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MR. M'CULLOCH'S LECTURES.

sons, or the profits of capital engaged in commerce and manufactures with certainty. It is this difficulty of making an impartial assessment that forms the valid objection to an income-tax. By setting the interests of contributors in opposition to their duties-tempting them to conceal and underrate their incomes-it operates as a bounty on perjury and raud; and, if carried to a great height, would doubtedly generate such prostitution of principle as would obliterate that nice sense of honour, which is the only sure foundation of national probity and virtue. The lecturer next traced the effect of taxes on commodities and raw produce.

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With regard to the effect of taxes on the price of commodities, it is clear, that if a duty be laid on a particular commodity, and not on others, its price will sustain an equal rise; for if it did not rise to the extent, the profits of the producers would be sunk below the common level, and their business would be abandoned. It has been erroneously thought, that taxes on raw produce operate differently from taxes on commodities, and cause no enhancement of price. This, however, is an error which may be shown by the operation of tithes.

Tithes affect every description of land indiscriminately, and in every state of society, whether rents are high or low, and whether they are paid in kind or money, the charge of tithes is defrayed entirely by the consumers of raw produce. They do not consist of a portion of the rent of land belonging to the clergy, or to the lay-impropriator; but they are a burden which falls equally on every individual in the kingdom-on the poorest beggar as well as the richest lord-in proportion to their respective consumption of the articles from which a tithe is levied.

That tithes do not form a part of, or deduction from rent, is evident from the fact, that they frequently amount to four or five times the rent of the land. The REV. MR. HOW LETT informs us, that the tithe of an acre of hops, raised on land worth 40s. or 50s. an acre, is, after deduction of drying and duty, generally worth from 3 to 4.; and he farther states, that he had known 7. or 8%, paid for the tithe of an acre of carrot seed, where the land was not worth 20s. In such cases, it is obviously as great an absurdity to affirm, that tithes fall on the rent of the landlord, as it would be to affirm that a part is equal to the whole.

"Of all institutions," says Dr. Paley, "adverse to cultivation, none is so noxious as tithes. A claimant here enters into the produce, who contributed no assistance whatever to the production-when years,

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perhaps, of care and toil have matured an improvement-when the husbandman sees new crops ripening to his skill and industry the moment he is ready to put his sickle to the grain, he finds himself compelled to divide the harvest with a stranger. Tithes are a tax, not only on industry, but on that industry which feeds mankind-upon that species of exertion which it is the object of all wise laws to cherish and promote."

The lecturer next adverted to the effect of taxes on wages; which he said was the same as a fall of profits; as every diminution in the price of labour must be made up by the diminution of the profits of the capitalist.

After some remarks on the effect of taxes on absenteeism, and the emigration of capital, Mr. M'Culloch concluded with a maxim from Cicero, on the relation between the expenditure of a state, and that of a family :-Optimum et in privatis familiis, et in respublicâ vectigal est parsimonium.

LECTURE XXVI.

Funding System-Best mode of raising the Supplies-Progress of National Debt-Sinking Fund-Project of Mr. Hutchinson-Conclusion of the Course.

MR. M'CULLOCH introduced the subject of the funding system, with observing, that supposing a country to be free from debt, and a war to take place, which should involve it in an annual additional expenditure of twenty millions, there were three modes by which this expenditure may be provided: first, taxes may be raised to the amount of twenty millions per annum, from which the country would be totally freed on the return of peace; secondly, the money might be annually borrowed and funded; or, thirdly, the twenty millions may be annually borrowed, and taxes imposed, not only to defray the interest, but form a fund which, by the accumulation of compound interest, would be equal to the debt incurred.

Of these three modes Mr. M'Culloch thought the first, or that of raising the needful supplies within the year, the best. In point of economy, there is no real difference in any of the modes: but when the pressure of war is felt at once, without mitigation, we are less disposed wantonly to engage in an expensive contest, and if engaged in it, we shall be sooner disposed to get out of it, unless it be a contest for some great national object.

Mr. M'Culloch next traced the history

of the national debt, and the origin of the sinking fund, and pointed out the inefficacy of the latter instrument, as a means of liquidating the public debt.

The first sinking fund was established in 1716. The author of the plan was the earl of Stanhope; but as it was adopted under the administration of sir Robert Walpole, it is commonly denominated

from him.

This sinking fund was for some time regularly applied to the discharge of the debt. It terminated in 1786, when Mr. Pitt's project was adopted. To constitute Mr. Pitt's fund, one million per annum was appropriated to it by parliament, the capital stock of the national debt then amounting to 238,231,2487.

