that the moral character of Spain is superior to that of France or England? Every one acquainted with the three countries knows the contrary. It would be just as erroneous, and for similar reasons, to infer that the English character has deteriorated in consequence of the increase of metropolitan and manufacturing wealth, with its contemporary adjunct of augmented delinquency. The truth is, that both virtues and crimes increase with riches, the former, we conceive in a faster ratio than the latter; unfortunately, we have no statistical return of good actions, and in our strictures on human conduct, whether private or public, we are always prone to dwell with singular pertinacity on the dark rather than on the lighter traits of humanity.

The increase of PAUPERISM offers another social anomaly not less perplexing than the increase of crime. With more wealth there is more want; with more work there is more destitution, a greater number of forced idlers. How can these phenomena be explained? There are probably more paupers now than there were people at the time of the Norman conquest. At no former period was the proportion of the absolutely indigent so enormous; and the indigence is the more deplorable, because it is not for the most part selfcreated, but unavoidable and compulsory. Men would work if they could find employers. They are not too proud to ask a fellow-creature for leave to toil, but they cannot find masters. This is an entirely new condition of society, and a malady with which it was never before permanently afflicted. The difficulties of past times mainly consisted in reluctant industry, not in scarcity of employment. It was to grapple with this evil that the past efforts of the Legislature were mainly directed. This was the chief object of the Poor Law of Queen Elizabeth, and of the enactments of her immediate predecessors. They were mainly directed to coerce the idle into industrious habits, and repress that tendency to dissoluteness and vagrancy which resulted from the dissolution of the religious houses, and the transition from slave to free labour, consequent on the decline of villanage. There was then work enough, as there is now for the emancipated negroes of the West Indies, but the people sought to live without labour. The times, however, have changed. People do not lack industry, but occupation; and the novel spectacle now presents itself, which was unknown to Lord Burleigh and his contemporaries, that of an able-bodied man, competent and willing to work, but unable to find employment.

This, then, is another of the embarrassing problems of our age-an excess of useful industry. Is it the consequence of

greater civilisation-of greater advances in opulence and science? Because men are more industrious, are they to be punished by greater poverty? Such anomalies can hardly be lasting. Increased civilization cannot be the cause; it cannot be that because men are more enlightened they must be more necessitous-rather, because they possess an enlightenment whose conditions are imperfectly understood, and whose accompanying and alloying evils require to be counteracted by a more sound and diffusive intelligence.

The great revolutions society has undergone, in both its materiel and moral relations, have been so rapid and recent, that those whose attention has been fixed upon them have scarcely had time to comprehend and analyze their results. One source of increased destitution may undoubtedly be found in the sudden and preponderating augmentation of the urban population. That towns are more liable to distress than the country, is a fact long recognised; and why it is so, is readily accounted for from the fluctuations of trade, the seductions to more improvident habits, and the entire privation of individual means in periods of stagnation. The rustic is seldom so wholly destitute as the operative. Every season brings at least some employment to him; but a commercial and manufacturing slackness may continue for years. In husbandry the labourer is seldom without some resource, either in his garden, his pig, his poultry, or perhaps some neighbouring game preserve. But upon what can an artizan retreat, in case of a reverse of fortune, provided he has made no provision himself, by economy and forethought? Cribbed up in his garret or cellar, he has no refuge, save the workhouse; and from that he may be excluded, either by selfrespect or the austerities of its discipline.

But it does not follow that country people have no evilsno maladies to grapple with. Rural employment is not exempt from fluctuations, varying with the season of the year, or with the progressive or declining state of agriculture. But it is less subject to great and rapid vicissitudes than commercial and manufacturing industry. In the latter is a greater expansive power than in the former; it is capable of more sudden development or contraction. A fortunate discovery in mechanics may at once quadruple productive power; or a manufacturer, when he finds it expedient from the decline, of trade, may at once dismiss his workmen, and stop the working of his mills and factories. A farmer has not equal power in husbandry. New lands cannot be suddenly reclaimed or abandoned; neither can capital, laid out in the improved culture of old lands, be hastily withdrawn. It

follows, that the demand for labour increases or diminishes more gradually in agriculture than in manufactures. Add to which, the products of the former chiefly belong to the class of necessaries of the latter to luxuries, the consumption of which may be dispensed with, or varies with the changing circumstances of the buyer, or the vicissitudes of taste and fashion.

It is not, however, these ordinary and well-known causes of fluctuation that call for special attention, but the more novel and recent manifestations of our civilization. Of these, one of the most remarkable appears to be the increasing isolation of those who depend on labour, whether in agriculture or manufactures. The castes of the East are hardly more defined and rigorously maintained than that of classes in England. Relationship, sympathy, or community of interest, has almost ceased to be recognised between employers and the employed. The same house, the same school, church, or vicinage, was wont to comprise both; but now neither the common ties of household, education, religion, nor neighbourhood, bind them. All are severed, single, and self-dependent. This is an unfortunate transition: it is unfortunate, because of the identity of interest and welfare between them there can be no doubt. It is, too, one of the causes of increased pauperism. Workpeople, both skilled and unskilled, are placed in a position of independence for which they have not been trained or instructed; they are liable to vicissitudes and distresses for which they have neither masters, teachers, guides, nor pastors to instruct them in the causes, alleviative or preventive.

