eventually be maintained, after the example of a similar one having failed before, and considering that the urgency of the applicants as long as they retain the principle of dependence upon the parish unqualified in any one of its main articles, would probably overbear a mere barrier of figures in the parish account. Then there would be much real difficulty in the proceedings, to be governed by such a limiting rule. For the use of the limitation would be chiefly, or solely, in cases where there is some struggle between the ordinary supplies of the parish rates, and the exigences of the poor, or a kind of run and pressure upon the parish by a mass of indigence: and in circumstances of this kind, it would be hard to know how to distribute the supplies under a fair proportion of the applicants known or expected; hard to know how much might be granted for the present, and how much should be kept in reserve for the remainder of the year's service. The real intricacy in such a distribution of account would show itself in disproportions and inequalities of allowance, impossible to be avoided; and the applicants would have one pretext more for

discontent.

'The limitation itself in many places would be only in words and figures. It would be set, I presume, by an average of certain preceding years. But the average taken upon the preceding years might be a sum exceeding in its real value the highest amount of the assessments of any of the averaged years, under the great change which has taken place in the value of money itself. A given rate, or assessment nominally the same, or lower, might in this way be a greater real money value than it was some time before. In many of the most distressed districts, where the parochial rates have nearly equalled the rents, a nominal average would, therefore, be no effectual benefit; and yet it is in those districts that the alleviation of the burthen is the most wanted.

It is manifest, also, that a peremptory restriction of the whole amount of money applicable to the parochial service, though abundantly justified in many districts by their particular condition being so impoverished as to make the measure, for them, almost a measure of necessity, if nothing can be substituted for it; and where the same extreme necessity does not exist, still justified by the prudence of preventing in some way the interminable increase of the parochial burthens; still, that such a restriction is an ill-adjusted measure in itself, and would, in many instances, operate very inequitably. It would fall unfairly in some parishes, where the relative state of the poor and the parish might render an increase of the relief as just and reasonable as it is possible for any thing to be under the poor-laws at all. It would deny to many possible fair claimants the whole, or a part, of that degree of relief commonly granted elsewhere to persons in their condition, on this or that account of claim. Leaving the reason of the present demands wholly unimpeached, and unexplained; directing no distinct warning or remonstrance to the parties, in the line of their affairs, by putting a check to their expectations upon positive matters implicated in their conduct; which would be speaking to them in a definite sense, and a sense applicable to all: this plan of limitation would nurture the whole mass of the claim in its origin, and deny the allowance of it to thousands, on account of reasons properly affecting a distant quarter, of which they knew nothing. The want of a clear method, and of a good principle at the bottom of it, in this direct compulsory restriction, renders it, I think, wholly unaccept able, unless it be the only possible plan that can be devised for accomplishing the same end. If a parish had to keep its account with a single dependent, the plan would be much more useful in that case. For the ascertained fact of the total amount of his expectations might set his mind at rest, and put him on a decided course of providing for himself. But, in the limitation proposed to be made, the ascertained fact is of a general amount only, not of each man's share in it. Consequently, each man has his indefinite expectations left to him, and every separate specific ground of expectation remaining as before.'

