literated from the tablets of recorded error, and that men should be taught to know, that without undivided and vigorous application, nothing is great, nothing is strong; that men of genius have no other way of acquiring knowledge than by that of attention and observation, and that without labour and diligence, without directing all the efforts and all the exertions of intellect to one great point, the brightest abilities spend their fires to no purpose, and the most exalted understandings shine only as momentary meteors, whose feeble and divergescent rays shed a faint and a fleeting gleam, and are then for ever shrouded in the thickest night, and involved in the most im penetrable darkness.'

We shall subjoin to this extract Mr. B.'s comment on History, as it is and as it ought to be written, not because it is new, but because it exhibits a trait of the benevolence of his mind.

It were much to be wished, that history could be somewhat diverted from her present course into her proper channel, namely, the consideration of the manners and condition of the great mass of the people at different periods of time; marking out the causes which have retarded or accelerated the progressive march of the human intellect towards a higher degree of perfection; and dwelling more slightly upon the atrocities of those who "wade through slaughter to a throne, and shut the gates of mercy on mankind," who "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war," whose steps are traced in the blood of myriads of their fellow creatures, and whose progress is marked only by the desolation of the fairest provinces of the earth. These horrible transactions, which are a libel on the understanding and the virtue of mankind, should be passed over rapidly, and with expressions of abhorrence; while our chief attention should be directed by the historian to those means by which the knowledge, the happiness, and the virtues of mankind, have been augmented and advanced.

But is this the line of condnet which historians pursue? No. They are continually endeavouring to instil into our minds an admiration and envy of the honour and the glory of warlike nations; that is, in other words, the butchery and murder of mighty empires. Read the histories of Greece, of Rome, of France, of England, and you will read little else but one continued series of bloodshed and of murder. And these are celebrated by their historians as splendid, brilliant, powerful nations; but where does the phrase happy nation occur in the records of these sages of literature? Happiness dwelleth only in the tents of peace and of virtue: she is frightened from those spots where the sounding of the clarion to battle, and the trampling of armed hoofs is heard, where the blood-red banner of military de solation is seen to float upon the wings of the wind.

'Where are the historians who have been influenced by this hallowed and sacred truth? Have not all been chiefly intenton describing battles, and victories, and armies, and triumphs; rather seeking to affix the names of great and gloricus, than of just and good, to kingdoms and to empires? Have they not bequeathed to posterity a mass of gorgeous misery, and insustriously varnished over the evils and the horrors

of

of sanguinary and tumultuous revolutions? Have they not hidden the deformity of vice from our eyes, by throwing over it the splendid veil of genius?"

On the topics of mathematics and philosophy, Mr. B. fometimes goes out of his depth. At p. 206, he says:

Perhaps one of the greatest errors into which mankind have fallen, is the application of the mere mathematical method of reasoning to physics; from which must inevitably result a partial conclusion from partial premises: as if a man should reason thus :-animals have ears -but a fish is an animal, therefore fishes hear: he would be miserably mistaken in his mode of argumentation, because he totally disregards the difference of the mediums in which land animals and fishes live, their different structures, and the different purposes which they were intended to serve in the economy of nature.'

What is here meant by a mathematical method of reasoning, it is difficult to conceive. The argument is logical, but it is bad logic, and the conclusion which Mr. B. would resist is philosophically correct. If fish possess any parts analogous to our organs of hearing, and they live in a medium capable of vibrations, similar to the air with which we are surrounded, it is very natural to believe that fish enjoy the faculty of hearing.

These pages are besprinkled with poetic extracts; and Beattie's Minstrel in particular is laid under heavy contribution. The whole, we are informed, was written between the hours of twelve at midnight and two in the morning, after toilsome days spent in a special-pleader's office, with a frame enfeebled by disease, and with a heart saddened and depressed. Indeed, Mr. B. gives so affecting a picture of himself, that it is impossible not to pity him. By the deepest contrition, he amply atones for the sweeping satire and personal sarcasm which he indulged in a former publication, called the Adviser; (see Rev.Vol. xliii. N.S. p. 334) of which work a friend of Mr. B. was reported to be the author, but to which, it afterward appeared, he was only a partial contributor; Mr. Bristed being in fact the writer of it.

ART. X. The Reports of the Society for bettering the Condition and increasing the Comforts of the Poor. XXIV. 8vo. 18. each Number.

Vol. IV. or Nos. XIX Hatchard, Becket, &c.

MANKIND, considered in the aggregate, are the crea

tures of the civil and religious institutions under which Providence has given them birth; and their sentiments and habits are moulded by the faith, laws, and usages of their

For our account of Vol. III. see M. R. Vol. xlv. N. S. p. 422. country.

country. Hence arises the difference observable between people of different nations, and hence we may account for their traits of moral character. Exceptions may be made to all general rules: but causes, which universally operate on the great mass of the people, as regularly produce their effects as any cause in the physical world. If, therefore, the institutions of society possess any radical defects, and the general system pervading any of its departments be faulty, the efforts of individuals to resist it can be merely local and temporary. The force with which the system acts is steady and constant on every part of the vast machine; while the individual opposing force acts only as a solitary impulse, or at most as detached impulses, and not on the spring or master-wheel, but on the remote and subordinate parts of the machinery. Whenever, consequently, private persons form themselves into societies. and endeavour either to stem the torrent of national vice or to remove the causes of national misery, it is always found that the good which they accomplish is very circumscribed, and that the momentum of evil ultimately overpowers the enthusiasm of the virtuous. On this ground, much as we applaud the Society for bettering the Condition and increasing the Comforts of the Poor, and willing as we are to afford them our assistance in their benevolent occupations, we cannot foster any sanguine expectation that the general condition of the Poor will be bettered by their limited exertions. To a certain extent, and indeed, in some places, good will be effected; and to the Christian this thought will be a source of pleasing re'flection, while he may despair of mending the world, or of driving poverty and vice out of it.

