The subject cannot be allowed to rest. The committee treat it as a light thing that the number of warrants for opening letters do not affect more than twelve individuals upon an average in the year. It is not a light thing to find that the practice is on the increase. It is not a light thing that the letters of as many as fifty individuals were opened by authority in the year 1842. It is not a light thing to learn that the reading of letters obtained by sur reptitious means is adopted by a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and a Secretary of State for the Home Department, as the only effectual mode of reading the signs of the times. It is not a light thing to know that the practice has extended to the subor dinates of departments, and that all conf dence in the security of the cheapest, and 230 often the only available channel for writen communications has been utterly destroyed. We call for further inquiry. We demand a full and public investigation of all the facts aggrieved may know by whom he has been wronged, and obtain redress. No law has yet authorized a policeman to forge the handwriting of a felon, to promote the ends of justice; let no law authorize the forgery of stamps, or the counterfeiting of seals, for the same object. No conceivable contingency can justify the adoption of treachery as a principle of civil government. We may grant its conveniences as an occasional expedient; but honest men can do without it in private life, and so can honest governments. It may be asked how we would apply this argument to a state of war. The answer is, that a state of war is not a case of civil government. In war there is an end of all civil right and moral law. Civilisation then goes back to barbarism. Man ceases to be a man, and returns to the state of the brute and savage. In war we begin by assuming that it is right to kill our enemy; if so, we need not, while about it, be fastidious as to the commission of any minor injury. When to which we have referred, and a re-exami murder becomes allowable, fraud, forgery, and felony may be admissible stratagems;not till then. nation of the principles of administrative government. No more secret committees And what means secrecy when an inquiry The committee of the House of Commons is to be made into the conduct of public ser need not to have gone back to the letter of vants? What is there to screen if they Brian Tuke to Thomas Cromwell, in 1533, have only discharged their duty? What i upon the duties of the Post office; with far there in any act of duty of which they need less research they might have procured a be ashamed? "He that loveth truth cometh copy of a much more important letter, and to the light that his deeds may be made one more applicable to the subject of their inquiry; the circular letter of M. Carnot, when Ministre de l'Interieur, during the hundred days; a time of some "emergency" to French interests. This should have been the spirit of their report : Le Ministre de l'Intérieur Consul de l' Empire: a M. le Prefét du Département de Paris, le 8 Mai, 1815. "Je suis informé M. le Prefét que dans plusieurs parties de l'empirele secret des correspondances a été violé par des agens de l'administration. Qui peut avoir autorisé des pareilles mesures ? Leurs auteurs diront-ils qu'ils ont voulu servir le gouvernement et chercher sa pensée? Porter dè pareilles procedés dans l'administration, ce n'est point servir l'Empereur, c'est calomnier sa manifest." Abuses only flourish in the dark. This anxiety for secrecy on the part of public officers is a growing evil. In the Customs, in the Stamp office, in various Go vernment departments, we hear now of com mon clerks sworn to secrecy, or told b their superiors that if they communicate the public any information connected wit the business of the office, they will be in stantly dismissed. A mere surveyor Queen's taxes, with a salary of 2001. pe annum, is a person entrusted with "prival and confidential communications." Why who are these men who treat as enemie their fellow subjects of the realm? Is their business to prey upon the public or serve it? Let diplomacy have its secrets dern warfare, effecting its objects by tricks but there needs no diplomacy between a se vant and his employer. For public se vants, we want responsibility; and respo sibility cannot be obtained without publicit Secrecy is but another word for fear. M majesté. té. Elle ne demande point, elle rejette les for diplomacy is but a refined mode of mo hommages d'un dévouement désavoué par la loi. Or les lois ne se sont elles pas accordées depuis 1789, à prononcer que le secret des lettres est inviolable? Tous nos malheurs aux diverses époques de la Revolution sont venus de la violation des principes: il temps d'y Vous voudrez donc bient Mme Prefcenter. poursuivre d'après toute la rigeur des lois ces infractions d'un des droits le plus sacré de l'homme en société. La penseé d'un citoyen François doit être libre comme sa personne même. * Agréez, monsieur, l'assurance, &c. "CARNOT." 