style. If he would think less about it, he would write
much better. It is always as plethoric and full-
dressed as if he were writing a treatise de finibus bono-
rum et malorum. He is sometimes obscure; and is
occasionally apt to dress up common-sized thoughts in
big clothes, and to dwell a little too long in proving
what every man of sense knows and admits. We
hope we shall not offend Mr. Davison by these re-
marks; and we have really no intention of doing so.
His views upon the poor-laws are, generally speaking,
very correct and philosophical; he writes like a gen-
tleman, a scholar, and a man capable of eloquence;
and we hope he will be a bishop. If his mitred pro-
ductions are as enlightened and as liberal as this, we
are sure he will confer as much honour on the bench
as he receives from it. There is a good deal, however,
in Mr. Davison's book about the virtuous marriages
of the poor. To have really the charge of a family
as a husband and a father, we are told,-to have the
privilege of laying out his life in their service, is the
poor man's boast, his home is the school of his sen-
timents,' &c. &c. This is viewing human life through
a Claude Lorraine glass, and decorating it with colours
that do not belong to it. A ploughman marries a
ploughwoman because she is plump; generally uses
her ill; thinks his children an incumbrance; very
often flogs them; and, for sentiment, has nothing
more nearly approaching to it, than the ideas of
broiled bacon and mashed potatoes. This is the state
of the lower orders of mankind-deplorable, but true
and yet rendered much worse by the poor-laws.
as well as that by which the labour of paupers is paid,
The system of roundsmen is much complained of;
partly by the rate, partly by the master; and a long
string of Sussex justices send up a petition on the sub-
ject. But the evil we are suffering under is an excess
of population. There are ten men applying for work,
when five only are wanted; of course, such a redun-
dance of labouring persons must depress the rate of
their labour far beyond what is sufficient for the sup
port of their families. And how is that deficiency to
be made up but from the parish rates, unless it is
meant suddenly and immediately to abolish the whole
system of the poor laws? To state that the rate of
labour is lower than a man can live by, is merely to
state that we have had, and have, poor laws-of which,
this practice is at length the inevitable consequence;
and nothing could he more absurd than to attempt to
prevent, by acts of parliament, the natural deprecia.
tion of an article which exists in much greater abun-
dance than it is wanted. Nor can any thing be more
unjust than the complaint, that roundsmen are paid
by their employers at an inferior rate, and that the
difference is made up by the parish funds. A rounds-
man is commonly an inferior description of labourer
who cannot get regularly hired; he comes upon his
parish for labour commonly at those seasons when
there is the least to do; he is not a servant of the
farmer's choice, and probably does not suit him; he
goes off to any other labour at a moment's warning,
forced to keep nearly the same number of labourers
when he finds it more profitable, and the farmer is
as if there were no roundsmen at all. Is it just, then,
that a labourer, combining every species of imperfec-
tiou, should receive the same wages as a chosen, regu-
lar, stationary person, who is always ready at hand,
and whom the farmer has selected for his dexterity
and character?

Mr. Davison talks of the propriety of refusing to find labour for able labourers after the lapse of ten years, as if it was some ordinary bill he was proposing, unacompanied by the slightest risk. It is very easy to make such laws, and to propose them; but it would Those persons who do not, and cannot employ la be of immense difficulty to carry them into execution. bourers, have no kind of right to complain of the third Done it must be, every body knows that; but the merit or fourth part of the wages being paid by the rates; will consist in discovering the gradual and gentle means for if the farmers did not agree among themselves to by which the difficulties of getting parish labour may take such occasional labourers, the whole of their be increased, and the life of a parish pauper be rend-support must be paid by the rates, instead of one-third. ered a life of salutary and deterring hardship. A law The order is, that the pauper shall be paid such a that rendered such request for labour perfectly lawful sum as will support himself and family; and if this for ten years longer, and then suddenly abolished it, would merely bespeak a certain, general, and violent insurrection for the year 1830. The legislator, thank God, is in his nature a more cunning and gradual animal.

Before we drop Mr. Davison, who writes like a very sensible man, we wish to say a few words about his

agreement to take roundsmen was not entered into by the farmers, they must be paid, by the rates, the whole of the amount of the order, for doing nothing. If a circulating labourer, therefore, with three chil dren, to whom the justices would order 128. per week, receives 88. from his employer, and 4s. from the rates, the parish is not burthened by this system to the

is gradation; and the true reason for abolishing these laws is, not that they make the rich poor, but they make the poor poorer.*

ANASTASIUS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1821.)

Anastasius; or, Memoirs of a Greek, written in the 18th Century. London. Murray. 3 vols. 8vo.

