making due allowance for its being an allegory, he gives so much the impression of reality, or whether his strange forms, irontoothed dragons, and lighted castles seem to us mere things of air; if we would be filled with poetry in all its nativeness, and beauty, simplicity, richness, gorgeousness, we must study Spenser. Not to speak profanely, the Faerie Queene should be to the poet what his Bible is to the Christian. How carefully did Milton read Spenser! Compare the description of Sin with that of Error, and the voyage of Satan through Chaos with that of Guyon. How many, too, of his words and phrases, which are ever sounding in our ears and filling our hearts and minds with undefinable sensations and fair images, may be followed home to this work!

"And not only has Spenser been the store-house of poetic language to our poets. For nothing is he more remarkable than for his unceasing action, his exhaustless productiveness and variety, -motion upon motion, change upon change! You pass on from one scene to another, perpetual diversity keeping off fatigue, quitting the wild and gloomy for the cheerful and quiet, the large and desolate for little sunny nooks; from the close, shady forest you come out all of a sudden upon the bright, broad sea and open shore, and at every turn in the wood fall upon some new adventure, and meet some stranger face to face. You are in absolute wonderment that the earth should be so populous! And with what facility all this comes about.! Every thing happens, — nothing is made to take place. Let any one lay down the Faerie Queene, and, as well as he may, go through in order in memory with the different places, persons, and events, from the beginning to the end, and if their countless multitude and contrasting characters do not leave him in wonder and admiration at the intense life and prodigal productiveness of this old poet, it must be because wonder and admiration are states unknown to his mind. Is it too much to ask, whether, in these respects, Spenser has had a superior in any age or land?

That Mr. Hazlitt should bring the description of Lechery against Mr. Southey's character of Spenser

'Yet not more sweet

Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise;
High-priest of all the Muses' mysteries!'.

can be accounted for only on the score of a sort of fatality which he labors under of attacking whatever comes from the so-called Lake School. No doubt there are passages in Spenser, which, taken apart, might put toys into young imaginations. But we should think that there was little harm remaining to be done to that mind that could read them in connection with the rest, and having in view their intent, yet find in them only incitements to loose thoughts. Some of the objects met with on the way to the

1850.]

Mr. Dana's Genius.

265

Bowre of Blis, which, had they come from a less pure mind, might have worked evil, partake so much of that abstract sense of beauty, in which Spenser's mind seems so exquisite, that they do not affect us so much like creatures of flesh and blood, as like fine transparencies or forms beautifully pictured within the poem. Spenser is indeed the Palmer who will carry us safely through all such dangers, if we are not lost through a headlong desire for our own wreck: the spirit of Sir Guyon in us, and we need not fear stranding."- pp. 170-177.

The essays in the second volume on Old Times, The Past and Present, and Law as suited to Man, are among the best evidences which Mr. Dana has given of the philosophical capacity of his mind. They are good illustrations of the difference between principles and propositions, the author's imagination and sentiment, as well as his understanding, being active throughout. They are characterized by the intensest spirit of meditation, and a calm, strong grasp, and close application, of principles. The introspective and retrospective elements of his nature, however, appear in these essays in their most refined operation. The past is subtly identified with its ideals, the present is criticized in the light of those ideals, and tested by their most exacting requirements. The result is a kind of despair for the present, and a lack of hopefulness in surveying the future. Democracy, especially, has little justice done to it. But still the most besetting sins and dangers of the country are exhibited in an original and forcible manner, without any appeal to the controversial passions, and the essays leave a profound impression of the author's depth of nature.

From the exceedingly complex character of Mr. Dana's genius, we have been able, in these hasty observations, to give but an imperfect exhibition of that peculiar combination of mental and moral qualities which constitutes the life of his writings. The best criticism on the present volumes is that which most strongly directs the public attention to them, for they cannot be read without mental and spiritual improvement; and we trust that their circulation will be large enough to give a flattering idea of the estimate placed in the United States upon great and rare powers devoted to high purposes.

VOL. XLVIII. -4TH S. VOL. XIII. NO. II.