In 1792, a sinking fund of a new character was constituted. It was then enacted, that besides a provision for every loan which should hereafter be contracted, taxes should also be imposed to the amount of one per cent. on all new loans, to form a sinking fund to be employed in their liquidation.

Various alterations were subsequently introduced into the plan of Mr. Pitt's sinking fund, which it is unnecessary to particularize all plans for the reduction of the public debt, which have not for their basis an excess of revenue above the expenditure, must be illusive.

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Different schemes have been put forward for paying off the national debt. That proposed by Mr. Hutchinson, and sanctioned by Mr. Ricardo, seems the least objectionable. According to this suggestion, the debt was to be liquidated at once, by a proportionable assessment on capital, to the amount of fifteen or twenty per cent.

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Another ingenious expedient has been proposed for converting the interest of the debt into terminable annuities; so that by augmenting the present burden, the period of its duration might be shortened. Supposing the debt wiped off, by this, or other means, taxes might be repealed to the amount of thirty or forty millions; which would afford an extraordinary stimulus to productive industry. By a reduction in the prices of commodities, wages would fall, and profits proportionably rise all classes would be benefited.

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After some farther observations, Mr. M'Culloch concluded the present course of lectures with a brief summary of the important truths it had been his endeavour to establish security of property-freedom of commerce and industry-the securing of equal rights and privileges to every individual, were the great principles by which society is advanced in the career of wealth and civilisation. It is not so much

by geographical position, as by economy and intelligence on the part of the government, and economy and intelligence on the part of the people, that the destiny of nations is determined. Where these are wanting, the greatest natural advantages are unavailing. The general truths of economical science rest on a few elementary principles; which undoubtedly demand a little attention fully to comprehend: but the labour so bestowed is amply repaid by the knowledge it affords of the true sources of national opulence and prosperity.

When Mr. M'Culloch had concluded, W. S. Crawford, esq., proposed that some expression of the gratification received by the large and respectable auditory attending the course, should be conveyed to Mr. M'Culloch, and he proceeded to read the following address :

To J. R. M'CULLOCH, ESQ.

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Sir,-The attendance we have given during the course of lectures which you have now completed on the science of political economy, has been productive of so much benefit and gratification to us, that we cannot allow you to leave London, without offering to you some expression of the high sense we entertain of the advantages which have resulted to us; and we earnestly hope, that through the continued application of your great talents to diffuse the knowledge of this branch of science, these advantages may, at an early period, be more widely extended over this metropolis.

"If it may be allowed us on this occasion to offer some particular expression of our opinion, we would add, that we have been strongly impressed by the perspicuous arrangement, and the connected and conclusive arguments by which the principles of the science have been detailed and established by you, and by the forcible application you have frequently made of these principles to some of the most important and impolitic regulations affecting the prosperity of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.

"We should extend the limits of this

address beyond its proper object, were we to add more than our best wishes for your welfare, and for an early opportunity of meeting you again.

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MÚSIC AND POETRY CULTIVATED BEFORE THE FLOOD

THE WARRIOR'S INVOCATION.

Warrior brave!
Listen, where thou art resting,
Under the verdant perfume-scatter'd
shade,

In dream of memory breasting

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arts, long before the introduction of those dedicated to the gratification of curiosity and the passions, is too probable to be doubted; but, that among the earliest of the latter kind, music was studied and practised, we have the most satisfactory proofs. One evidence of this that will

The surge of war, or grasping still thy not be contested, is the scriptural declara

blade ;

Listen, for thy country's sake,
Chief of mountain and of brake,
Listen and save!

Listen! rise! and arm! as we,
For Greece, and home, and liberty!
By that never-dying day,

When freedom in our cradle lay ;-
By inspiration's torch of flame.
That blaz'd when learning trac'd our

name;

By that high spirit heaven hath blest,
To nerve the arm, and plume the crest
By all the deeds fame look'd upon
At Salamis and Marathon ;-
By Glory's sun, that seem'd to be
Like Joshua's round Thermopyle,
When through the Persian's arrowy
shade,

Gleam'd the death-light of Spartan blade,
And thousand turbans drench'd in gore
Witness'd the desperate arms ye bore.
By all the fame once round her brow-
By all the shame Greece suffers now ;-
Hero, arise! and dare the war,
And save a name, and win a scar
From Turkish Moslem's scimitar.
Arise, and meet, as should the brave,
The battle's hither-struggling wave,
And, as the crescent's beams are shed
O'er fields where Persia's myriads fled,

Arise and save!

"Beneath yon thicket, beauteous now With Phoebus' ray on every bough,

My neighing war-horse stands; And on his sleek and panting form I mount-the leader of the storm,

The foremost of your band.
"Now from my limbs in shame I tear,
The silken vest and perfum'd hair,

And wake from luxury;
Plataus' shouts again I hear,
Again I see the Argives' spear,
And Priam's legions fly:
Brethren of Greece! I arm with ye,
For name, for home, for liberty,-
I arm to die or save!"

