desired, its use will be invaluable. It can be formed into gas-pipes and water-pipes of any size and degree of strength that may be required; and used for such purposes will not decompose or wear out; and being ductile and elastic it may be applied in a thousand shapes and for thousands of purposes where iron or lead cannot be used. It will supply the place of tin, wood, copper, iron, stone, and even glass, for such purposes as buckets, tubs, vases, goblets, drinking cups, and all manner of utensils which are not used over the fire. But its uses for ornamental purposes are even more varied. In England it has already been used to a considerable extent in bookbinding, and for that purpose alone it must soon entirely supersede leather. For mouldings of all kinds, for the cornices of a house, the capitals of pillars in architecture, to the most delicate and intricate fancy work, such as snuff-boxes, pictureframes, knife-handles, and the ornamentation of rooms, carriages, fountains, ships' cabins, steamboats, and the innumerable articles which are made to gratify the eye, it must supersede many other materials. Air, acids, and the ordinary chemical agencies, have no effect upon it. It is harder than horn, softer than wax, more tenacious than caoutchouc, more durable than iron; nothing can injure it but a hot fire, and even that does not destroy it; and no ordinary rub can deface it. For floor-cloths it will supersede the use of all other materials, as it can be made of extreme thinness perfectly impervious to air or water, and of greater durability than any other flexible material known. In its hard state it can with difficulty be cut with a knife or saw, but when it is soft it can be moulded into the most delicate forms by the hand of a child."

all, for the whole of his possessions, and most of all for those which are most lasting.

3. Protection for his free action. This it is impossible to tax directly; the needful surveillance over a man's actions being incompatible with liberty. But you arrive at much the same result, è converso, by taxing all that he consumes and uses-by a system of taxes on consumption. In order to make those taxes fall equally, they ought to be rated on all things according to a uniform standard ad valorem, so as not to interfere with the operations of trade by deranging the proportions of price. A perfectly equal pressure of taxes would be quite accordant with perfect freedom of trade. Absolute perfection would be impossible; but it would be possible to readjust the tariff on this principle--that no taxes should be excessive, either in heaviness or lightness, as compared with others. - Spectator.

LOUIS PHILIPPE.-The remarkable man who now governs France is in his seventy-fifth year. He has travelled much, he has seen much, and he has learned much; and perhaps there is no man in Europe, whether sovereign or subject, who has had a greater commerce with, or experience of, men and things. Without possessing any brilliant or showy talents, he is a personage of great general informa tion; of a calm and tranquil nature, of a naturally cold and reserved disposition, in affairs of moment: distinguished alike in great things and in small by prudence and perseverance. He is a man of immense labor, taking a pleasure in affairs and in the transaction and dispatch of business. He examines himself all important papers connected with the affairs of State, reads the principal journals, and attends even to the details of his own private forMR. BABBAGE ON TAXATION--Mr. Babbage re- tune, and to the management of the affairs of his fagards taxation as payment for protection; and he mily and children. He is an excellent linguist, thinks that it is just to tax income and not property, speaking with fluency, English, Italian, and Gerfor a limited time, because income is annual, and man, and very lately he astonished the Ambassador of therefore it is fit to pay an annual sum for its de- Bolivia, by addressing him in the primitive language fence. If you tax property, he says, you tax one of Peru. Though in public the King is an incesman for being richer than another. In this limita- sant and rather egotistical talker on ordinary topics tion of temporary taxation, our great calculator of no moment, yet he speaks but little at Cabinet seems to be misled by the community of the term Councils, generally listening very attentively. "annual " as applied to the tax and the duration of Sometimes he interrupts, for the purpose of asking a the thing which he consents to protect: but in fact question, and sometimes he interposes objections. that coincidence does not signify much: if a man It very often happens that he knows practically more needs protection for a year, he does not need it only of a question than all his Ministers, especially if it for his perishable goods; the nurseryman, who is have reference to foreign affairs or diplomacy; and obliged to hire watchmen against the casualties of a should the Council not agree with him, delay is geparticularly hard season, will not set them to watch nerally interposed, where practicable, and in the his annuals only, but will be still more solicitous meanwhile the monarch sets about seriously to carabout his perennials: the income of 1848 needs pro-ry his point. In this purpose he is most frequently, tection only in 1848, but the fixed property which is enjoyed in 1849 also needed protection in 1848. It seems curious that it should be necessary to call to mind that there are other things whichneed protection through a storm besides those which are naturally deciduous.