'Memoires Historiques et Militaires sur Carnot, Paτις, 1824 : p. 349. L TERY was the name of the beast in the reve lations. The great monster by which w typified all the civil and ecclesiastical co ruptions of the earth, had on its forehead name written, and that name was MYSTER BABYLON THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS. for Depa tend CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. BIOGRAPHY, Universal, too, it is in another sense, for every name that could possibly be got hold of, no mat The Life of Sir Hugh Palliser. By Robert M. ter how unimportant or uninteresting, seems to Hunt, Esq. Chapman and Hall, Strand. THE BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE SOCIE- THE merits which cannot fail to procure a high e be have been introduced; many individuals being mentioned of whom scarcely more was to be said than that they appeared to have lived at such or such a time. We do not pretend to have made any computation, but at a rough guess should say that of the six volumes now published, not much more than would fill two is likely to interest persons in general, meaning thereby those who purchase works of the kind. By and by, indeed, this proportion may be increased; there may in some volumes be a far greater frequency of modern and even very recent names, and many eminent or noted characters now living will perhaps have passed off the stage before the time arrives for their being here recorded. The materials of biography are perpetually accumulating, and that in an increasing ratio, and to such an extent that even if confined to the present century a general biography would be a very copious and voluminous work. In the case of the Society's Dictionary, the public have at least full assurance of one thing, namely, that it will be carried on perseveringly and without any relaxation of attention and industry. The undertaking itself is, most undeniably, highly honourable to the public spirit of the body from whom it emanates. Still, though we admit this, and also fully subscribe to all that has been said in praise of the execution of the work, we have ventured, as it has not been done before, to point out what we cannot help considering-we will not say defects, but inconveniences in the scheme of it, and which tend to limit to the few a work that deserves to be for the many. THE CURRENCY. H. L. Without at all impairing the usefulness of the rk, the plan might have been greatly contractby merely confining it to modern biography, s getting rid at once of an enormous mass of nes, the majority of which are likely to be ught by most persons to encumber the work hery needlessly. If ancient biography, biblical of classical, was considered equally desirable, t might very properly have been made to conute a separate and independent work, publisheither simultaneously or separately. No bt its sale would not have been at all in prostion to that of the other; yet such probably engthens our opinion that the incorporating th together is not particularly judicious, be- A METALLIC CURRENCY A BARRIER TO THE PRO melt ise the less attractive portion now hangs as a and dead weight on the other. o have drawn an express line between anat and modern biography would no doubt have n rather puzzling, and after all must have on an arbitrary one; yet if no other could have in fixed upon, modern biography might have In made to commence from the period to which ionaries of ancient biography are usually ght down. We ourselves should say that history of the last eight or nine centuries ishes quite as much as would be expected by one under the title of Modern General Biophy. REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS OF THE WESTMIN- GRESS OF CIVILISATION, AND PRIMARY CAUSE JOURNAL DES ECONOMISTES, No. 33, for August, 1844. Gillaumin. Paris. THE author of the article on the Currency Question in our last number having, since its publication, been absent from England, we know not whether he has yet seen the reply it called forth, or whether, should he have seen it, he may be of opinion that his positions require to be sustained by any further arguments, to rebut the reasoning of Colonel Torrens. We will not inThe Society's Dictionary, however, is not only terfere in the controversy further than to express eral but universal; it carries us back very a conviction that the theory upon which the beyond the confines of biography, even to the Bank Charter Bill is based is not only unsound, pation of the human race, to Adam himself. ( but that the Bill itself will fail in carrying out its own principles; of the latter fact a very clear, ❘ non pas aussi mobile à la verité que nos passions et and we think unanswerable demonstration has nos simples désirs, mais enfin il a des phases diver. ses qui dérivent de la mobilité des combinaisons sociales et des convenances individuelles." We attach so much importance to the article from which this extract is taken, as a clear exposition of a subject very imperfectly understood, that we would have translated it, and reprinted the whole, if our space had permitted. We gladly, however, embrace the opportunity of it calling the attention of English economists to this paper, and to the ably-edited periodical in C which the article appears. The Journal des Economistes' is published monthly, and the pre-1 sent number, for August, contains many papers of great interest.