if %M ffij* f < fefT^ * ^. w imss %^i Cornell University Library PR 4534.L8 1859 The logic of political economy, and othe 3 1924 013 470 616 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013470616 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY OTHER PAPERS. THOMAS DE QUINCEY, AUTHOR OF " CONFESSIOXS OF A2T ENGLISH OPIUM- EATEK," ETC. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. II DCCC MX. ^7 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. FEOM THE AUTHOR, TO THE AMERICAN EDITOR OP HIS WORKS. These papers I am anxious to put into the hands of your house, and, so far as regards the United States, of your house exclusively ; not with any view to further emolument, but as an acknowledgment of the services which you have already rendered me ; namely, first, in having brought together so widely scattered a collection, — a difficulty which in my own hands by too painful an experience I had found, from nervous depression, to be absolutely insurmountable ; secondly, in having made me a participator in the pecuniary profits of the American edition, without solicitation or the shadow of any expectation on my part, — without any legal claim that I could plead, or equitable warrant in established usage, — ■ solely and merely upon your own spontaneous motion. Some of these new papers, I hope, will not be without their value in the eyes of those who have taken an interest in the original series. But at all events, good or bad, they are now tendered to the appro- priation of your individual house, the Messes. Ticknor and Fields, according to the amplest extent of any power to make such a transfer that I may be found to possess by law or custom in America. I wish this transfer were likely to be of more value. But the veriest trifle, interpreted by the spirit in which I offer it, may express my sense of the liberality manifested throughout this transaction by your honorable house. Ever believe me, my dear sir, Your faithful and obliged, THOMAS DE QUINCEY. CONTENTS. PAGE Thk Logic of Political Economy .... 5 Life or Milton 221 The Suliotes • . 256 The Fatal Marksman 271 The Incognito ; or, Count Fitz-Hum . . 305 The Dice 324 The King or Hayti 357 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. PREFATORY. That the reader may not seek in this little work anything other or more than was designed, I will briefly state its primary object. Political Economy does not advance. Since the revo- lution effected in that science by Bicardo (1817), upon the whole it has been stationary. But why ? It has always been my own conviction that the reason lies, not in any material defect of facts (except as to the single question of money), but in the laxity of some amongst the distinctions which are elemen- tary to the science. For example, that one desperate enormity of vicious logic, which takes place in the ordinary application to price of the relation between supply, and demand, has ruined more arguments dispersed through speeches, books, journals, than a long life could fully expose. Let us judge by analogy drawn from mathematics. If it were possible that but three elementary definitions, or axioms, or postulates, in geom- etry, should be liable to controversy and to a precarious use (a use dependent upon petition and momentary consent), what would follow? Simply this, — that the whole vast aerial syn- thesis of that science, at present towering upwards towards infinity, would exhibit an edifice eternally, perhaps, renewing itself by parts, but eternally tottering in some parts, and in other parts mouldering eternally into ruins. That science, 1* b THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. which now holds "acquaintance with the stars" by means of its inevitable and imperishable truth, would become as treach- erous as Shakespeare's " stairs of sand " : or, like the fantastic architecture which the winds are everlastingly pursuing in the Arabian desert, would exhibit phantom arrays of fleeting col- umns and fluctuating edifices, which, under the very breath that had created them, would be for ever collapsing into dust. Such, even to this moment, as regards its practical applications, is the science of Political Economy. Nothing can be postulated, — nothing can be demonstrated ; for anarchy, even as to the earliest principles, is predominant. Under this conviction, about twenty-two years ago, I sketched a fragment of this science, entitled " The Templar's Dialogues." The purpose of this fragment was, to draw into much stronger relief than Kicardo himself had done that one radical doctrine as to value, by which he had given a new birth to Political Economy. My little sketch had the merit of drawing from an author, to this day anonymous, the " Critical Dissertation upon Value." Nat- urally, it is gratifying to have called forth, whether in alliance or in opposition, so much of ingenuity and of logical acuteness. But, with all his ability, that writer failed to shake any of my opinions. I continue to hold my original ideas on the various aspects of this embarrassing doctrine ; and I continue to believe that a much severer investigation of this doctrine is indispen- sable at the outset. In prosecution of that belief, I now go on, without again travelling over the ground which possibly I had won in " The Templar's Dialogues," to investigate some further perplexities in the general doctrine of value, and particularly such as these which I now specify, in the view of intercepting any misdirected expectations as to the nature of the book. 1. With respect to what is called value in use, I endeavor to expose the total misapprehension, by Adam Smith, of the word " use,'' as though any opposition were here indicated between the useful and the ornamental or pleasurable. Not what is use- ful, but what is used, here forms the nodus of the antithesis, and regulates conformably the mode of appreciation. 