comforts of the people, and to our trade with Greece and the Ionian Islands. The existing duty on raisins is hardly less objectionable than that on currants. It has made that be deemed a luxury, attainable only by the wealthier classes, which would otherwise be in very general demand. We are assured by those familiar with the subject, that 50 per cent might be taken from the duty, not only without any injury to, but with a certain and considerable advantage to the revenue.

Of the duties imposed for the sake of protection, those on corn and timber are by far the most important. Ministers need not flatter themselves that they will be able in future to evade the discussion of the Corn Laws in the same casy way that it was evaded this Session. The question must be grappled with ; and it is most essential to all the best interests of the country, and particularly to those of the agriculturists, that it should be satisfactorily adjusted. We shall endeavour, at an early opportunity, to show that very exaggerated notions are entertained by all classes, as to the effects that would result from changing the present graduated scale of duties for a moderate fixed duty. At present, we shall only observe, that by a proper arrangement of the corn duties, a revenue of L.1,000,000 or L.1,500,000 a-year might be secured. And though, in making such an arrangement, we hold this to be a very secondary object, yet it is not one that should be overlooked.

Of the timber duties it is impossible to speak in terms of sufficient reprobation. They compel us to use inferior timber, to inoculate our ships and our houses with dry rot, and to pay a comparatively high price for what is so very worthless; and yet if there be one article more than another, which it is essential for a country like Britain to have of the best quality, and at the lowest price, that article is timber. How long the present system is to be continued we know not; but we do know, that the public would gain immensely, were they, if nothing else will do, to purchase its abolition by giving the Canada planters a bonus of L.500,000 a-year.

On the whole, the more we examine into the subject, the more firmly are we convinced, that all, or almost all, the blemishes in our present System of Taxation, may be removed without occasioning the loss of a farthing of revenue. These blemishes do not grow naturally out of the principles of the system, but have been engrafted upon it, and may be easily and advantageously removed. But we protest against any interference with the principles themselves. The best devised Property or Income tax that could be imposed in the room of the present indirect taxes, would, we are firmly convinced, do more injury in five years, than the existing system, even with all its defects untouched, would do in half a century.

ART. IX.-Narrative of a Residence at the Court of London. By RICHARD RUSH, Esq. Envoy-Extraordinary, and Minister Plenipotentiary for the United States of America, from 1817 to 1825. 8vo. London: 1833.

IT T is not every day that the public has an opportunity of getting inside the doors of an Embassy. Mr Rush came over to this country as American Envoy at the close of 1817, and resided here about eight years in that capacity. The single year of 1818, however, comprises the whole of the present volume, except a few pages at the beginning and the end. The office is one which seems to have been well bestowed upon him, not less on the public account than on his own. While he fought his country's battles as stoutly, if not as craftily, as Mr Gallatin himself, he saw all that was to be seen in our high places, and, at the same time, never let official ceremonies get into his mind, and cheat him out of the common-sense enjoyments of private life. Without revealing any secrets, he shows us the sort of life ambassadors are leading. We feel satisfied that the low-paid plenipotentiary of a Republic will agree with us, that a profession, which is so abundantly paid in honour and in pleasure, need not press quite so hard in pecuniary figures upon our Civil List.

Mr Rush appears to have had all his eyes about him while he was among us; and it was his first visit to Europe. As every thing was new to him, many of his descriptions will, of course, be newer upon the other side of the Atlantic than on this. The most familiar incidents, however, may be viewed with pleasure in the company of so good-natured an observer. If we get back for a time into our youth when we go a-sightseeing with children, the first impressions of an intelligent stranger do something more for us. They give society a chance of original views upon subjects habit has rendered worse than commonplace. The case of England and America has been so mismanaged by most preceding writers, that one kind of originality, perhaps the best, has been placed easily within the reach of Mr Rush. Good sense and good feeling are the first requisites in our respective critics. The discretion which can judge justly, and a predisposition to judge favourably, are, in this instance, worth all the talents in the world. These qualities are eminently characteristic of our author. His journal is the evident fruit of a sensible and virtuous mind,-a mind loving truth, and (what, it is strange, should be a compliment) desirous of being pleased. It is a positive pleasure, after the third and

fourth rate offensive folly, of which the sensible and humane of both countries have had so much reason to complain, to meet with the forbearance and candour which he displays on all occasions.

