Her neck alone, in restlessness upraised,

O'ertops the nest in which her brood reposes,
And her bright eye, with weary watching glazed,
Closing to sleep, with every sound uncloses.

Care for her callow young consumes her rest,
My very voice her downy bosom shakes,
And her heart pants beneath its plumy vest,
And the nest trembles with each breath she takes.

What spell enchains her to this gentle care?
Her mate's sweet melody the groves among,
Who, from some branching oak, high poised in air,
Sends down the flowing river of his song.

Hark! dost thou hear him, drop by drop distilling
The sighs that sweetest after transport be,
Then suddenly the vault above us filling

With foaming cataracts of harmony?

What spell enchains him in his turn-what makes
His very being thus in languor melt?
But that his voice a living echo wakes,
His lay within one loving heart is felt.

And ravish'd by the note, his mate still holds
Her watch attentive through the weary time;
The season comes, the bursting shell unfolds,
And life is music all, and love and prime.'

With all the intimacy which subsists between Jocelyn and Laurence, there is yet felt to be a want of entire community between. them: and there is occasionally a warmth, a vehemence in the feelings of Laurence, which almost alarms the religious Jocelyn. The existence of his protégé appears bound up in his. The vague presentiment of some approaching change begins to haunt him, which is indeed speedily realized; for, on returning to the cave after a storm, he finds it deserted; he sallies forth in despair to seek his companion, whom, after a long search, he finds at the bottom of a ravine, wounded and insensible. He carries him home, places him on his couch, and, uncovering his breast to dress his wounds, he finds that the companion of his solitude is

-a woman.

Love, amidst struggles which are described with all the author's usual fullness of exposition, takes place between the pair as a matter of course; indeed, in the breast of Laurence, it had existed long before. Jocelyn, the intended priest, is involved in a labyrinth of mental perplexity. His struggles are brought to a crisis by a summons secretly brought to him to attend the dying scene of the Bishop of Grenoble, who is about to close his career like his brethren, and to seal his faith on the scaffold. He goes, waver

ing between love and the sense of duty; he pleads his case to the bishop, who sternly rebukes him for his weakness-threatens him with the vengeance of heaven and his own curse, if he be false to the great destiny to which he had devoted himself, and insists on his receiving consecration at his hands. Scarcely conscious of what he does, Jocelyn submits, and he returns to the Grotte des Aigles a consecrated priest.

All ties are now severed between him and the object of his attachment. After a scene of violent excitement, she leaves the cave, never to return to it again alive; and Jocelyn enters on the laborious and humble duties of his Christian profession. Years pass in these occupations, but the recollection of his first feeling remains ineffaceable. He is destined to behold Laurence once again. Duty brings him to Paris, and he sees her the object of admiration to giddy and admiring lovers. She had been married against her wishes, and unhappily;-had become a widow at twenty, and is now indemnifying herself for her days of early suffering in a round of dissipation and idle coquetry. Shocked and overpowered by the sight, Jocelyn hurries from Paris to seek once more the shelter of his mountains, the salutary and consoling influence of religion, and of the active duties which, in his lonely residence, are imposed on him.

Some time afterwards he is summoned to attend the funeral couch of a female who is expiring at a neighbouring village on her road to Italy.

'We write not for that simple maid
To whom it must in terms be said'

that the patient is Laurence. The pastor goes; hears her story; reveals himself; receives her last breath-and her will-under which he finds himself to be the sole inheritor.

He brings the body to the cave which had sheltered them in youth; and here again is a scene of description of a gloomy kind, which, though containing nothing of any great originality, is pleasing. Jocelyn finds that the winter snows and summer suns have effaced all trace of himself and his companion from the neighbourhood.

Wild vegetation, like a sea of green,

O'ermantling all with crawling waves was seen :
Tall weeds and briers every step o'ergrew,
The grass trod, no more my footstep knew,
The leaves that in the lake had found a grave
Sail'd with the wind along its sluggish wave;
No object on its tarnish'd mirror shone,
And yellow on the brink the foam had grown;

The oaks that with their roots our cave had shaded
Were now but mournful ruins, fallen and faded.
Their trunks now low on earth were black and dead,
The lizard on their very hearts had fed,
One only stood erect, through tempest-riven,
Stretching its dark and leafless arms to Heaven,
Like posts, in winter planted, tall and black,

To' o'ertop the snow and point the traveller's track.'

Here, beside the bones of her father, the body of Laurence is placed; and here too, some years afterwards, the compassionate villagers, to whom his story has become known, place the remains of Jocelyn himself. The poem closes with these lines, supposed to be written by that botanical friend who had been accustomed to visit the pastor in his lonely retreat, and by whom the scattered fragments of his journal are supposed to be collected in their present form.

Depuis ce jour, au mois où l'on coupe les seigles,
Je monte tous les ans la montagne des Aigles,
Et de mon pauvre ami le récit à la main
De la grotte en lisant je refais le chemin,
Du drame de ses jours j'explore le théatre.
Et j'y trouve souvent son vieil ami, le pâtre,
Qui, laissant ruminer à l'ombre son troupeau,
Rêve des deux amans assis sur leur tombeau;
Car, malgré le mystère et malgré la distance,
Jocelyn dort aussi près du corps de Laurence:
Lorsque dans la montagne on sut par mes discours
Le secret divulgué de ces saintes amours
Les pauvres paroissiens, par pitié pour son âme,
Rapportèrent sa cendre au tombeau de la Dame,
Et depuis sept printemps, ils sont couchés tous trois
Aux lieux qu'ils ont aimés, et sous la même croix.'