2. With respect to the same term, value in use, I endeavor to establish another distinction as against another perplexity much THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 7 more important. We sit on a summer day by the side of a brook, and, being thirsty, drink from its waters. Now, this bev- erage has confessedly a value in use ; but, in England, it is so far from bearing a value in exchange, that such a case expresses the very abnegation and antithesis of exchange value. On the other hand, there is by possibility a very different value in use ; there is such a value (that is, a value determined altogether and simply on the scale of uses or teleologic aptitudes) arising under circumstances which will not range it against exchange value as its polar antithesis, but will range it under exchange value as one of its two modes. In the first acceptation, value in use is made co-ordinate with exchange value, — -ranges over against it, as its adequate contradiction ; in the second accep- tation, value in use is made subordinate to exchange value, as one of its two modifications. Here lies a source of confusion which never has been exposed, and which, at the very vesti- bule, has hitherto defeated all attempt at a systematic theory of value. 3. I endeavor to expose the confusion between "market value" as a fact, and "market value" as a law. The term " market value," in popular use, expresses only a barren fact, — the value of an article, for instance, in Liverpool as opposed to Glasgow ; to-day as opposed to yesterday. It means no more than existing value as opposed to value past or future ; actual value as opposed to possible value. But, in the technical use, " market value " points to no idle matter of fact, (idle, I mean, because uninfluential on the price,) but it points to a law modi- fying the price, and derived from the market. In this use the term " market " does not indicate the mere ubi or the quando of the sale ; but is a short-hand expression for the relation be- tween the quantity offered for sale and the quantity demanded. That is certainly a distinction old enough to be clearly appre- hended ; and often it is clearly apprehended. Yet also, in the practical use, too often it is utterly misapplied. Even by those who parade the distinction in their theoretical statements, even by him who introduced this distinction, — lastly, even by that Bicardo who favors us with a separate chapter on this distinc- tion, practically the two senses contemplated by the distinction 8 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. are confounded, inferences being derived from one sense which apply only to the other. 4. I endeavor to expose the metaphysical confusion involved in " market value," when it is supposed by possibility to consti- tute an original value. This is an error which has led to worse consequences than any of the others here noticed. People fancy that the relation of Supply to Demand could by possibil- ity — and that in fact it often does — determine separately per se the selling price of an article. Within a few months, this monstrous idea has been assumed for true by Colonel Torrens, in an express work on Economic Politics ; by Lord Brougham, in relation to the foreign corn-trade ; and by almost every jour- nal in the land that has fallen under my own eye. But it is a metaphysical impossibility that Supply and Demand, the rela- tion of which is briefly expressed by the term " market value," could ever affect price except by a secondary force. Always there must be a modificdbile (i. e. an antecedent price, arising from some other cause) before any modification from Supply against Demand can take effect. Consequently, whilst '■'■natural price" (the contradiction of "market price") is always a mono- nomial, price, founded on the relation of Supply to Demand, must always be a binomial. The latter chapters, as a sort of praxis on the law of value applied to the leading doctrines of Bicardo, were added for the sake of the student in Political Economy. They are not abso- lutely required ; but they may have a use in tracing the descent of a pure theory — into consequences connected on the one side with theory, and on the other side with practice. February 8, 1844. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. CHAPTER I. VALUE. SECTION I. — VALUE IN THE GENERIC SENSE. That natural distinction, which takes place from the very beginnings of society, between value as founded upon some serviceable quality in an object too largely diffused to confer any power of purchasing other objects, and value as founded upon some similar quality in an object so limited as to become property, and thus having a power to purchase other objects, has long been familiar to the public ear under the antithetic expressions of " value in use " and " value in exchange'' Who first noticed pointedly a distinction which must always obscurely have been moving in the minds of men, it would now be idle to inquire : such an inquiry would too much resemble that Greek question, — " Who first invented sneezing ? " For my own part, the eldest author, in whom I remem- ber to have traced this distinction formally developed, is Plautus, — contemporary with Hannibal. He, in his " Asinaria," has occasion to introduce a lively scene on a question of prompt payment between Argyrippus, a young man then occupied in sowing wild-oats, and Ccelereta, a prudent woman settled in business on her own account. She is in fact a lena, — which name, however did not bear so horrid a construction under Pagan morals as most justly it does under Christian : and, in that professional 10 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. character, she is mistress of a young beauty with whom Argyrippus had celebrated a left-handed marriage some time back, which connection he now seeks to renew upon a second contract. But for this a price is asked of sixty guineas. The question which arises between the parties respects the propriety of the household economy for the present going on upon tick, which Argyrippus views as the sublimest of philosophical discoveries ; whilst the lena violently resists it, as a vile, one-sided policy, patronized by all who happened to be buyers, but rejected universally by sellers. The following is the particular passage which concerns the present distinction between value in use and value in exchange : — " Argyr. Ubi illaec quse dedi ante ? " Geler. Abusa : nam, si ea durarent mihi, Mulier mitteretur ad te : nunquam quicquam poscerem. Diem, aquam, solem, lunam, noctem, — hcec argento non emo : Ccetera, quceque volumus uli, Grmca mercamur fide. Quum a pistore panem petimus, vinum ex osnoplio, Si ces habent, dant mercem : eadem nos disciplina utimur. Semper oculatse nostra; sunt manus, credunt quod vident. Vetus est — nihili cocio est." Arg. What has become of those sums which in times past I gave you ? Cml. All spent, sir, — all consumed ; for, believe me, if those moneys still survived, the young woman should be despatched to your house without another word ; once paid in full, I 'm not the woman that would trouble you for a shilling. Look here : — the successions of day and night, water, sunlight, moonlight, all these things I purchase freely without money ; but that heap of things beside, which my establishment requires, those 1 pay for on the old terms of Grecian credit. 1 When I send for a loaf to the baker's, for wine to the vintner's, certainly the articles are deliv- ered; but when ? Why, as soon as those people have touched the cash. Jfow, that same practice is what I in my turn apply to THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 11 others. My hands have still eyes at their finger-ends: their faith is strong in all money -which actually they see. For- " caution," as you call it — for guaranties — they are nothing : security be d d ; and that 's an old saying. The latter part of the speech wanders off into the dif- ference between the system of prompt payment on the one hand, and of credit on the other. But the part in italics confines itself to the difference between value in use and value in exchange, — between the class of things valuable which could be had for nothing, and that other class of things valuable which must be paid for ; secondly, which must also be paid for on the spot. The former class is a limited class ; the latter so extensive, that she makes no attempt to enumerate the items: she simply selects two, bread and wine, as representative items, — one of which is the more striking, because it represents a necessity already provided for by nature in the gratu- itous article of water. Here, then, already two centuries before the Chris- tian era, in the second or chief Punic war, is the great distinction brought out into broad daylight between the things useful to man which are too multiplied and diffused to be raised into property, and the things useful to man which are not so multiplied and diffused, but which, being hard to obtain, support the owner in demanding a price for them. Many people fancy that these two ideas never are, nor could be, confounded: and some people fancy, amongst whom was Mr. Malthus, that in the intercourse of real life the word value, or valuable, never is employed at all, rightly or not rightly, in the original sense, as implying mere value in use, but that (except amongst affected or pedantic talkers) this word " value " must always indicate some sort of value in exchange. "We never, therefore, according to Mr. Malthus, use or could use such 12 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. a phrase as "a valuable friend," or "a