66 friendship, I wrote a formal letter of announcement, covered all over with family arms and black wax, and sent it forward by a courier, addressed to Sir Walter; which done, I again put on, with as much speed as I could muster, wishing to get a peep, if possible, at my property, without being recognized as the owner of it. I got to Medhurst before my messenger; but found myself already cried at the very Market-cross! I had been hatching devices all the way, to know what people thought about me. I might have spared myself the pains. Most of my grandfather's tenants held beneficial leases; and their "prophetic souls" were on the qui vive. My "listing for a horse soldier," and 66 Igoing off with the Major's lady"the whole history was afield, with additions, alterations, and exaggerations. I sent for a hair-dresser, and had it all (without asking) in five minutes. My father's unreasonable postponement gave some offence; my most to-be-lamented succession still more. I was to make a seraglio of the manor-house in a fortnight; and to get rid of the last acre in a year. Next day, I sent my own servant to Beauvoir, with a note, setting forth my arrival, and requesting an interview. Signor José wore his foreign livery, and red Montero cap; and departed, upon a very curious Spanish horse, that I have brought over with me, with half the population of Medhurst at his heels. In truth, the horse-you shall see him when we meet-was a monture fit for Murat in person! No whipped and curbedup restive English jade, that you thrust spurs into, and, when he flinches, call it spirit; but a beast that will eat of his master's bread, and drink of his cup; never felt a spur in all his life, and knows switches and halters only by report. On my affirmation !—— (my attorney shall make affidavit of it) he is the very steed-the real Rabican-sung of by Ariosto-who cheats the sand of his shadow, and on the snow leaves no mark of his foot step! Who was begotten of the flame, and of the wind! Who might pace dry-shod upon the sea; make his trottoir of a zephyr; and for speed!-I forget the rest of the poetry; but I know I bought the animal when he was a colt, and have pampered him ever since, till he is as fleet as a roebuck, and as fierce, in any hands but my own, as a three-days-taken tiger. And noon brought this inestimable quadruped back, with an answer to my letter, and with so many clowns VOL. XVI. in admiration of his curvetting, that I was fain to command the locking of his stable door. Sir Walter's communication was less offensive than I had expected; but my mind was made up as to how I should proceed. Fight always at once, if possible, where you desire to be quiet you are sure of peace, after men know that there is nothing to be got by going to war with you. These Beauvoirs are of your gens de coterie→ your people of the "real caste" and "tone"(that is, your people who, singly, would be hunted down as owls and bedlamites; but who, as a "set," have managed to make their jointstock impudence imposing.) I suspected the reception that I should meet from them; and I waited upon good Sir Walter without my scabbard. There is a recipe in some old book"How to avoid being tossed by a mad bull." And the instruction given is"Toss him!" Try the experiment upon the first coxcomb who fancies that you are his inferior ;-charge first, and give him to understand roundly that you fancy he is yours. Be coldly supercilious with all" important caitiffs, and most punctual be your attention to the matter in debate ; but let no temptation prevail with you to touch on any earthly point beyond it. In business all men are equal. The casting of an account knows no distinction of persons. But remember, that he (whoever he is) stands a bab bler, convict, who utters one word except to state the sum total of it. Get an observation about the weather, you reply with some- "Thirteen and ninepence!" and your interlocutor is dead. A syllable de trop will enable you to decline "general communication," where no approach to such a state was ever intended. Poor Sir Walter came down, loaded to the very muzzle, to repress 66 familiarity" on my part; but I found him guilty of "famili arity" himself, and made him bear the penalty of it, before six sentences had been exchanged between us. "The late gales"-there was no "Happy to see me at Beauvoir!""The late gales had rendered my passage from the continent difficult?" "It had not been pleasant."-This came after we were seated; and after a salutation such as might pass between the automaton chess-player and the ghost in Don Juan. G |