In an introductory letter to this volume, addressed to Mr. Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), Mr. Bernard proposes to benefit the Poor, by the prevention of vice and contagion, by the promotion of virtue and industry, and by the diffusion of moral and religious education. Under the first of these heads, he notices the pernicious effects which the general sale of ardent spirits, annual lotteries, and the unmeasured and unregulated extension of manufactures, have on the morals and condition of the Poor: but, while the laws encourage these pests, and the government derives a profit from ardent spirits and lotteries, the established evil will continue to operate generally, though an individual may succeed in preventing the sale of ardent spirits in a country village over which his power extends. A clergyman, by uncommon assiduity, may reform the poor of his parish, and render their condition comfortable: but if the Law does not favor the poor, the general scale of their orality and happiness will be low.' A lottery not only lega

8+

lizes

lizes gaming, but offers a temptation which the poorer classes cannot resist; and while this expedient for raising money is adopted by the state, no measure of this Society can prevent the sad effects which Mr. Bernard enumerates.

An entire remedy for the evils resulting from Mendicity, we are told, cannot obtain till some liberal and enlightened plan of police be adopted; and we may say of other moral maladies affecting the poor, that for the general cure we must look to a system of well digested and well executed laws.

These remarks are not made to undervalue or to abate the labours of this Society, but to explain the cause of its partial success; to direct the attention of the Legislature to the same object; and to urge Mr. Bernard to point his arguments, not in a complimentary style to the ministry, but directly and fully to that body in the State, whose duty it is to revise those parts of our code which respect the Poor, and to consider how far it is right to sacrifice the morals of the multitude on the altar of Finance.

We perfectly coincide with Mr. B. in his statement of the effects of a little property on the poor. "It communicates a charm (as Dr. Paley remarks) to whatever is the object of it;" and the cottage, the garden, the cow, or the pig, are more essential in promoting industry, prudence, and stability of conduct, than many persons in the present day are inclined to believe. All these plans, institutions, and charities, which foster habits of neatness and regularity among the poor, and which assist them, without taking the care of themselves off.. their own hands, are most likely to produce good.

Mr. B. concludes his introductory letter with some pertinent remarks on the subject of Education, which it is unnecessary for us to detail.

Report 19. (the first No. of Vol. iv.) contains Extracts from accounts of a Free Chapel in West-street Seven Dials; of a Charity for Lying-in Wonien at Ware; and of the Cotton Mills at Rothsay in the Isle of Bute; in which it is said that attention is paid to health and morals: but, as the time of working is from 6 in the morning to 7 in the evening, the interest of the proprietors is more consulted than the health of the working children, which must suffer by such a continuance of labour in heated apartments. To this account is added a report of a select Committee of the Society, on some observations on the late Act respecting Cotton Mills, and on the result of Mr. Hey's visit to a cotton mill at Burley; with a subjoined copy of the abovementioned observations, and the resolutions of the magistrates of the county o Lancaster and of the West Riding of the county of York of

thn

the subject. Here we read of proprietors with princely fortunes,' and of poor night-working apprentices, who labour from seven in the evening to six in the morning on which the Reporters thus very spiritedly comment. If (say they) we were to read in the history of some part of Asia, or Africa, an account of children who, from seven to twelve years, or from eight to thirteen years of age, were doomed to unceasing labour every night, without the glad and natural return of day, without a few minutes of respite for their meals,and, (in the winter half years at least) without even an half hour for that relaxation which is the comfort of mature age, but the essential possession of the young, should we not shudder at the perusal? Should we give very willing credit to any detail that was subjoined of the health and happiness of these children? And if (to pursue the consideration) the government of that country should have prepared for the progressive emancipation of these children, at the end of two years, what language should we hoid as to those, who would unite to prevent their receiving the benefit of so just and politic a law?'

To sacrifice the rising generation of the poor, in order to gratify the avarice of manufacturers with princely fortunes, or for considerations of revenue, is in the highest degree unwise as well as unfeeling; and we warmly applaud the magistrates of Lancaster and of the West Riding of the county of York, in refusing to allow the apprenticing of poor children to the masters of Cotton Mills, by whom apprentices are obliged to work in the night time, or for an unreasonable number of hours in the day. It will be some relief to the humane to find, by this report, that many Cotton-mills are now worked in conformity to the principles of the late act. For the sake of the poor, and indeed of the country at large, we hope that the act will be universally enforced.

The next paper presents an account of the dreadful effects of dram-drinking, with directions for those who are desirous of returning to sobriety and health.' Dr. Willan, the author of this essay, asserts that considerably more than one eighth of all the deaths in the metropolis are occasioned through excess in drinking spirits. Ought, then, Gin-shops to be licensed? Bishops may preach, and Societies for the Suppression of Vice may be instituted: but, while the retailers of ardent spirits are upheld by law, can there be any hope of extensive reformation, especially in a crouded capital?

No. 20 gives details of a supply of blankets for the poor at Hinxton (a charitable measure, wisely conducted,)—of a SoREV. JAN. 1807.

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ciety