amount of 4s. but relieved to the amount of Ss. A parish manufacture, conducted by overseers, is infinitely more burdensome to the rates, than any system of roundsmen. There are undoubtedly a few instances to the coutrary. Zeal and talents will cure the origi nal defects of any system; but to suppose that average men can do what extraordinary men have done is the cause of many silly projects and extravagant blunders. Mr. Owen may give his whole heart and soul to the improvement of one of his parochial parallelograms; but who is to succeed to Mr. Owen's enthusiasm ? ANASTASIUS is a sort of oriental Gil Blas, who is Before we have quite done with the subject of rounds- tossed about from one state of life to another,-somemen, we cannot help noticing a strange assertion of times a beggar in the streets of Constantinople, and Mr. Nicol, that the low rate of wages paid by the at others, au officer of the highest distinction under an master is an injustice to the pauper-that he is cheat- Egyptian Bey,-with that mixture of good and evil, ed, forsooth, out of Es. or 10s. per week by this ar- of loose principles and popular qualities, which, against rangement. Nothing, however, can possibly be more our moral feelings and better judgment, render a novel absurd than such an allegation. The whole country pleasing, and an hero popular. Anastasius is a greater is open to him. Can he gain more anywhere else? If villain than Gil Blas, merely because he acts in a worse not, this is the market price of his labour; and what country, and under a worse government. Turkey is a right has he to complain? or how can he say he is country in the last stage of Castlereagh-ery and Vansitdefrauded? A combination among farmers to lower tartism; it is in that condition to which we are steadithe price of labour would be impossible, if labour didly approaching-a political finish ;-the sure result of not exist in much greater quantities than was wanted. just and necessary wars, interminable burthens upon All such things, whether labour or worsted stocking, affectionate people, green bags, strangled sultanas, or broadcloth, are, of course, always regulated by the and murdered mobs. There are, in the world, ali proportion between the supply and demand. Mr. Nicol cites an instance of a parish in Suffolk, where the labourer receives sixpence from the farmers, and the rest is made up by the rates; and for this he reprobates the conduct of the farmers. But why are they not to take labour as cheap as they can get it? Why are they not to avail themselves of the market price of this, as of any other commodity? The rates are a separate consideration; let them supply what is wanting; but the farmer is right to get his iron, his wood, and his labour, as cheap as he can. It would, One cardinal fault which pervades this work is, that we admit, come nearly to the same thing, if 1001. were it is too long;-in spite of the numerous fine passages paid in wages rather than 251, in wages, and 751. by with which it abounds, there is too much of it;-and it rate; but then if the farmers were to agree to give is a relief, not a disappointment to get to the end. Mr. wages above the market price, and sufficient for the Hope, too, should avoid humour, in which he certainly support of the labourers without any rate, such an does not excel. His attempts of that nature are among agreement could never be adhered to. The base and the most serious parts of the book. With all these the crafty would make their labourers take less, and objections, (and we only mention them in case Mr. fling heavier rates upon those who adhered to the Hope writes again,) there are few books in the Engcontract; whereas, the agreement, founded upon giv. lish language which contain passages of greater power, ing as little as can be given, is pretty sure of being feeling, and eloquence than this novel,-which deline adhered to; and he who breaks it, lessens the rate toate frailty and vice with more energy and acuteness, his neighbour, and does not increase it. The problem or describe historical scenes with such bold imagery, to be solved is this: If you have ten or twenty labour- and such glowing language. Mr. Hope will excuse us, ers who say they can get no work, and you cannot-but we could not help exclaiming, in reading it, Is dispute this, and the poor laws remain, what better this Mr. Thomas Hope?-Is this the man of chairs scheme can be devised, than that the farmers of the parish should employ them in their turns ?-and what more absurd than to suppose that the farmer so employing them should give one farthing more than the market price for their labour?

It is contended, that the statute of Elizabeth, rightly interpreted, only compels the overseer to assist the sick and old, and not to find labour for strong and healthy men. This is true enough; and it would have been eminently useful to have attended to it a century past: but to find employment for all who apply, is now by long use become a practical part of the poor-laws, and will require the same care and dexterity for its abolition as any other part of that pernicious system. It would not be altogether prudent suddenly to tell a million of stout men, with spades and hoes in their hands, that the 43d of Elizabeth had been misconstrued, and that no more employment would be found for them. It requires twenty or thirty years to state such truths to such numbers.