We will mention a few examples of the spirit of conciliation with which Mr Rush continues, as an author, the good offices by which he was distinguished as a minister, and seeks to remove the grounds of family disputes, by bringing us to a friendly understanding of each other. It seems that in 1818 there was a silly drop curtain at Covent Garden, representing the flags of the nations with whom we have been at war, (America among the rest,) in tatters and subjection. Instead of the twenty pages of threatening philippics, which Mr Cooper would have waved over our heads on such a false and misplaced exhibition, Mr Rush only taps us reproachfully on the shoulder, kindly observing, that England has fame enough, 6 military and of all kinds, without straining in small ways after what does not belong to her.' Literary mischief-makers, who, from want of sufficiently distinguishing between real life and novels, have made savages of their gentlemen in the one, and gentlemen of their savages in the other, have laboured also to persuade their countrymen that their victorious independence is a barb for ever rankling in our bosoms. On the occasion of meeting at dinner Sir C. Green, who had been in Burgoyne's army, and had been made prisoner at Saratoga, Mr Rush alludes to the good-humour with which the campaign was talked of. He adds, I mention the incident, because, although the first, it was not the only instance in which I met in England those who had shared in the war of the American Revolution, and who spoke of its events in the same spirit. Belonging to an age gone by, it seems no longer to be recalled in any other spirit than that of history.' Writers, who attribute their own temper to others, have so poured out the vials of their wrath on the aristocratical morgue of our upper classes, that a citizen of a sensitive republic might imagine he would want a pocket-pistol for his protection in our drawing-rooms. On the contrary, Mr Rush observes, that at our private dinners (he is speaking, at the moment, of the highest circles) you re'mark nothing so much as a certain simplicity, the last attain'ment of high education and practised intercourse.' When foreign countries were the subject of discussion, he subjoins,It was in the spirit of commendation I remark to be so usual.' Cordial wishes towards America, in particular, were everywhere expressed. Mr Rush was present at a Westminster election, and felt as a friend of liberty ought to feel, when liberty is disgraced by its supporters. He did not, however, generalize on

one repulsive picture of an English election.' If Mr Cooper remembers his inference from the statement that Pitt and Fox never met in private, we refer him to Mr Rush's more extensive observation. Their public men exclude politics from private life. You see persons of opposite parties mingling together.' We hope that our American brethren will take the experience and the word of their representative for facts of this description, rather than the stilted and splenetic exaggerations of common informers, who have represented nothing so truly as themselves.

Bigots on both sides the water have agreed on the existence of some peculiar Americanism of character, and even language, which disqualifies us from feeling at home, or ever even becoming well acquainted. There is no trace of this in Mr Rush. He examines and judges our marvels and our contrasts-the rich and the poor, the Lord Mayor's and St James's, with the philosophy and the good-humour of a practised European. The Emperor Alexander was not more astonished at our city wealth, at the miles of shops-the true ornament of London,—or at the crowd for ever following crowd along its streets. A 'large proportion of them were of the working classes: yet all were whole in their attire; you could hardly see exceptions.' The year 1818 seems to have been almost a gala year for the Court. The plainness of the White House at Washington, however, had not spoiled his eye for other circles; and he stands among the Ministers of royalist Europe, looking at the thousand equipages, and the hoops and feathers, with the admiration of a girl at her first drawing-room. Most people are tender critics of a good dinner. We are not, therefore, at all surprised at the evident satisfaction with which the brilliancy of the service, and of the noble guests, is noticed in the Diary alongside the rather meagre specimens of what was said by them. It should be remembered, however, that the recording pen is more restrained in proportion as the tongue may have been less so; and that a dinner itself does not lose more by being served over again, than its most agreeable conversation. Besides, education, aided by the public press, is every day more and more verifying the saying, which distinguished the social charms of the two extremities of London long ago, principally by the fact, that what was talked to wax candles at one end, was talked to tallow candles at the other. The forbearance with which Mr Rush has restrained his description of London routs to the mere mention of their crowds, and to the difficulty of getting to them and from them through phalanxes of carriages,' is, after all, the greatest proof of his politeness. It is not much diminished by a passing notice of the pleasant young ladies of

'eighty-two' whom he meets there, and of high Law Officers, whose ghosts will some day have to dispute with the aforesaid dowagers the right reading of the line of Pope, and claim a right To haunt the places where his Honour died.'

Our love of the country was felt by Mr Rush to be some counteraction to our artificial habits. It is conveyed through the channels of a hundred out-of-door amusements. Archery meetings and the chase are rather solemnly described as being sometimes graced by the competitions of female agility:' while the suspension of even his diplomatic conferences abundantly marked the first of September, our only remaining Saints' day. Strong contrasts of some kind are wanted to save our higher classes from the natural effects of a London season. It is in the multiplied combination of contrasted qualities and pursuits that the strength of our anomalous national character consists.

Mr Rush confirms, by his own experience, the impossibility which an old member of the diplomatic body had averred to him, of seeing his way clearly through the anomalies of England. The difficulty is one, in proof of which we should quote not only his experience, but, to a certain extent, his example. It is unfortunate, that the most unsatisfactory passages in the volume apply to such important points as the descent of property, and a direct interest in war. In the first case, on one hand, nothing can be got by referring to the present condition of Gavelkind-Kent, for evidence on the political economy part of the problem which Primogeniture and Partibility have to solve. On the other, the custom of primogeniture can be scarce said to be at the root of our enthusiastic fondness for the country.' The ancient French noblesse had a law of primogeniture and large estates; yet home was not in the provincial chateau, but in the hotel at Paris. We feel a still stronger objection to the statement that England has a direct interest in war. Mr Rush declares, the British moralist may be slow to think, that it is during war the riches and power of Britain are most advanced; but it is the law of her insular situation and maritime ascendency. The political economist may strive to reason it down, but facts confound him.'-P. 250. Accidental circumstances peculiar to a single war, and which may never occur again, form far too narrow grounds for so terrible an exception. We shrink from the suspicion that England is lying under a perpetual temptation which would almost justify a crusade to put her down as a nuisance to mankind. The Republican statesman saw further on one subject than our terrified Tory Lords. He was master enough of our practice, to judge truly both of the unlimited freedom of the press, and of the speedy limit which

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