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J. E. S.

tion, that Jubal, the brother of Tubal Cain, was the inventor of "instruments of music;" consequently the exercise of that art existed previously to the occurrence of the deluge. Hence it follows, that Apollo, Orpheus, Amphion, Linus, and Thamyris, are moderns, in comparison of the first race of musicians; and we may reasonably conclude, that Jubal and his disciples carried the science and execution of vocal and instrumental melody, farther than did their distant successors, now styled the ancients.

But the existence of music necessarily supposes the cultivation of its sister art, poetry. This elegant and fascinating employment of the imagination, no less than appear to have been, at all times, and in music's "lulling softness and dying falls," all countries, a favourite exercise of genius, especially in the expression of the affections. One of the first purposes to which it was devoted, was that of perpetuating the memory of great men, and to record in song the most interesting facts. By the most learned interpreters of the holy text, the words which Lamech addresses to his wives, in the fourth chapter of Genesis, are considered as fragments of the antediluvian poetry. It is to be lamented that so many admirable poetic effusions, in which, probably, were couched the sublimest mysteries, arrayed in the most shining colours of verse, are lost. This idea is not extravagant or far-fetched; for since, according to Homer and Virgil, Orpheus and Silenus sung to their lyres the reducing of chaos to order, and the origin and general nature of all beings, according to the fantastic ideas of the pagan cosmogony, how much nobler must have been the images of the poets of the old world, who sung of the true system of the universe, before the knowledge of its stupendous frame had been corrupted or defaced by time!

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If the preservation of the music of that early period could have furnished us with the curious intelligence of the forms, characters, and powers of the instruments of sound" then in use, and the style of the pieces performed by the antediluvians, the poems to which we have been alluding, would have instructed us respecting the history of the first age, as THAT human invention was engaged faithful, at least, in events and invenin cultivating the useful and indispensable tions, as those which followed. The

MUSIC AND POETRY HIGHLY CUL-
TIVATED BEFORE THE FLOOD.

world, no doubt, was even then considerably peopled; the earth, as now, was divided into kingdoms, republics, and empires, and frequently and violently disturbed by the barbarity of war, and the alarm and perturbation of revolutions of all kinds. In fact, the horrible corruption of the latter centuries of the first age of the world immediately preceding the flood, proves that passions as ungovernable as those which, in our own times, have ravaged kingdoms and empires, were then let loose, and carried with them equal devastation to whatever territories were destined to feel their destroying influence. That these important and tremendous events furnished subjects both for music and poetry, we cannot for a moment doubt. The softly-breathing tones of the amorous reed were drowned in the boisterous clangour of the hostile clarion, and all the powers of verse were awakened, to sing the deeds of national enmity and commutual slaughter. But the intervals of war, the reigns of peace and repose, did but call into operation other passions, equally inordinate and outrageous, though they did not wield the instruments of human havoc. For if, notwithstanding the state of comparative weakness into which we are thrown by the brevity of life, our licentiousness is so great, what must have been the excesses of the voluptuous, the ambitious, and the revengeful, who had a prospect before them of eight or nine hundred years of life and impunity! Since then all the strongest feelings of our nature are the promptest inspirers of music and poetry, it necessarily follows, that their study and practice were carried to a great extent; that their expression, like their exciting causes, were powerful, and as exquisite as energetic. That the natural, moral, and intellectual worlds have undergone equal revolutions, and that the beauty and prolific principle of each have been materially deteriorated and diminished, cannot rationally be questioned. We must not, therefore, because music and poetry are now in so high a state of cultivation, imagine that both these charming acquisitions did not flourish in the earlier ages of the world, and attain, even before the deluge, a higher degree of perfection than that to which they have been raised by modern genius and industry. Yes, it were a puerile self-fondness to suppose, that in sweetness and in strength-in pathos and in power-in every one of their magical and transporting attributes-the music and poetry of the antediluvian age, did not transcend those of later times.

ANCIENT LIVING.

THE following in an extract from the journal of the celebrated Elizabeth Woodville, previous to her marriage with lord Grey. She was afterwards queen to Edward IV., and died in confinement at Southwark, under Henry VII., in 1486, It is taken from an ancient manuscript preserved in Drummond castle, and communicated to the public by lady Rotherham:

Monday, A. M.-Rose at four o'clock, and milked the cows with Catharine; Rachel, the other dairy maid, having scalded her hand in so bad a manner the day before.—Made a poultice for Rachel, and gave Robin a penny to get something from the apothecary.