We think, then, that the diminution of the claims of settlement, and the authority of justices, coupled with the other subordinate improvements we have stated, will be the best steps for beginning the abolition of the poor-laws. When these have been taken, the description of persons entitled to relief may be gradually narrowed by degrees. But let no man hope to get rid of these laws, even in the gentlet and wisest method, without a great deal of misery and some risk of tumult. If Mr. Bourne thinks only of avoiding risk, he will do nothing. Some risk must be incurred: but the secret

shades and gradations of tyranny. The Turkish, or
last, puts the pistol and stiletto in action. Anastasius,
therefore, among his other pranks, makes nothing of
two or three murders; but they are committed in cha-
racter, and are suitable enough to the temper and dis-
position of a lawless Turkish soldier; and this is the
justification of the book, which is called wicked but
for no other reason than because it accurately paints
the manners of a people become wicked from the
and uncorrected abuses of their government.

long

and tables-the gentleman of sphinxes-the (Edipus of coal-boxes-he who meditated on muffincers and planned pokers ?-Where has he hidden all this eloquence and poetry up to this hour?-How is it that he has, all of a sudden, burst out into descriptions which would not disgrace the pen or Tacitus-and displayed a depth of feeling and a vigour of imagination which Lord Byron could not excel? We do not shrink from one syllable of this eulogium. The work now before us places him at once in the highest list of eloquent writers, and of superior men.

Anastasius, the hero of the tale, is a native of Chios, the son of the drogueman to the French consul. The drogueman, instead of bringing him up to make Latin verses, suffered him to run wild about the streets of Chios, where he lives for some time a lubberly boy, and then a profligate youth. His first exploit is to debauch the daughter of his acquaintance, from whom (leaving her in a state of pregnancy), he runs away, and enters as a cabin boy in a Venetianbrig. The brig is taken by Maynote pirates: the pirates by a Turkish frigate, by which he is landed at Nauplia, and marched away to Argos, where the captain, Hassan Pacha, was encamped with his army.

ing sight absorbed all my faculties in astonishment and awe.

'I had never seen an encampment: and the novel and strik

*The boldness of modern legislation has thrown all my caution into the background. Was it wise to encounter such a risk? Is the danger over? Can the vital parts of the bill be maintained?

'I was among these scanty relics. I who, indifferent to life, and never stooped to avoid the shafts of death, even when they flew thickest around me, had more than once laid my finger on the livid wound they inflicted, had probed it as it festered; I yet remained unhurt: for sometimes the plague is a magnanimous enemy, and while it seldom spares the pusillanimous victim, whose blood, running cold ere it is tainted, lacks the energy necessary to repel the infection when at hand, it will pass him by who dares its utmost fury, and advances undaunted to meet its raised dart.'-(I. 121.)

'How often,' he exclaims (after seeing his father in the extremity of old age)-'how often does it happen in life, that the only those that just precede the instant of our arrival; those most blissful moments of our return to our long left home are during which the imagination still is allowed to paint in its In this miserable receptacle of guilty and unhappy often, after this glowing picture of the phantasy, does own unblended colours the promised sweets of our reception! beings, Anastasius forms and cements the strongest the reality which follows appear cold and dreary! How often friendship with a young Greek, of the name of Anag- do even those who grieved to see us depart, grieve more to see nosti. On leaving the prison, he vows to make us return! and how often do we ourselves encounter nothing every exertion for the liberation of his friend-vows but sorrow, on again beholding the once happy, joyous prothat are forgotten as soon as he is clear from the moters of our own hilarity, now mournful, and themselves disprison walls. After being nearly perished with hun- appointed, and themselves needing what consolation we may ger, and after being saved by the charity of an hospi- bring!'-(I. 239, 240.) tal, he gets into an intrigue with a rich Jewess-is detected-pursued-and, to save his life, turns Mussulman. This exploit performed, he suddenly meets his friend Anagnosti-treats him with disdain-and; in a quarrel which ensues between them, stabs him to the