E. P. W.

23

ALTHOUGH, throughout Christendom, there is a portion of the people designated as belonging to the middle classes, there would, doubtless, be very different definitions of this term given by different persons, and in the different countries where it is applied. Perhaps the simplest and most correct one is that which describes the middle classes as composed of those persons who possess a capital, either in money's worth or education, but are yet obliged to work for their maintenance. This body is distinguished from the aristocratic or privileged class, which lives, or can live, upon income from capital, without work, and from the laboring class, strictly speaking, which subsists by daily labor, and possesses little or no capital.

If, with this definition of the middle classes in our minds, we take a glance at the different countries of Christendom, the first thing that strikes us is the immense difference in the condition of these countries, as to the proportion of the classes described to the whole population. Upon a second glance, it seems that this difference bears some proportion, or at least some relation, to the amount of freedom enjoyed in these countries; using the word in the sense of freedom from restraint in the labormarket, or open competition to the workers, whether with the head or the hand. Although this would appear to be the general rule, there are various discrepancies and anomalies discernible in the working of it, which are quite curious. In England, for instance, it is generally, and probably truly, thought, that the middle classes have gained a great accession of power within twenty years; and yet it is very doubtful whether (taking our definition) they have increased in number, during that time, proportionably to the whole population. The returns of 1831 show in Great Britain a body of small landholders, amounting to 355,890 persons, and a body of laborers employed on the land, numbering 887,167,-making together 1,243,057 men, twenty years of age and upwards, employed in agriculture, out of a population of that description of 3,944,511.

A large proportion of this class of small "occupiers”

1850.] The Middle Classes in Great Britain.

267

had disappeared in 1841, owing to the system of the extension of great estates; and the individuals composing it had fallen into the ranks of laborers, or turned to other occupations. In the latter year, 1841, out of 4,761,091 men of twenty years of age and upwards in Great Britain, only 274,305 are put down as comprised in the list of "farmers, graziers, surveyors, nursery-men, and florists," and 923,851 as men employed on wages in cultivating the soil; making only 1,198,156 men of age employed on the land;- which is less than the number so employed in 1831, although the population had meanwhile increased very much.

Owing to the different mode of making the returns of 1831 and 1841, it is difficult to ascertain what the real progress of the middle classes in numbers, if any, has been; but the results shown are so curious and significant, that we shall pause a moment to examine them.

It will be seen, by reference to these two tables, taken from an elaborate work, by G. R. Porter, published in 1847, that, if the men of capital and education be added to the occupiers of land in 1831, we have a population of 570,280 men, of twenty years of age and upwards, who clearly come within the line of the middle and upper classes, without counting any employed in the retail trade and handicrafts; whereas, in 1841, we get, by adding together the educated and wealthy classes, and all those employed on the land not on wages, including graziers, farmers, &c., only 608,641 men, out of a grown male population nearly one million larger than that of 1831; showing a proportionate falling off in the numbers of these classes. How many of those figuring in 1831 as employed in "retail trade and handicraft," and of those appearing in 1841 as engaged in trade and manufactures, would come into the middle classes, we cannot determine; but we have no reason to suppose that the proportions would vary, in those different years, in such a manner as to compensate for the loss of the occupiers of land who have been degraded into the class of hirelings. On the other hand, the proportionate increase of those who depend upon employers is strikingly shown in the class of domestic servants, which, it would seem by the returns, has more than doubled, among the men over twenty years of age, during the ten years. This increase is so enormous, as to make it probable, that the returns of 1841 include a portion of the farm-servants under the head of domestics. However, the most striking fact shown by these tables is, that, although the agricultural population in 1831 was considerably less than that employed in trade and manufactures, it has been diminishing rapidly since; so that, in 1841, there were, of males over twenty years of age,

only 25.2 employed in agriculture,

to

44.6 employed in trade and manufactures,

and 30.2 employed otherwise, or not employed at all.

100.0

Of these last, as we have seen, a large share was in domestic service, and nearly twice as many remained unclassed; being a body of 324,670 full-grown men, who were neither laborers, nor servants, nor alms-people; in