* EDUCATION. H. Journal des Economistes, published at Paris. A NEW SERIES OF SCHOOL BOOKS. By the We allude to a paper by M. Théodore Fix, entitled 'La Mesure de la Valeur, in which he inquires into the meaning of the term "standard of value," as used by Sir Robert Peel, and shows that the words are based upon a metaphysical illusion, which we suspect to be the groundwork of half the errors that have existed on this subject of the currency. M. Fix shows that value is not in any case a tangible fixed enduring entity, like a pound weight or a foot rule; that value is, in fact, only the temporary relation between two or more commodities, of which the supply and demand are for ever changing. Consequently that there cannot in the nature of things exist, scientifically and strictly, the unit of value contended for, whether in the silver or gold, and therefore that the phrase "standard of value" is only a blunder; but a blunder which, occurring at the very threshold of the inquiry, must be fatal alike to all theories of which it is made the foundation. It is only at the very moment when an exchange is effected between any two commodities that one can be regarded as a measure of the other, and both are then relatively to each other exact measures of value. The next moment the demand or supply of each may change, and they then cease to be the same measures of value. Neither has any real fixity; neither, therefore, can there be a true standard. Fix the demand, fix the supply, fix the estimation in which a commodity is held, fix the necessity for constantly employing it in similar circumstances, and you have then a "standard of value." But these are moral and physical impossibilities. "La plupart des phenomènes physiques peuvent être soumis à une appréciation mathematique, quant à leur durée, à leur intensité, à leur étendue, &c.; les instruments et les unités, pour nous rendre compte de ces differentes circonstances, ne nous manquent pas. Mais quand il s'agit d'éléments moraux, de passions, de désirs, de besoins, à chaque instant variables, de circonstances fugitives qui existent ici et non ailleurs, qui se produisent aujourd'hui et qui disparaissent demain, alors il n'y a plus d'echelle proportionelle avec un point de départ fixe. L'or ne tire évidemment sa valeur que du besoin que nous en avons, et ce besoin est variable; Scottish School Book Association. Houlston and Stoneman, 65 Paternoster-row. de K We must reserve, for our next number, an Education. By Edward Collinson. Hamilton, An Etymological French Dictionary. By James Heard. Houlston and Stoneman. An Elementary Grammar of the German Language. The Formation of Words of the German Language, founded on Dr. Becker's System. By Heinrich Apel. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. FICTION. THE STORY OF A FEATHER. By Douglas Jerrold. A CLEVER tale, of which some fragments inter ver street. HISTORY. Thornton's History of China. In 2 vols. By MISCELLANEOUS. THE CHEMICAL DELECTUS. By George Cox. * Under the New Convention it may be obtained through the Post. The postage charge on this side the water is a shilling. The price of the work to subscribers in Paris is sixteen francs for six months. Ho A VERY useful little manual, with prices of most, SO MUCH OF THE DIARY OF LADY WILLOUGHBY of the substances required in experimental che mistry. Knight's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy. The Pilgrim's Progress. With Illustrations by Foster's Contributions to the Eclectic Review. 2 vols. Thomas Ward, Paternoster Row. Reply to the Marquis de Custine's 'Russia. T. C. Newby, 65 Mortimer street. By How can the Church Educate the People? AS RELATES TO HER DOMESTIC HISTORY, AND TO THE EVENTFUL PERIOD OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE FIRST. Imprinted for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, of Paternoster Row, over against Warwick Lane, in the City of London. 1844. THIS most pleasant fiction comes to us in the guise of a new contribution to the history of the last days of Charles the First, a period already abundantly rich in its diaries, memoirs, and narratives of an autobiographical kind ; yet never too rich in such materials, which cannot be overvalued for their importance; and so characteris The Complete Concordance of Shakspere. Be-tic in some features is this diary, that its profes ing a Verbal Index to all the Passages in the Dramatic Works of the Poet. By Mrs. Cowden Clarke. Part I., II., III., IV. Charles Knight, Ludgate street. Müller's Scientific Mythology. Translated by J. Leitch. Longman, Brown, and Green. Bou Chandler's Criminal Trials. 