That such a story as this should be not an invention, but presque un récit,' seems to us passing strange; but sure we are, that, if true, Lamartine, has by no means contrived to render it probable. Some of his French crities have gone the length of saying, that its air of truthfulness in its pictures of the solitary life in the cave actually reminded them of similar scenes in Robinson Crusoe. Now we think no recollection could be more unfortunate. The English novelist has by the vividness, the simplicity, the inartificial nature of his details, certainly imparted an air of reality, never before attained, to a pure creation of imagination: the French poet, dealing with what he tells us is a reality, has wrapped it in such a haze of fine words and splendid sentiment, whilst he has been at so little pains to

divest it of difficulties and objections, that no one could even for a moment look upon it as any thing else than a canvass for the display of the author's pictorial skill. In conclusion, we think the best advice we can give M. Lamartine, is to drop the notion of his great Epic,-to select some other episode a little nearer to real life and the actual interests of humanity,-to endeavour for a time to sink' the ideal and treat his subject with simplicity, and at the same time to try to attain a little more clearness of thought and sequence of ideas-instead of throwing out every idea as it arises from his brain, certainly not 'full armed' in the most appropriate words, but, on the contrary, too often wrapt in a flimsy raiment of metaphorical patchwork, or amplified beyond all due bounds by a stiff vestment of words- -a world too wide for the thought it covers.

ART. IX.

Principles of Political Economy considered with a view to their Practical Application. By the Rev. T. R. MALTHUS, F.R.S. Second Edition. To which is prefixed a Memoir of the Author's Life. 8vo. London : 1836.

R

MALTHUS first published his ‘Principles of Political EcoMnomy' in the year 1820. The book was soon out of print:

and, although he continued to occupy himself more or less with its revision, the present volume was left a posthumous, and, in some degree, an unfinished work. On comparing the two editions together, the difference in their contents does not appear considerable enough to account for the number of years interposed between them. The two first chapters indeed are entirely rewritten; and a great variety of fresh matter is every where introduced. But there is no change in the principles, except in the assumption that labour is a constant measure of value, and of this he had given the public notice as far back as 1823. The arguments, on which this new proposition was grounded, are, we think, the least satisfactory part of all Mr Malthus's writings. This is to be attributed mostly to the subject itself, and partly to his mode of viewing it. It certainly arose by no means from want of attaching sufficient importance to it, or of taking sufficient pains about it as all his friends, learned and unlearned, can bear witness. Until some permanent measure of value had been agreed upon, Mr Malthus considered that the very corner stone of a great portion of the science of political economy must be necessarily loose. The last letters which he received from Mr Ricardo contain a

masterly criticism on his pamphlet of 1823. The objections stated in them appear to us to be conclusive. Mr Malthus himself frequently observed, that in political economy we must be content for the most part with approximations. And we should reser to the case in question, as an example of the truth of the general observation. There are but few things in life of which we have a perfect measure. Where we have not, we shall only aggravate our disadvantages by acting or reasoning as if we had.

Mr Ricardo and Mr Malthus lived together on the most friendly terms. Although, whenever they met or wrote, they appeared to meet, and write only to discuss their differences, yet their friendship never suffered the slightest diminution on that account. On the contrary, like emulous alchymists, working by different processes, they found equal pleasure and profit in throwing their materials into each other's crucible; while their hearts were gradually and firmly knit by the discovery of those moral excellencies, which professed searchers after controverted truths are unfortunately seen to have more frequent opportunity than disposition to display. We have no intention of reviving, on this occasion, the discussion of the questions on which these eminent writers were at issue. But it may be of use to coarser natures to see a specimen or two of the manner in which great minds can differ and communicate their differences. On the original publication of the Principles of Political Economy,' Mr Ricardo wrote as follows :—

'I have read your book with great attention. Ineed not say that there are many parts of it in which I quite agree with you. I am particularly pleased with your observations on the state of the poor-it cannot be too often stated to them, that the most effectual remely for the inadequacy of their wages is in their own hands. I wish you could succeed in ridding us of all the obstacles to the better system which might be established. I am sure I do not undervalue the importance of improvements in agriculture to landlords, though I may not have stated it so strongly as I ought to have done. You appear to me to overvalue them. 1 differ as much as I ever have done with you, in vour chapter on the effects of the accumulation of capital.'-(Letter, May 4). 'I have been reading your book a second time with great attention, but my difference with you remains as firmly rooted as ever. Some of the objections you make to me are merely verbal; no principle is involved in them. The great and leading point in which I think you fundamentally wrong is, that which Say has attacked in his Letters. On this I feel no sort of doubt.'-(Sept. 4.) I am quite sure that you are the last man who would mistate an adversary knowingly; yet I find in your book some allusion to opinions which you represent as mine, and which I do not really hold. In one or two cases you, I think. furnish the proof that you have misapprehended me; for you represent my doctrine one way in one place, and another way in another. After all, the difference between us does not depend on these points, and they are very secondary