One day, as I lay in less entire absence than usual under the purple vines of the porch, admiring the gold-tipped domes of the majestic Sulimanye, the appearance of an old man with a snow-white beard, reclining on the couch beside me, caught my attention. Half plunged in stupor, he every now and then burst out into a wild laugh, occasioned by the grotesque phan-up through the whole of the book; and his decline and tasms which the ample dose of madjoon he had just swallowed death are drawn in a very spirited and masterly manwas sending up to his brain. I sat contemplating him with ner. The Spiridion part of the novel we are not so much mixed curiosity and dismay, when, as if for a moment roused struck with; we entirely approve of Spiridion, and from his torpor, he took me by the hand, and fixing on my ought to take more interest in him; but we cannot countenance, his dim vacant eyes, said in an impressive tone, disguise the melancholy truth that he is occasionally a "Young man, thy days are yet few; take the advice of one who, alas! has counted many. Lose no time; hie thee hence, little long and tiresome. The next characters asnor cast behind one lingering look: but if thou hast not the sumed by Anastasius are, a Smyrna debauchee, a strength, why tarry even here? Thy journey is but half robber of the desert, and a Wahabee. After serving achieved. At once go on to that large mansion before thee. some time with these sectaries, he returns to Smyrna It is thy ultimate destination: and by thus beginning where-finds his child missing whom he had left therethou must end at last, thou mayest at least save both thy time and thy money.'-(I. 215, 216.,

traces the little boy to Egypt-recovers him-then | scriptions in Anastasius,-nothing which corrupts the loses him by sickness-and wearied of life, retires to morals by inflaming the imagination of youth; and end his days in a cottage in Carinthia. For striking we are quite certain that every reader ends this novel passages in this part of the novel, we refer our readers with a greater disgust at vice, and a more thorough conto the description of the burial-places near Constanti-viction of the necessity of subjugating passion, than nople, vol. iii. 11-13; the account of Djezzar Pacha's he feels from reading either of the celebrated works retirement to his harem during the revolt-equal to we have just mentioned. The sum of our eulogium is any thing in Tacitus; and, above all, to the landing that Mr. Hope, without being very successful in his of Anastasius with his sick child, and the death of the style, or remarkably skilful in the delineation of charinfant. It is impossible not to see that this last pic-acter, has written a novel, which all clever people of ture is faithfully drawn from a sad and cruel reality. a certain age should read, because it is full of marvelThe account of the Wahabees is very interesting, vol. lously fine things

iii. 128; and nothing is more so than the story of

Euphrosyne. Anastasius had gained the affections of
Euphrosyne, and ruined her reputation; he then

wishes to cast her off, and to remove her from his SCARLETT'S POOR BILL. (EDINBURGH Review,

house.

"Ah no!" now cried Euphrosyne, convulsively clasping my knees, "be not so barbarous! Shut not your own door against her against whom you have barred every once friendly door. Do not deny her whom you have dishonoured the only asylum she has left. If I cannot be your wife, let me be your slave, your drudge. No service, however mean, shall I recoil from when you command. At least before you I shall not have to blush. In your eyes I shall not be what I must seem in those of others; I shall not from you incur the contempt which I must expect from my former companions; and my diligence to execute the lowest offices you may require, will earn for me, not only as a bare alms at your hands, that support which, however scanty, I can elsewhere only receive as an unmerited indulgence. Since I did a few days please your eye, I may still please it a few days longer:-perhaps a few days longer, therefore, I may still wish to live; and when that last blessing, your love, is gone by,-when my cheek, faded with grief, has lost the last attraction that could arrest your favour, then speak, then tell me so, that, burthening you no longer, I may

retire-and die!"'-(III. 64, 65.)

Her silent despair, and patient misery, when she finds that she has not only ruined herself with the world, but lost his affections also, have the beauty of the deepest tragedy.

dence. Like the wounded snail she shrunk within herself, and

2.

1821.)

1. Letter to James Scarlet, Esq., M. P., on his Bill relating to the Poor-Laus. By a Surrey Magistrate. London, 1821. An Address to the Imperial Parliament, upon the Practical Means of gradually Abolishing the Poor-Laws, and Educa ting the Poor Systematically. Illustrated by an Account of the Colonies of Fredericks-Oord in Holland, and of the Com mon Mountain in the South of Ireland. With General Observations. Third Edition. By William Herbert Saunders, Esq. London, 1821.

tant object, and of itself calculated to produce so much difference of opinion! Mr. Scarlett appears to us to have been not only indiscreet in the introduction of such heterogeneous matter, but very much mista ken in the enactments which that matter contains.