2 vols. A. Maxadwell, 32 Bell yard, Lincoln's inn. e-Industrial Resources of Ireland. By Dr. Kane. Hodges and Smith, 21 College green, Dublin. Det Rabelais' Works. Vol. I. J. Russell Smith, of 4 Old Compton street. are An Essay on the Constitution of the Earth. Houlston and Stoneman, Paternoster Row. Mantell's Medals of Creation. Vols. I. and II. H. G. Bohn, York street, Covent garden. Spectacle Secrets. By George Cox. G. Cox, 10037 128 Holborn hill. emin sed author, Lady Willoughby, is worthy of welcome among the Hutchinsons, Lauds, Denzils, Ashburnhams, and others of her time. Not, we must say, on account of any addition to the his tory of the period; indeed, there is no historical relation in her diary which, we think, we may not already recognize in some of the many other contemporary productions; but the work has great charms of another kind, appealing to more widely-spread sympathies than those which the relation of public events calls forth. The diary opens thus : "Arose at my usual houre, six of the clock, for the first time since the birth of my little sonne; opened the casement, and look'd forth upon the park; a drove of deer pass'd bye, leaving the traces of their footsteps in the dewy grass. The birds sang, and the air was sweet with the scent of the wood-binde and the fresh birch leaves. Took down my Bible; [Secrets worth knowing.] Lectures on Heraldry. By Archibald Barring- found the mark at the 103rd psalm; read the same, ton, M.D. George Bell, Fleet street. Minutes of the First Anti-Church-State Conference, held in London, April 30, May 1 and 2. Published at the Office of the Association, Aldine Chambers, Paternoster row. fournal of the Statistical Society of London. Vol. VII.: Part II. J. W. Parker, West D Strand. Miscellaneous Contributions to Pathology and Therapeutics. By J. R. Smyth, M.D. Simpkin, Marshall and Co. pre Treatise on the Steam Engine. tizan Club. Parts I. and II. Brown, and Co. The Vital Statistics of Glasgow. wat bertson, Glasgow. By the Ar Longman, David Ro Metropolitan Drapers' Association Prize Essay on the Late Hours of Business. James Nisbet and Co., Berners street. Common Sense against Repeal. By a Milesian. The Miseries of Prostitution. By James Beard street. La Rapport fait par Monsieur le Duc de Broglie au nom de la Commission Chargée d'Etudiér Relatives à l'Abolition de l'esclavage dans les Colonies Françaises. La Rapport addressé à Monsieur le duc de Brog and return'd thanks to Almighty God that he had brought me safely through my late peril and extremity, and in his great bountie had given me a deare little one. Pray'd him to assist me by his divine grace in the right performance of my new and sacred duties; truly I am a young mother, and need help. Sent a message to my lord, that if it so pleased him I would take breakfast with him in the blue parlour. At noon walked out on the South Terrace; the two greyhounds came leaping towards me; divers household affaires in the course of the day; enough wearied when night came. "Had a disturbed night, and rose late, not down till after seven; thoughts wandering at prayers. The chaplain detained us after service to know our pleasure concerning the christening; my lord doth wish nothing omitted that should seem proper to signify his respect to that religious ordinance which admits his child into the outward and visible church of Christ, and give honour to his firste born sonne. During breakfast we gave the subject much consideration. My husband doth not desire him to be named after himself, but rather after his father; his brother William therefore, bearing his name, will stand godfather. All being at last brought to a satisfactory conclusion, he went forth with the chaplain, and gave his orders according therewith, I doing the same in my smaller capacity; he for whom was all this care lying unconsciously in his nurse's arms." A few days afterwards the young wife thus with her lord : int fie, par Monsieur Jules Lechevalier à la suite feelingly records some little misunderstanding des Voyages qu'il a fait aux Antilles, et à la Guyanne dans les Années 1838 et 1839. "Most unhappy in mind this day; temper sorely tried, and feelings of resentment at what did appeare unkind conduct in another, were too visibly express- | dried rose leaves in paper bags. Alice was picking ng ed in manner and countenance, though I did refrain from words. "Slept last night in very wearinesse of weeping; and awaken'd this morning with a feeling of hopelessnesse; and ill at ease myselfe, methought everything around seemed melancholly; truth and affection doubted, shortcomings hardly judged of; this is an unlook'd for triall. The sun shon brightly through the open window, but it seemed not to shine for me: I took my Bible to read therein my usuall portion; and kneel'd down to pray, but could only weep; thoughts of my mother's tender love arose, and the trust on either side that had been unbroken between us. Remembering an outward composure must be attain'd unto, before I could go down to breakfast, washed