"soft flowing Avon," which in this place, owing to a fall of two or three feet, differed in some degree from its usual placid appearance. It was no longer smooth, glassy, dark from depth, and reflecting, in motionless beauty, the willows, rushes, and noble oaks, that ornamented its banks. On the contrary, it was agitated and broken into whirls and eddies, until it nearly reached the house, about 400 yards off, where it resumed its mirror-like surface, and glided along" at its own sweet will," without a ripple, like the current of time stealing silently into eternity. Under the shade of some lofty trees, in a line with the front of the house from which I was separated by the river that almost washed the walls, I flung myself on the grass in pure idleness to enjoy the picture. No breeze stirred a leaf; a few white clouds were floating on the blue sky. Men like Dr. Johnson, or a citizen of Cheapside, might have preferred the filth of Fleet-street, or the exhalations of Smithfield, but to me the first few minutes in that situation were worth all London, or a dozen Londons. The mind in similar cases becomes intoxicated with delight, and for a time loses all power of forming definite ideas: it quaffs largely of the delicious draught which it does not taste until the first cravings of its thirst are satisfied. It is this intoxication of feeling-this excess of delight and admiration, that has disappointed the expectations of many in the effect produced upon genius by the view of a soul-stirring scene. Burns was once conducted to a cataract of great grandeur, which he surveyed in silent wonder. He did not write verses upon it, as his friends expected he would do, for he was overpowered by the scene; to have done so, he must have reflected; he could not, like a painter, do his work on the spot by the use of his eyes and hands. The mind was powerless, as to composition, being confused with admiration. No man can write his feelings at such moments; there must be an interval for reaction, that imagination may act and embody its ideas with order and symmetry.

The house was broken into angles; a part was erected upon arches, which were continued terrace-fashion beyond it on one side, and were covered with fine turf. A chapel with an antique tower of grey stone stood on the opposite side; the whole was backed with lofty trees and dense but varied foliage, rising "shade above shade," and reflected darkly in the water. A shrubbery and garden were situated close to the building; and at a little distance, surrounded by trees, was a green enclosure, in which a few sheep were feeding. Several swans floated proudly along the smooth part of the river, leaving in their track, on the dark water, a long stream of "dewy light."The fall near the mill threw its foam sparkling in the rays of the setting sun. Willows and limes were quivering in reflection among the agitated water, while the shore on which the house stood was wrapped in that deep warm hue which distinguishes the shade at the hour of sunset. Re tracing my steps across the Avon, I entered the shrubbery by a door in a low wall, which I found open, and soon reached the back part of the house, or what some might call the back front, looking down on an avenue of lofty fir and cedar trees towards the turnpike road, from which a stranger could have had no idea of the scenery next the water. The tout ensemble forcibly recalled the truly English picture of a pleasure-ground drawn by Sir P. Sidney in his Arcadia; though when he wrote it is to be presumed, that the ancient stiff unnatural style of gare

dening was in full vogue. "The back side of the house was neither field nor garden, nor orchard; or rather, it was both field, garden, and orchard; for as soone as the descending of the staires had delivered them downe, they came into a place cunningly set with trees of the most taste-pleasing fruits; but scarcely they had taken that into their consideration, but they were sodainely stept into a delicate greene; of each side of the greene a thicket, and behind the thickets againe new beds of flowers, which being under, the trees were to them a pavilion, and they to the trees a mosaicall floore. So that it seemed that arte therein would needs be delightfull, by counterfeiting his enemie errour, and making order in confusion. In the middest of all the place was a faire pond, whose shaking chrystall was a perfect mirror to all the other beauties, so that it bare show of two gardens-one in deed, the other in shadows."

After walking over the shrubbery, brimful of delight, as I found myself, I could not help returning to the spot from whence I had first seen the house, which became enveloped in deeper shade as the twilight advanced. The hollow bleating of cattle came sullenly upon the ear at intervals, from the meadows and moors that lay northward along the banks of the river. These, and the sound of the gently dashing water, were all that disturbed the stillness: for no voice was heard. The bat too flitted across the shade, beneath the close and lofty trees, impatient for a darker hour. Several ladies came out of the house, and moving along among the trees and shrubs, disappeared behind the clumps of foliage, their white dresses rendering them indistinctly visible amid the gloom. It was one of those moments when a "pleasing fit of melancholy" comes over the mind, and we begin to recall "bygone" times and forms of those we once loved and reverenced that now live no more. I drew out my watch instinctively; its former possessor was in the grave. I gazed upon the monitor of time, and could not help reflecting of how little account in duration is the existence of a mortal, when even its most trifling appendages outlive it. I thought too upon her who gave me being, and almost fancied that she stood before me, smiling with all a mother's tenderness. I thought too

-but here I must talk no more of my reverie.

