inconsistent with the principles which we have laid down; and trust that we shall at no distant period be enabled to say, that no duties or regulations exist which are not essential to the

revenue.

It is not fair to say, that there is not free trade, because certain articles are taxed on importation. If the tax, whether on importation or home manufacture, be only such as to produce the largest revenue, it can no more be condemned as a restraint upon commerce, than assessed taxes are restraints upon building, and employing horses, carriages, or servants. Revenue, however raised, must produce restraint or inconvenience somewhere; it is enough for the principle of free trade, that such restriction is not the object of the tax; and that its amount is not enhanced with any other than a fiscal intention. An import duty is, strictly speaking, a commercial and not a fiscal tax, when the article to which it is attached, or the corresponding article, if there be one, is duty-free, when grown or made at home. Sometimes, however, even in this case, the motive may be financial, as when a tax is laid on importation, as an easy mode of raising revenue; such a tax being less vexatious in the collection than a tax upon internal production or consumption. To preserve the true principle in such cases, it is only necessary to fix the duty at the point of greatest productiveness.

Upon these grounds we think that our tariff still requires amendment; and that the silk duties, in particular, which are so high as to encourage smuggling, ought still to be lowered.

This suggestion does not imply an opinion, that "the transition has not been prudently managed."* We have no fault to find in this respect with Mr. Huskisson or his successors: the step in the march of true principle may properly be slow, if it be steady and straightforward.

Probably, the effects of what has been done already have not been so operative, either for good or evil, as is on either side pretended. We trust that we have shown that the evil cannot be very great, and that, except in general assertion, even the alleged evil is small. We have shown that, whether in consequence of the new measures, or in spite of them, our commerce and navigation have been greatly extended; that there has been more of employment for the people engaged in trade and manufacture.

And if there be much in the situation of our farmers, and their labourers, and of our manufacturers, tradesmen, and artizans, which vexes the statesman, and puzzles the philosopher, the prejudiced and the sophist alone can ascribe it to " Free Trade."

* Vol. x. p. 102.

ART. VII.-1. Un Elezione di Membri del Parlamento in Inghil terra, del Signor Giuseppe Pecchio. Lugano, 1826. sm. Svo. 2. Osservazioni semi-serie di un Esule sull' Inghilterra. Lugano,

1831. 8vo.

ENGLAND has perhaps incurred more than its share of the misrepresentation which every civilized country must expect to receive at the hands of foreign travellers. Nor is it difficult to discern the reason. The habits and institutions of England are essentially different from those of the continent. We differ from other European nations in the externals of life, in those points which fall first under the observation of the traveller, more than any of those nations differ from each other; and the master-key which would unlock the knowledge of many peculiarities on the other side of the channel, is comparatively useless on this. We are a reserved people-we unbosom ourselves little to each other --and still less to those who are of another country. We are not a demonstrative people-the drama of life is not acted by us as if it were a drama-is not acted as if we sought observation and applause, and least of all, the applause of foreigners. Our characteristic is the pride which locks up its feelings and motives-not the vanity which would lay them open. We are a domestic people-our lives are comparatively little before the publicbut we enclose ourselves in that sanctuary home," into which the stranger cannot come; and if he thinks he has entered and viewed this sanctuary, he is probably mistaken.

But besides all this, there is perhaps no country which sets speculation more at defiance-no country more calculated to perplex the theorizer, who might visit it, not with a patient spirit of careful inquiry, but with a disposition to draw extensive inferences from a few prominent facts, and to accommodate results to what, by very legitimate rules of reasoning, he might have demonstrated they ought to be. In a country which acknowledges so largely the dominion of reason, the foreign semi-philosopher will be surprised to find so much, for which, by the application of logical rules, he cannot account. It is not a country in which the traveller can say with certainty: "thus it is in this case, and thus, therefore, must it be in that." There is little here of rule and compass; little that looks regular upon paper, and can easily be embodied in a systematic classification. It is a land of anomalies. We are, it is true, a methodical and a reasoning people, but we show our reason, not in forming regular and novel systems, but in engrafting our novelties upon a stock which is old. In our institutions and customs, we have some things that

are feudal; some things that may have arisen from accident, rather than from design,-whose origin is obscure, and which have outlived the circumstances that gave them birth; and all these we retain, and wisely, because we are used to them, and because we would apply the cementing force of habit, to give that union of strength and pliability which the best devised novelty can seldom possess in an equal degree.

If England is calculated to perplex the philosophic traveller, it is perhaps still less suitable for the superficial sketcher, the butterfly flutterer from pleasure to pleasure, the play-going, picture-seeking, rout-frequenting tourist.

"England," says Count Pecchio," is formed rather for our study than for our amusement. It is a vast book of science. Its theatres are the arsenals of Deptford and Portsmouth, or the East and West India docks; its pictures are the manufactures of Glasgow, of Manchester, of Leeds, of Halifax; its Coliseum, its arches, and arenas, are the smoking forges and workshops, with which whole districts are covered; its Champs Elysées are its mines of iron in Wales, of tin in Devonshire, and of coal at Newcastle. England is not the enchanted isle of Alcina, where men pass their days in song and laughter, only in the end to vegetate or become brutes. The English are the men of Europe; they laugh little, perhaps too little, but in its stead they think how to render life least unhappy, and to soften and educate the grosser qualities of human nature.

