Had M. Dupin reflected, he would have seen that the question never is as to the mere rate of increase, but as to the health and happiness of the people; and in this respect Normandy is the honour of France. She can furnish the highest proportion of force to the State, without oppressing the springs of her industry; and the statements of M. D'Ivernois prove that the rate of taxation borne by her healthy and prosperous peasantry is also the maximum of the kingdom. The inhabitants of Orne alone pay more, by an annual million of francs, than by the pro rata of the other departments, should fall to their lot. And where is the miracle? They are saved the unproductive and ever-recurring expense of that continual flooding of infants who never arrive at manhood. They are saved from the ruinous fecundity which prematurely multiplies the tombs; and the minimum of lost or wasted strength, is the principle on which their generations are renewed.*

The life and vigour of flourishing Normandy are thus inseparably connected with the ultimate fact of our previous researches. The people are proverbially "slow and circumspect." They calculate on the consequences of a family. Marriage is there entered into later, and is less prolific, than in the average of France, just because the primitive peasants shrink from the responsibility of bringing children into indigence, and subjecting them to the vices it ensures. The operation of this principle has its origin in remote antiquity; and hence Normandy has always been remarked as a substantial, if not a wealthy province. The principle is consolidated into proverbs and embodied in customs; which at once demonstrates its antiquity of origin, and the power of its control. It is an adage with the Norman rustics, that to merit a husband, a young woman must have a goodly stock of bride's clothes of her own manufacture. The more elaborately these garments are prepared and the more costly they are, the fitter is the possessor deemed to be mother of an industrious family. The manufacture is often a prolonged work; and it is not rare for the girls to ply at the wheel, encouraging themselves by the maxim, il faut filer son mari. But although we detect these emphatic intimations, the

* M. d'Ivernois contrasts with Orne the condition and statistics of Finisterre ; but the most astounding contrast is in Mexico. The following table is furnished by M. de Humboldt.

GUANAXUATO.-Population, 382,829.

Fancy the destruction of a generation in nineteen years! Need another word be said regarding the state of the country? And yet the births amongst the miserable people of Guanaxuato would be cited by our anti-Malthusians, our" multiply and replenish" speculators, in support of the accuracy of their dreams!

practical question is not begun to be resolved. How was this beautiful prudence infused into the Norman mind? How has it attained an energy to bear it through the shock of ages?by what beneficent circumstances is it still guarded? Resolve this for us, O philosopher!-teach us to implant it amid the recklessness and destructive passions of the Irish peasant-et tu nobis eris magnus Apollo !

In

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In closing our notice of the leading facts by which M. D'Ivernois inculcates the necessity of attaching to population lists either the mean duration of life, or its index-the proportional mortality, we venture to subjoin a few supplementary remarks. contemplating a society under points of view like the foregoing, there are two circumstances, or characters, as to which we desiderate materials for inference. The full health of a society is only attained by the joint cultivation of the intellectual and moral powers. It is readily granted to M. D'Ivernois that the condition of moral cultivation may be inferred, in general, from the state of his favourite element. A propitious state of this element in old or tolerably peopled countries can only be referred to self-restraint to that prudential regard towards the future, which is the nucleus of all the virtues. But on the other hand, the advance of a society, or the rapid creation of new wealth, is the equally sure indication of an active and acute public intellect; and a stationary condition (excepting, perhaps, in districts like Leysin, where nature may bar creation,) is not consistent with this activity. The moral cultivation may easily exist without the intellectual cultivation, and vice versa. Normandy we take to be an illustration of the former state, for it is not possible that a country of its nature should not afford the means of upholding a higher ratio of births, without affecting the ratio of deaths, if the people were intellectually energetic. If, for instance, the births in more active districts of France could possibly be reduced to the Norman ratio, we doubt not that these districts would mark a rate of decease far more favourable, and therefore a more rapid general advance. In Normandy the intellectual power is deficient, as much as is the moral power in those other districts. Give them a moral power equal to Normandy and how great and sure might be their yearly contribution to the sum of human happiness! But may it not be the very lack of intellectual activity which invites the remarkable development of moral activity in the one case, and the presence of it which depresses moral activity in the other?. The moral power operates with least obstruction during the rest of the mind. This rest existing, a rural life tends powerfully to aid its development; but a rural life disturbed by political or other agitation is not more

favourable to it than a town life. In cities or busy districts the mind is never at rest. Intellectual excitement is inevitable, for it is the consequence of rapidly varying external circumstances; and during excitement the passions seldom fail to rise into authority. Hence great hazard of damage to moral restraint; the very whirl of the mind is unfavourable to prudence, and repeated transgressions give the law and form the character. Are then these two states of being in reality incompatible? Is it not possible to combine energy with safety, and health with rapid growth? There is not-there cannot be a real incongruity in the mind itself; its powers, whether intellectual or moral, are not only naturally harmonious, but incapable of being perfected or fully developed in a state of isolation; and the fact of our hesitating about a reply to questions like the foregoing, only convicts us of ignorance as to the means of EDUCATION. If, indeed, we knew how insignificant is the influence which all our vaunted positive institutions have yet exercised against the tyranny of circumstance, our vanity might perhaps be humbled; but there would then be hope that the understanding of the problem might lead to a rational aim after its solution, that the mutual criminations of agriculturists and manufacturers, would give place to an endeavour in the one case to rouse the soul from intellectual sleep without endangering its moral stability, and, in the other, to reduce under a peaceful guidance that valuable energy which in the mean time frets and vainly wastes itself,-lashing with vehemence and ever restless impotence against the grate of its dungeon!