The charm of English scenery is predominant at Guy's Cliff; poor indeed is the pomp of palaces to such a retreat. The air of antiquity about it is, however, less impressive than around some buildings of a more recent date. But all the accompaniments of our best rural beauty are there-foaming water, and that which is dark and still; thick shades; a total exclusion of foreign objects;* depth of green colour in the verdure; the gothic tower; the inartificial appearance of every thing; the idea of seclusion and comfort, all that is truly English in character. There, indeed, one might expect to find a "Cynosure of neighbouring eyes;" for where is beauty so interesting as in such a retreat?-surely not in

Mixt dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball." Amid such scenery the heart is always on the lips, and female loveli

Except Blacklow Hill close by, on which an inscription records, that Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, was beheaded in 1311, and which adds greatly to the interest of the view.

Re

ness, so "imparadised," allures in its most bewitching manner. tirements like these are gems studding the green face of our island; and while other lands may boast of finer cities, more splendid temples, and palaces far nobler than ours, we outshine the world in the graceful, virtuous, comfortable character of our sequestered villas and country scenery.

V.

PLACE ON POPULATION.*

the

ONE of the most important of the questions which now occupy attention of all who interest themselves in the improvement and happiness of the human race, is the subject of population. Whether the human species has, or has not, a tendency to multiply faster than the means of subsistence will allow; and whether, in consequence of this superior rapidity, the population has not become so numerous, in most countries, as to press closely upon the means of subsistence, has formed an object of frequent inquiry. About the beginning of this century, however, the circumstances calculated to elucidate the subject were more thoroughly collected, and the result presented to the public, by Mr. Malthus, in his "Essay on Population." The principle of increase was there so ably supported, and so fairly reasoned upon, that the thinking part of the community became pretty generally impressed with the justness of Mr. Malthus's views; and among those who con curred in them, no one could do so more heartily than Mr. Godwin. This gentleman has, however, thought fit to alter his sentiments with regard to the principle of increase, and has now written and published a work expressly designed to controvert the doctrine he formerly upheld. As his present views of the subject are likely to prove more palatable and agreeable to the mass of readers than such as go to restrain individual freedom of conduct, it is exceedingly to be desired that the arguments of the two opposing parties should be arrayed and compared by a third, and the value and soundness of each calculation respectively certified.

This process has, we are glad to find, been performed in a satisfactory manner, by Mr. Place, who has likewise superadded various documents, and ascertained a number of facts bearing upon the question in dispute, which materially tend to account for the discrepancy between Mr. G. and Mr. M.'s statements. Although Mr. Godwin enforced by his own pen the arguments of Mr. Malthus, three years subsequently to the appearance of the " Essay on Population; he now enters the lists as a determined opponent of them, without accounting in any way for his change of opinion; the unlicensed terms of contempt and insolent derision with which Mr. Godwin treats his departed sentiments, being the only evidence his present work contains of his having formerly harboured them. No one who simply differed from a set of opinions could entertain so virulent an animosity against the holders, as the consciousness of desertion without assignable grounds invariably inspires.

Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population; including an examination of the proposed remedies of Mr. Malthus, and a Reply to the objections of Mr. Godwin and others. By Francis Place. 8vo. pp. 280.

Reply to Dr. Parr, Mr. M'Intosh, &c. pp. 57, 58.

The contested point between the two is, whether or not the human race has a tendency to increase its numbers faster than food can be provided for them.

Mr. Malthus adduces, as the main bulwark of his theory, the rapidity with which the population of the United States of America has multiplied during the last two centuries. In 1610, the first beginning of any thing like a permanent or successful settlement was made there, and in 1810 the American census proved the population to amount to 7,239,903.

This affords ample grounds for believing that the numbers have increased at a prodigious rate, and Mr. Malthus affirms that they have repeatedly doubled in 25 years.* Mr. Godwin, on the contrary, maintains that no such tendency to increase by procreation exists; in support of which denial he says, that this power of doubling has never been exhibited in any country of Europe; that, so far from it, every nation on the face of the earth has in vain endeavoured to add to its population; that ancient rulers laboured to encourage the people to multiply, without success; and that, by actual proofs of the state of the population in Sweden, derived from the regular returns, registers, and methodical accounts of that kingdom, no such ratio of increase takes place there, and consequently that no such ratio of increase can take place in any other country.