To fix a maximum for the poor-rates, we should conceive to be an operation of sufficient difficulty and novelty to any one bill. There was no need to pro voke more prejudice, to rouse more hostility, and cre ate more alarm, than such a bill would naturally do. But Mr. Scarletí is a very strong man; and before he works his battering-ram, he chooses to have the wall made of a thickness worthy of his blow-capable of evincing, by the enormity of its ruins, the superfluity of his vigour, and the certainty of his aim. Accord 'Nothing but the most unremitting tenderness on my part could in some degree have revived her drooping spirits.-Butingly, he has introduced into his bill a number of prowhen, after my excursion, and the act of justice on Sophia, in visions, which have no necessary, and indeed, no near which it ended, I re-appeared before the still trembling Euphro- connection with his great and main object; but which syne, she saw too soon that that cordial of the heart must not are sure to draw upon his back all the Sir Johns and be expected. One look she cast upon my countenance, as I Sir Thomases in the House of Commons. It may be sat down in silence, sufficed to inform her of my total change right, or it may be wrong, that the chargeable poor of sentiments;-and the responsive look by which it was met, should be removed; but why introduce such a contro tore forever from her breast the last seeds of hope and confi-verted point into a bill framed for a much more impor thenceforth,cloaked in unceasing sadness, never more expanded to the sunshine of joy. With her buoyancy of spirits she seemed even to lose all her quickness of intellect, nay, all her readiness of speech: so that, not only fearing to embark with her in serious conversation, but even finding no response in her mind to lighter topics, I at last began to nauseate her seeming torpor and dulness, and to roam abroad even more frequently than before a partner of my fate remained at home, to count the tedious hours of my absence; while she, poor miserable creature, dreading the sneers of an unfeeling world, passed her time under my roof in dismal and heart-breaking solitude. -Had the most patient endurance of the most intemperate sallies been able to soothe my disappointment aud to soften my hardness, Euphrosyne's angelic sweetness must at last have conquered: but, in my jaundiced eye, her resignation only tended to strengthen the conviction of her shame; and I saw in her forbearance nothing but the consequence of her debasement, and the consciousness of her guilt. "Did her heart," thought I, "bear witness to a purity on which my audacity dared first to cast a blemish, she could not remain thus tame, thus spiritless, under such an aggravation of my wrongs; and either she would be the first to quit my merciless roof, or, at least, she would not so fearfully avoid giving me even the most unfounded pretence for denying her its shelter.-She must merit her sufferings, to bear them so meekly!"-Hence, even when moved to real pity by gentleness so enduring, I seldom relented in my apparent sternness.'-(III. 72-74.)

And be it further enacted, that from and after the passing of this act, it shall not be lawful for any justice of peace or other person to remove, or cause to be removed, any poor person or persons from any parish, township or place, to any other, by reason of such person or persons being chargeable to such parish, township or place, or being unable to maintain him or themselves, or under colour of such person or persons being settled in any other parish, township or place, any law or statute to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided always, that nothing in this act shall in any wise be deemed to alter any law now in force for the punishment of vagrants, or for removing poor persons to Scotland, Ireland, or the Isles of Guernsey, Jersey, and Mau.-And be it further enacted, that in cases where any poor person, at the time of the passing of this act, shall be resident in any parish, township or place, where he is not legally settled, and shall be receiving relief from the overseers, guardians, or directors of the poor of the place of his legal settlement, the said overseers, guardians, or directors, are hereby required to continue such relief, in the same manner, and by the same means, as the same is now administered, until one of his majesty's justices of the peace, in or near the place of residence of such poor person, shall, upon With this, we end our extracts from Anastasius.application to him, either by such poor person, or any other We consider it as a work in which great and extraor-on his behalf, for the continuance thereof, or by the said overdinary talent is evinced. It abounds in eloquent and seers, guardians, or directors of the poor, paying such relief, sublime passages,-in sense,-in knowledge of histo- for the discharge thereof, certify that the same is no longer necessary.'-(Bill, pp. 3, 4.) ry, and in knowledge of human character; but not in wit. It is too long; and if this novel perishes, and is forgotten, it will be solely on that account. If it is the picture of vice, so is Clarissa Harlowe, and so is Tom Jones. There are no sensual and glowing de

Now, here is a gentleman, so thoroughly and so just ly sensible of the evils of the poor-laws, that he introduces into the House of Commons a very plain and very bold measure to restrain them; and yet in the