One source of this social isolation may be found in the decline or repudiation of former standards of authority and guidance. The chain of subordination which held together the different links of society has been severed, and high and low, better and worse, are now hardly admissible terms. All men now assume to be equal, and any superiority is grudgingly admitted. But the past offered a different arrangement. Certain classes were looked up to with deference, if not reverence; and their authority held to be catholic and indisputable. Such was the influence exercised by the priest, the squire, and even lawyer and physician, in their several local jurisdictions. But every man now, almost, in different degrees, professes to be self-competent-lawyer, doctor, divine, and schoolmaster. Hence the old symbols, which used to exercise sway and dominion, have lost their power. Neither wigs nor gowns, gold-headed canes, nor maces, nor lawn sleeves, inspire any marked respect even in the multitude.

Men judge and act for themselves, and the right of private judgment has become as free and universal in temporal as spiritual affairs.

For this revolution various causes may be assigned. One of the first and most obvious is in the civil equality of mankind. This forms the peculiar and superior feature of modern over past eras of civilization. The destruction of bond and free, which was formerly almost universal, has been wholly obliterated.

Another cause of the prostration of former social superiorities may be found in the more general diffusion of intelligence. Learning has ceased to be a monopoly. The Brahmins, Pundits, Muftis, and Bonzes of the present, have ceased to possess an exclusive light. The advantages of science are now open to all. Indeed, the established oracles have not only lost their supremacy, but their equal standing is contested, and in useful and available knowledge the students have outrun their masters; for, while the latter have been stationary, the former have made great strides. Among the highest classes the women are considered better educated than the men,-not that they possess more Latin and Greek, but have the acquirements more commensurate with their social duties and position. A reproach, this, the gentlemen will perhaps not long tolerate. But great bodies move slow, and the national universities, though sensible of relative disadvantages and want of keeping with the age, evince no symptoms of forwardness in the task of reformation.

MERCANTILE RESPECTABILITY.-If you ask a commercial man respecting another, the answer usually is-' he is very respectable,'' he is respectable,' or 'he is not respectable.' I was somewhat puzzled with this vocabulary of characters when a young man, and asked an explanation. For the purpose of enlightening other novices, I give the English of these phrases. That tradesman who not only pays, but pays by check at sight, and takes discount for cash, is very respectable:' he who gives his bill at two months, and punctually pays it, is 'respectable:' he who has sometimes failed to 'pay his bill on the day it falls due,' (or whose bill is dishonoured),' is not respectable.' Of course there are different degrees of' not respectable,' which are always told in the same words, but with an adjective shake of the head, curl of the lip, or intonation of the voice, that is always understood amongst the fraternity of ' respectable' and 'very respectable' men. It is not till a fellow has been at the Old Bailey on a charge of swindling, that the 'respectables' employ the term, scamp,' or ' scoundrel.'

It evinces a well-practised power of endurance, and no small tact and knowledge of life, to be able to listen patiently and without contradiction to much falsehood and absurdity.

CHARACTER AND CAMPAIGNS OF MARLBOROUGH.*

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A cluster of uncommon qualities united to form the character of the Duke' of Queen Anne's reign. In an age resplendent with martial renown, he shone conspicuous above contemporary chieftains, and was, beside, an complished courtier, an adroit politician, and very able diplomatist. Nature had evidently formed him for great affairs-to win men's affections, and mould them to his purposes. He had only one passion-that of self-aggrandizement; which, however, was absorbing, intense, watchful; and consisted, too, not in lusting after the abstractions of greatness, but its realities, in every form of power and influence,-in exalted station, family connexion, political associations, and the command of riches. To the steady pursuit of these different modes of individual expansion were all the great gifts, affections, and even principles of this eminent person made steadily subservient. Apart from them he had no magnanimity, no generosity, no heroism. The glorification of John Churchill in some positive entity,-in the enlargement or endowment of Blenheim, in additions of titles and honours, in forming noble marriage connexions for daughters (sons he never bred),-in augmenting the aggregate of family pensions and salaries, were the sole objects of John Churchill's indefatigable toils, whether in the field, the cabinet, or the senate; or in humouring, aided by the sedulous management of his hardly less clever and self-seeking Countess, the very weak and vulgar creature that governed the nation.

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For realizing the objects of his cupidity Marlborough was not only favoured by talents of a high class, but possessed, in great perfection, all the minor virtues and accomplishments by which most men are won and made useful. First, he had that prima facie introduction to favour, a handsome person, with a most gracious and insinuating address, and which made him, according to the observance of a competent judge, quite irresistible by man or woman. Next, he had that stronger recommendation to goodwill-his private life being regular and unblemished. In temper he was first rate,-never discomposed, choleric, or petulant. He cherished no idle quarrels, but sought to attach all round him by offices of kindness and courtesy. Though eminently prosperous, he

The Letters and Despatches of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, from 1702 to 1712. Edited by the Right Hon. Sir GEORGE MURRAY, G.C.B., &c. 3 vols. John Murray.