Let us assume that the purposes of taxation are expressed with tolerable fairness by the term "protection" it will appear that there are three classes of protection exacted by the tax-payer from the state. 1. Protection for his own person. All men enjoy this equally; and, Wat Tyler notwithstanding, justice would be satisfied, on the score of this particular protection, by a perfectly equal polltax on every living soul.

by perseverance, successful, so that the pensée immuable is not a fiction. To say that he is a sincere, a fair-dealing, or an honest man, would be impossible; to say that he is a very superior man would be flattery; but he is a cold, calculating, reflective man; resolute, prudent, unscrupulous, crafty, and sagacious. He knows the Courts of Europe, and the characters of the principal statesmen and ambassadors better than any man in his dominions. He very well understands, also, the feelings of the richer middle classes, commercial and landed, of France; and on them he places his firmest reliance. But for the last three years he has, in endeavoring to aggrandize his family, made great mistakes, and descended to more than questionable subterfuges, 2. Protection for his possessions. Income is, as unworthy of a politic king, and disgraceful to a genwe have shown, only one thing that a man possesses. tleman and man of honor. His Ministers have He would think it very scanty defence which secur- been for the most part his tools, and to their persons ed him only his dividend, and suffered his stock to and principles he is utterly indifferent, otherwise be confiscated-only his rent, and suffered his land than as they, to use a vulgar phrase, "carry out to be ploughed with salt. He wants protection, if at his personal system.-British Quarterly Review.

1. Etudes sur les Orateurs Parlementaires. Par TIMON. Paris: Paulin, 1836. 2. Biographie des Députés, Session 1839. Paris: Pagnerre, 1839.

3. La Chambre des Députés Actuelle Daguerreotypée. Par UN STENOGRAPHE. Paul Lesigne, 1847.

4. Préceptes et Portraits Parlementaires. Par CORMENIN. Bruxelles, 1839.

5. Les Diplomates et Hommes d'Etat Européens. Par CAPEFIGUE. Paris; Amyot,

1847.

6. La Présidence du Conseil de M. Guizot et la Majorité de 1847. Par UN HOMME D'ETAT. Paris: Amyot, 1847.

7. Biographie Statistique, par ordre alphabetique de Departments de la Chambre des Députés. Par DEUX HOMMES DE LETTRES. Paris; Dauvin et Fontaine, Passage des Panoramas, 1846.

The following graphic sketches of some of the more prominent public characters of France appeared just before the Revolution of February, when not a suspicion of that event was

entertained. It speaks of some of the personages it describes, in a different manner, of course, than it would have spoken,

two weeks later. The events in France give the article an un

expected value and importance, which is all the greater for its having been written before, and irrespective of, the Revola

tion.-ED.]

THOUGH the coast of France is within sight of our shores, and Boulogne-sur-Mer may nearly always be attained by steam in 120 minutes, and often, in fair weather and with favouring winds, in less time-though Paris itself, the metropolis of France, may now, thanks to rail and other appliances, be reached within the limit of a single day, yet it is wonderful how ignorant we are in this our sea-girt little island, not alone of the writers and publicists, but of the emiVOL. XIV. No. II.

10

nent orators, statesmen, politicians, and public men of France.

There is scarcely a person moving in the classes of our nobility and gentry who has not frequently visited France, its capital and principal cities; few there are, even of the middle, or, to descend a step lower, the small shop-keeping classes of London who have not been to Paris, Calais, Boulogne, Lille, or Orleans; yet, among the hundreds of thousands who have paid flying visits to the capital, or made a longer sojourn there, how few are there, high or low, who, however tolerably acquainted with French literature, know anything of the public men and politicians of France, or of the secret springs by which they are moved.