This most unconsequential and dogmatical assumption Mr. Place has endeavoured to demolish by a complete examination of the facts which Mr. Godwin has adduced. On the inferences that he is pleased to draw, and the latitude of calculation wherein he indulges, no labour has been wasted here; Mr. Place's object being chiefly to elucidate the matter in dispute. The logical merit of the "Enquiry" is acutely and amusingly displayed in another place, in a little pamphlet entitled "Remarks on Mr. Godwin's Enquiry, 1821," by an anonymous author.

The Tables of Sweden are the text-book whence all Mr. Godwin's speculations are derived. They are, according to him, the only authentic documents existing which convey any knowledge respecting population, which is to be determined solely by them throughout the whole world: no difference of circumstances whatever is to be admitted as deranging their infallibility; and where the particulars they furnish are at all incomplete, Mr. Godwin's gratuitous and accommodating assumptions supply the deficiency. These tables show that the additions annually made to the Swedish population are in the proportion of 4 children to a marriage; that one woman out of five persons is a marriageable woman; and that nearly half the number born die in their non-age.

Now it is allowed by Mr. Godwin, that, upon this evidence the population of Sweden is found to have increased one half in the period of 54 years. But such an increase must not be deemed possible in other countries, unless the circumstances favourable to population be shown to prevail there to the same extent as in Sweden; which he pronounces

* For authorities see Mr. Malthus's Letter to Mr. Godwin, inserted in Mr. Godwin's Enquiry, p. 122.

Through the one-eighth over and above the number requisite to replace themselves, which, spread over three millions, produces the increase admitted

"in every respect as favourable to the experiment as we could desire." (p. 187.)

Mr. Place enters into these "advantageous circumstances," and shows the total absurdity of ascribing any one to the case of Sweden: its soil, climate, and government being in the highest degree obstructive to the multiplication of its inhabitants. This part of the subject occupies some pages of Mr. Place's book, who, in a convincing style, demonstrates that under these impeding circumstances fewer are born, and more die in childhood, than would do so in different circumstances. The wretched condition of the mass of the people for want of adequate means of subsistence the degraded and servile offices to which the women are subjected, the oppression exercised by the nobles, the occurrence of ruinous wars, and occasional famines: all these combine to render Sweden as little likely to afford facilities to increase as any country in the known world. Yet Mr. Godwin holds it up as presenting an epitome of all advantages.

The tables do not specify at what age the women of Sweden commonly marry, nor what proportion of them. This difficulty Mr. Godwin is good enough to solve by taking it for granted that all women, or very nearly all, marry, and that at twenty years of age. This, together with the wish on the part of the government that the people should multiply, amounts to a positive proof that as many are born as could be born from the same proportion of marriageable women in any other country. The means of subsistence do not constitute a necessary concomitant to either woman or child's life, it would seem; since the increase of population depends on causes perfectly distinct from this consideration.

Mr. Place proceeds to point out in what respects the United States affords facilities to increase beyond that of Sweden, and which he recapitulates thus:

"The United States of America are happily free from all the most material evils, whether of government or climate, which afflict Sweden, and inevitably tend to the destruction of human life in its early stages. The poverty too, which must deter numbers from marrying in Sweden, and cannot fail to delay the period of marriage generally, may hardly be said to operate at all in any part of the United States. In the one country, a family, if it be not a curse, is a very heavy burden; in the other it is an actual blessing."-P. 92.

The proportion of females between sixteen and forty-five years of age to the whole population, is, in America, about seventeen in the hundred. In Sweden, twenty-two in the hundred. On the other hand, the proportion of children under sixteen to the whole population, is, in America, about fifty in the hundred; whilst in Sweden it was (in 1805) only thirty-six in the hundred. Consequently there must be a greater number of children born and reared to a marriage in America, than to one in Sweden.

Mr. Godwin admits that the children under sixteen constitute half the population of America. In defiance of which admission he insists that no greater number are born to a marriage than in Europe;* and as he has Dr. Franklin's authority for saying, that "half the born must

That is to say, in Sweden; for no other country is allowed to be taken as evidence on the question.