Six o'clock.-The buttock of beef too much boiled, and beer a little of the stalest.

Mem.-To talk with the cook about the first fault, and mend the second myself by tapping a fresh barrel.

Seven o'clock.-Went into the paddock, behind my house, with my maid Dorothy; caught Thump, the little pony, myself, and rode a matter of six miles without saddle or bridle.

Eight o'clock.-Went to walk with the lady, my mother, into the court-yard; fed twenty-five men and women; chid Roger severely for expressing some illwill for attending us with some broken meat.

John

Ten o'clock.-Went to dinner. Grey, a most comely youth; but what is that to me? a virtuous maiden should be entirely under the direction of her parents. John ate but little, and stole many tender looks at me-said women would never be handsome in his opinion who were not good tempered. I hope my temper is not bad, nobody finds fault with it but Roger, and he is the most disorderly man in the family. John Grey likes white teethmy teeth are of a pretty good colour. I think my hair is black as jet; and John, if I mistake not, is of the same opinion.

Eleven o'clock.-Rose from the tablethe company all desirous of walking in the fields.-John Grey would lift me over every stile, and twice squeezed my hand with great vehemence.

I cannot say that I should have any objection to John Grey; he plays at prisonbars as well as any of the country gentlemen; is remarkably dutiful to his parents, my lord and lady; and never misses church on Sunday.

Three o'clock.-Poor farmer Robinson's house burnt down by accidental fire. John Grey proposed a subscription among the company, for the relief of the farmer,

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WEEKLY CALENDAR.

and gave no less than four pounds with this benevolent intent.

Mem.-Never saw him look so comely as at that moment.

Four o'clock.-Went to prayers. Six o'clock.-Fed the hogs and poultry. Seven o'clock. Supper on table, delayed till that hour on account of farmer Robinson's misfortune.

Mem.-The goose pie too much baked, and pork roasted to rags.

Nine o clock. The company fast asleep: these late hours disagreeable. Said my prayers a second time-John Grey disturbed my thoughts too much the first time. Fell asleep and dreamed of John Grey.

Varieties.

HUMAN TIME PIECE.-The following singular account appears in a recent number of a French work, the Bibliothèque Universelle: J. D. Chevalley, a native of Switzerland, aged 66, has arrived at an astonishing degree of perfection, in reckoning time by an internal movement. In his youth, he was accustomed to pay great attention to the ringing of bells, and vibrations of pendulums, and by degrees, he acquired the power of continuing a succession of intervals exactly equal to those which the vibrations or sounds produced. Being on board the steam-boat on the Lake of Geneva, on July 14, 1823, he engaged to indicate to the crowd about him, the lapse of a quarter of an hour, or as many minutes and seconds as any one chose to name, and this during a conversation the most diversified with those standing by; and, farther, to indicate by the voice, the moment when the hand passed over the quarter minutes, or half minutes, or any other subdivision previously stipulated, during the whole course of the experiment. This he did without mistake, notwithstanding the exertions of those about him to distract his attention, and clapped his hand at the conclusion of the time fixed. His own account of it is thus given "I have acquired by imitation. labour, and patience, a movement which neither thoughts, nor labour, nor any thing can stop. It is similar to that of a pendulum, which at each motion of going and returning, gives me a space of three seconds, so that twenty of them make a minute, and these I add to others continually."

EARLY RISING.-There is no time spent so stupidly as that which inconsiderate people pass in a morning, between sleeping and waking. He who is awake,

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may be at work or at play; he who is asleep, is receiving the refreshment necessary to fit him for action; but the hours spent in dozing and slumbering are wasted, without either pleasure or profit.-The sooner you leave your bed, the seldomer you will be confined to it. When old people have been examined in order to ascertain the cause of their longevity, they have uniformly agreed in one thing only, that they" all went to bed, and all rose early."

Weekly Calendar.

June XXV.-Saturday.

High Water, Morn. VIII. 58m.-Even. IX. 34m. Sun rises, III.43 m.; sets VIII. 17 m.

Bannockburn, fought between the Scots, CHRONOLOGY.-1314. The battle of English, commanded by Edward II. commanded by Robert Bruce, and the

1750.-A man, supposed to be a weaver, fell from the monument, and was terribly

shattered. Two other incidents of the same kind have happened within the last seventy years. July 7, 1788, Thomas from its summit; so did also Mr. Levi, a Craddock, a baker, precipitated himself gentleman of considerable respectability, on the 18th of January, 1810.

June XXVI.-Sunday.

High Water, Morn. X. 10 m.-Even. X. 47 m. Sunday Lessons: Morn. 1 Sam. 12; Luke 9. Even. 1 Sam. 13; Ephesians 3.

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