It would give us much pleasure if we could add to the force of M. D'Ivernois' reclamation in regard to the neglect or misuse of Statistics. Sedulously collected and scientifically arranged, these numerical characteristics are the test of theory and a valuable guide to the statesman; but in our own country there has yet been scarcely an attempt at arrangement. Our parish registers are, for the most part, under the control of persons who are wholly ignorant of their use; and we believe that almost the only end they serve is the furnishing a few individuals with certificates of a baptism or a marriage! Light, indeed, may break in upon these functionaries; but we anticipate little improvement until the civil authority shall relieve the ecclesiastical of the charge. The fit persons to record the statistics are local commissioners of justice, whom we expect to see in a short time in every district of Great Britain, as part of the machinery of the Local Courts. The establishment of a statistical department, however incomplete, in one of our public offices, to which we are already indebted for some valuable and important tables; the

formation, even while we write, of a Statistical Society in the metropolis, with the object of "collecting and classifying all facts illustrative of the present condition and prospects of society;" and the recent introduction of a legislative measure for establishing a complete general registry of births, marriages, and deaths, throughout the empire, are circumstances of happy augury, and give pro mise that the reproach which has hitherto attached to our almost systematic inattention to such matters will soon be wiped away. This is a subject to which we propose to return before long.

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ART. III.-Mémoires et Correspondance de Duplessis-Mornay, pour servir à l'Histoire de la Réformation, et des Guerres Civiles et Religieuses en France, sous les règnes de Charles IX., de Henri III., de Henri IV., et de Louis XIII., depuis l'an 1571 jusqu'en 1623. Edition complète, publiée sur les manuscrits originaux, et precedée des Mémoires de Madame de Mornay sur la vie de son mari, écrits par elle-même pour l'instruction de son fils. Tom. I.-XII.* Svo. Paris. 1824-1834.

WITH the exception of the Revolution, the period of Henry the Fourth is beyond a doubt the most interesting and important in the French annals. No history presents a finer subject for study and contemplation than that of the means by which, in the face of obstacles to ordinary minds insurmountable, that gallant prince succeeded in firmly seating himself on the throne of his ancestors, from which both the temporal and spiritual powers of the kingdom, and the great majority of his own subjects seemed united to exclude him. To see the dexterity with which one commanding mind can attach others to its interests, the influence by which elements the most discordant can be brought into one solid harmonious mass, must strike even the most unreflecting observer. Henry of Navarre was indeed such a mind. In sentiment and in action he was the most chivalrous of princes; unrivalled in bravery, he infused a kindred spirit into his followers; generous, magnanimous, and indulgent in his nature, in each follower he found a steadfast and attached friend; prompt in the execution of designs which he had formed in conjunction with his advisers-some of the wisest of their age-he either surprised his enemies by his unceasing activity, or rendered their best plans abortive before they could be put into execution.

Three more volumes, which have been long promised and ought to complete the collection, are announced speedily to appear.

But if the extraordinary success of Henry derived much of its splendour from his personal qualities, he was also indebted for a great portion of it to the co-operation of his friends, many of whom could serve him as well with the pen as with the sword. Among these were two, whose fame will be commensurate with that of their great master, and whose memory will ever be held dear by the wise and good of their country. Sully and DuplessisMornay were the men to whose councils, more than to any other human cause, was Henry indebted for his throne, his glory, and→ what is of more inestimable value-for the proud distinction of being reverenced as one of the best of French kings.

But though both these great men contributed in an equal degree to the triumphs of their master, their fate was very different. While Sully almost daily succeeded to new honours and riches, and enjoyed the royal favour unimpaired till the death of the bestower, Mornay had little reward for his services beyond the approbation of his own conscience, and the esteem and unbounded confidence of his co-religionists. Nor has fame done equal justice to both. While the first is lauded as one of the ablest ministers the world has ever seen, religious prejudice has injured the memory of the latter by either suppressing or distorting the facts which would add most to its lustre; and-what is more pertinent to our present subject-while the former is known to every one in this country from the voice of history, and from the translation of his interesting memoirs of the latter, the generality of English readers of the present day know little more than that he was a Hugonot, and the confidential adviser of Henry.

In the following pages we purpose to rescue the memory of Mornay from the state of comparative oblivion in which it has so long remained, and to vindicate his claim both to his country's gratitude, and to the esteem of all posterity. And this we shall do by adverting as well to the more striking passages of his private life, as to the public transactions in which he was concerned. As may be easily supposed, it is not our intention to enter into the history of France during the period in which he lived. The events of that period are sufficiently known from the multitude of works specially devoted to it, to the number of which time is daily making fresh additions. We shall enter into it no farther than as it is connected with the subject of our present notice.

To the prosecution of this task we have been led by the publication of the voluminous collection before us. It is preceded by the hitherto unpublished memoirs of Mornay by his wife, up to 1606, the period of her death; the remaining volumes consist of original letters written by or to Mornay, and of state papers chiefly drawn up by him, professing to be a complete edition of