my eyes, and let the fresh aire blow upon my face; felt I was a poore dissembler, having had heretofore but little trouble of heart to conceal: mett my husband in the corridor with Lord Brooke, and well nigh lost my selfe-command when he gave a kindly pressure of my hand as he led me down stairs. This evening how different does all appeare; and though this and some other late experiences occasion me to perceave that life is not so calm a sea as it once did seeme in my ignorance of humane nature; slight breezes may ruffle it, and unseene rocks may give a shock to the little shipp: haply the mariner will learn to steer his course, and not feare shipwreck from every accident." Here is a pretty picture of Lord Willoughby's departure from home : “ My deare lord set forth at a little past six, with only one serving-man, who had a led horse and one to carry the baggage. After they had rode some way, they stopp'd, and my lord dismounted, and taking a short cut thro' the park, came up to the window where I had remain'd to watch his departure; he bade me call the steward, gave him some directions, then telling me to keep up a good heart, took another tender leave, and followed by Armstrong, returned to the spot where were the horses; and he mounting the led horse they were soon out of sight. Old Britton seemed to understand he was not to follow his master, and came and reared himself up to the window, resting his fore-paws on the stone: I patted his broad head, and questioned not that he felt as I did, that his best friend was gone: tooke a few turns with him on the terrace; the mist cleared off the distant woods and fields, and I plainly discern'd the towers of Framlingham Castle, and could heare the pleasant sound of the scythe cutting through the thick grass in the fields nearest, and the cuckoo as she fled slowly from hedge to hedge." Young mothers and housewives will sympathize with the two next extracts: "And now that I am a mother it behoveth me the rosemary and I sat down to help her. She says To "John took the yarn to the weaver's, and brought back flax, spices, and sugar. The stage waggon had not arrived when he left Ipswich, and there was no package from London. My lord was to send th hangings for the large drawing room; but it matters not." This imaginary Diary professes to be written Lo by the wife of Lord Willoughby of Parham, the fifth baron of that now extinct title. Lord Willoughby was one of the peers who joined the commonwealth party. His duties in parliament, and afterwards with the army, in which he held command together with Hampden and Cromwell, called him much away from home; and his occasional returns are the subject of many pleasant passages, for which we regret our inability to find room. Lord Willoughby, with others, afterwards fell into odium with the popular party, was impeach ed, and committed to the Tower. His wife follows him to London, and visits the House of Lords : "This being a day whereon the parliament sate not, the Lord Gray and Henry Willoughby, a young kinsman of my husband's, tooke mee too see some tapestrie hangings in the house of Peeres. A por trait of Sir Ambrose Willoughby is work'd therein, who was uncle to the late lord, and grandfather to Henry. They did persuade mee to be carried in sedan-chaire; I was well pleased to get out againe, being much discomfitted by the jolting. After some examination we discovered the portraite, on the border under the armes of the lord high admiral; it is of oval shape, a gorget of plate armour over his doublet, and a picked beard and mustachoe, like to those now worne. He was in command of a ship . After waiting more "Wente downe in a coach to the parliament still more to maintaine the worke of inward self- house, and sate therein the while Henry Willoughby discipline. Even at my little child's tender age, he did try to learne some newes. is sensibly affected by the feelings apparent in the than an houre, the Lord Say came out and inform'd faces of those around him: yesterday it happened mee a message had beene sent to them by the Com as I nursed him, that being vexed by some trifling mons that morning, praying for further time to be matters that were not done as I had desired, the allowed for bringing up the impeachment of the disturbed expression of my countenance so distressed seven lords, which was granted. Hereupon I went him that he uttered a complaining cry; made happy backe to the Tower to tell my husband of this further by a smile and the more serene aspect that affection delay; and it was agreed betweene us that it were called forth, he nestled his little face again in my well I should returne to Parham forthwith; and as bosom, and did soon fall asleep. It doth seeme a Mistresse Gage did purpose to sett forth early in the trifling thing to note, but it teacheth the necessity forenoone to-morrow, and would goe by Hengham, and had offered to carry mee with her in her coach, be miss'd, put the it seemed too favourable an opportunitie to * * of watchfulnesse. * * |