Among those who have misrepresented England, the majority, strange to say, have belonged to that nation which may justly be considered one of the most acute and enlightened in the world. There is scarcely in modern times a more faulty and ridiculous body of literature than that of French works upon England, from the commencement of the eighteenth century to about ten years ago. Even the genius and acuteness of Voltaire seemed to become obscured and feeble, when he attempted to treat of the manners, institutions and literature of this island; and as for the inferior fry of French writers on England, the Grosleys, Mezlhiacs, Levises and Pillets, if they do not irritate us by their libels, it is because we are rather moved to laughter by their absurdities. But latterly the French have cast aside that Chinese veil of ignorant presumption which so long impeded the free exercise of their natural intelligence, and led them to estimate everything by a narrow standard of their own; and they have also, we trust, laid aside that unworthy jealousy which once caused them to feel a pleasure in the wilful depreciation of England. A better spirit has arisen, and France has amply redeemed its credit. We do not class among French works on England, (although in that language), that of M. Simond, one of the most candid and obser

vant of travellers-for his extraction we believe was Swiss, and he had lived many years in the United States of North America. The works to which we would principally allude, are those of Baron de Staël, Charles Dupin and Cottu, which are no less monuments to the honour of England than to the candour, research and penetration of the writers.

Of inferior pretensions, and less depth and extent of research, but fully equal in candour, and perhaps also in the clearness and correctness of observation which they display, are the two pleasing little volumes of the Italian author before us. Count Pecchio, who is already favourably known as the biographer of Foscolo, has given us rather unconnectedly, but at the same time sensibly and agreeably, the results of his experience during a residence of many years in this country. He appears to have come hither (a refugee from political causes) in 1823; to have resided successively in London, Nottingham and York, supporting himself during part of that time by teaching the Italian language, and mixing much with various classes, and observing with an attentive eye many varieties of English life. In his "Ossservazioni di un Esule," which he tells us in his modest preface, is like a Spanish olla podrida, he discourses on our houses-tea gardens-sailors-parliaments-roads-fairs-education— country sports-assizes dissenters, and lunatic asylums.

These heterogeneous subjects are here enumerated in the order in which they occur, from whence it will be evident that methodical arrangement does not constitute one of the merits of this work. At the same time it must be said, that they are all treated with good sense, and in a spirit of candour and sincere desire to do justice to the various themes. We are much struck too with the prepossessing tone of amiability and good humour which pervades this volume. There is in it nothing cynical or caustic--no crabbed exercise of discernment in the detection of blots; no evidence of the low ambition of saying smart things at the expense of truth. The sunshine of life is preferred to the shade, and whenever there is a slight departure from perfect correctness of representation, it is almost invariably on the favourable side. The author's misfortunes have not soured him, nor, as might have been feared in one so circumstanced, does he speak with bitterness of the errors of Italy, or with envy of the prosperity of England. Of this country he speaks admiringly and gratefully, perhaps in some instances gives us more credit than we deserve, and is altogether one of the most flattering pourtrayers we have ever known. In his politics he is liberal, and at the same time temperate, to a degree which was perhaps hardly to be expected in one who entertained so deep a sense of Italian misgovernment,

and whom indignation might probably have driven into violent and extreme opinions. He thus describes the motley assemblage of liberaux, unfortunate like himself, who about the same time sought refuge in England.

"In 1823 London was peopled with exiles of every kind and of every country. Constitutionalists advocating a single legislative chamberconstitutionalists advocating two chambers-constitutionalists on the French model-others on the Spanish model-others on the American -generals, dismissed presidents of republics, presidents of parliaments dissolved at the point of the bayonet, presidents of Cortes dispersed by cannon, the widow of the black king Christophe, with two princesses her daughters, sablests of negresses of the legitimate blood-royal; Iturbide, dethroned emperor of Mexico, and a swarm of journalists, poets, and men of letters. London was the Elysium (a satirist would say the Botany Bay) of illustrious men, and heroes manqués. To whoever might have seen the parliament of Naples, the hall of the cortes of Madrid, or the cortes of Lisbon, what must have been the surprise to find himself at the Italian opera, in London, with general Pepe, general Mina, the orators Arguelles and Galiano, the president Isturiz, Moura. &c., jostling in the crowd against the ambassadors from governments which had denounced them! It was in truth a kind of magic spectacle, worthy of Merlin. Many times the opera-house in London put me in mind of that enchanted palace in Ariosto, where so many knights friendly and hostile, ran past each other up and down the stairs without the power either of escape or combat."

Many of these exiles became in their turn what are called "lions" in London society; and our author seems thoroughly to appreciate the value and durability of the homage which they received in that capacity.

"Soon curiosity passed away; and the Lions were buried in oblivion. There is no other such vast tomb as London for swallowing up illustrious names. It is an all-devouring ocean. The celebrity of a man in London sparkles and vanishes like a fire work. There are great throngings round him, great invitations, great eulogiums, great exaggerations for a few days, and afterwards a perpetual silence. The names of Paoli and Dumourier, which at their first appearance were powerful as the thunder, made at their death no more sound than a falling leaf. General Mina, when he disembarked at Plymouth, was carried in triumph to the hotel, and deafened with applause at the theatre, and in London for a whole month he was more famous than the lion of Nemea. But what was the result? He sunk soon into oblivion, and the tomb closed upon his name."

Count Pecchio's life in this country does not appear to have been one of idleness. He assumed for his support the occupation of an Italian teacher; and describes pleasantly his first visit to the house of an English clergyman in that capacity. The insight which he thus obtained into the domestic interior of