That such a state of crass ignorance, as Lord Brougham would say, should prevail during the consulate or the empire, whea

the senate and chamber were silenced the language, another reason operates to amidst the clangor of arms, and when deter Englishmen from presenting themEnglishmen had not the privilege of tra- selves. As the number of tickets reserved velling in France, is not so very wonderful; for the British or any other embassy are that we should have been dimly and ob- very few, there is always a great struggle scurely informed on such subjects during to obtain them, and the race is not always the reign of Louis XVIII., when the cham- to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. bers so infrequently met, when long and In this trifling, as in greater matters, interdull speeches were badly read instead of est and aristocratic connexion are all-powerbeing brilliantly spoken, and when a jour-ful, and the ticket is handed to the Hon. ney to Paris took four or five days, and Bumpkin Frizzle, instead of to that poor cost, in the most economical fashion, ten pale student of law or medicine, or that or twelve pounds, is not marvellous; that hard-working man of letters, who has been even in the later epoch of Charles X., when looking for it every day this month. If an discussions were more vehement and stormy application be made to a Deputy, who, by -when ministries were changed more fre- the way, are much beset by strangers and quently, and peers and barons were created, constituents, and the ticket be luckily oblike bakers' buns, in batches-we should be tained, the person who receives it is obliged somewhat ignorant and insensible to the to be carly in attendance, and to form part noise, hubbub, and queer character of a of the queue* outside the door, otherwise French session, is conceivable, and may be he runs the risk of being excluded for want somewhat rationally accounted for ;--but of room. Thus, perhaps, is the best part that, since 1830, when the people of Eng- of one day lost in solicitation, and the land freely fraternized with those of France, whole of another in obtaining a good place and intercourse has become so common, if at the queue, and in hearing the debate. not so cordial, with our nearest neigh- These little harassing practical difficulties bours, such comparative ignorance should-and of such the great moralist tells us the prevail, almost surpasses human belief, and sum of human life is made up-are even certainly surpasses human comprehension. now, after eighteen years of quasi constituIt is true, a great majority of British tional government, great impediments in birds of passage go to Paris for health and the way of that general knowledge which recreation in the John-Bull season-i.e., Englishmen ever seek, if they be not thwartfrom the end of August to the end of Octo-ed by teasing and petty annoyances of the ber, when the Chambers are closed, and the nature to which we have adverted. Courts of Justice in vacation. These, But then, it may be said, Englishmen therefore, themselves practising barristers, may go to the Palais de Justice and hear lawyers, physicians, merchants, and the like, the great lawyers-the Berryers, the Dumay reasonably be excused, for they have pins, the Cnaix d'Est Anges, the Maunot opportunity to travel at any other time. guins, the Odilon Barrots, the Paillets, But of the vast mass who visit Paris, from the Maries, the Hennequins. So they unthe opening of the Chambers just before doubtedly may. But when it is further Christmas, to their closing in May or June, stated that the Palais de Justice is at least how few are there that even enter their two miles and a half from the places in walls. It has been our own fate, man and which the English live in the Chaussée boy, for the last twenty years, to have d'Antin, and in a murky and muddy quaroften, as the French say, 'assisted' at the ter of Paris, it may well be conceived that, sittings of the Deputies; yet although hun- few are the visits paid there, unless by dreds and hundreds of Frenchmen were stray professional students. always present, we never in our lives met That we should know French public men above half-a-dozen Englishmen apart from and publicists better than we do, all will the members of the Diplomatic body. The admit. If, as we sincerely hope and fondly sittings generally take place in the busiest and best part of the day-i.e., between the A large class of idlers make a good thing of it, hours of one and half-past five, and at this ders in queue. These fellows, who have nothing on in Paris, by becoming regular members of and traperiod of the work-a-day world, English earth to do, station themselves round the chamber residents are engaged either in business, during the days of a great debate so early as five or taking exercise, or visiting the sights and six in the morning, and at mid-day, or a quarter to lions with which the capital abounds. In-one, sell their places for five, ten, or fifteen francs, as the case may be, to some gentleman more moneydependently of general unfamiliarity with ed than matutinal.