valuable doc- trine.'' It would be impossible to say that " we ascribed great value to any deliberate judgment of such a judge " ; or that " the friendship of a wise elder brother had proved of the highest value to a young man at Cambridge " ; or that "the written opinion, which we had obtained from Mr. Attorney-General, was eminently valuable.'' Liter- ally, it is terrific to find blank assertions made by men of sense so much in defiance of the truth, and on matters of fact lying so entirely within an ordinary experience. Full fifty times in every month must Mr. Maltbus himself have used the word " value " and " valuable " in this very natural sense, which he denounces as a mere visionary sense, suggested by the existing books. Now, to show by a real and a recent case, how possible it is for a sensible man to use the words value or valuable in this original sense, not merely where a pure generic usefulness is con- cerned, but even in cases which must forcibly have point- ed his attention to the other sense (the exchange sense) of the words, — I cite in a note a striking instance of such a use, 2 from this day's paper (the London Standard) for February 27th, 1843. Value in use, therefore, is an idea lurking by possibil- ity under the elliptical term " value " quite as naturally, though not so frequently, as the idea of value in ex- change. And, in any case of perplexity arising out of the term value employed absolutely, it may be well for the reader to examine closely if some such equivocation does not in reality cause the whole demur. One moment's consideration will convince the student that the second form of value — viz. value in exchange — does not ex- clude the first form, — value in use ; for, on the contrary, the second form could not exist without presupposing the first. But, in the inverse case, the logic is different : value THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 13 in use, where it exists antithetically to the other form, not only may but must exclude it. This leads to another capital distinction : — Value in exchange is an idea constructed by superadding to the original element of serviceableness (or value in use) an accessory element of power [howsoever gained] to com- mand an equivalent. It follows, therefore, that the origi- nal element, value in use, may be viewed in two states, — Is*, as totally disengaged from the secondary element; 'idly, as not disengaged from that element, but as necessa- rily combining with it. In the second state we have seen that it takes the name of "value in exchange." What name does it take in the first state, where it is wholly dis- engaged from the power of purchasing? Answer — [and let the reader weigh this well] — it takes the name of " wealth." Mr. Ricardo was the first person who had the sagacity to see, that the idea of wealth was the true polar antagonist to the idea of value in exchange ; and that, without this regulative idea, it is impossible to keep the logic of politi- cal economy true to its duties. This doctrine, so essen- tially novel, he first explained in his celebrated chapter (numbered xviii. in his first edition) which bears for its title, " Value and Riches ; their distinctive Properties." And in the early part of it he remarks most truly, that " many of the errors in political economy have arisen from errors on this subject, from considering an increase of riches and an increase of value as meaning the same thing." But it is singular enough, that even Eicardo did not consciously observe the exact coincidence of riches, under this new limitation of his own, with " value in use." This was an accident likely enough to arise under the absence of any positive occasion for directing his eye to that fact. It was, no doubt, a pure case of inadvertence. 2 14 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. But there is the same sort of danger from holding two ideas radically identical to be different, or in opposition to each other, as there is from confounding two ideas radi- cally opposed. Meantime, no chapter in Ricardo's book (with the single exception of the first) has been so much singled out for attack, or for special admiration, 8 as this particular chapter which rectifies the idea of wealth. Even amongst the leading supporters of Ricardo, it will be seen further on, (in the brief commentary upon this eighteenth chapter,) that some have unconsciously sur- rendered it. Not only have they been unaware of their own revolt, in this particular instance, from that theory which they had professed to adopt; but they have been equally unaware that, simultaneously with the collapse of this doctrine concerning wealth, collapses the entire doc- trine of Ricardo concerning value; and if that basis should ever seriously be shaken, all the rest of Ricardo's system, being purely in the nature of a superstructure, must fall into ruins. These questions, however, with re- spect to the truth of particular doctrines, and their power to resist such assaults as have menaced them, will come forward by degrees, in proportion as their development ripens under our advance. For the present my office is, not to defend them, but to state them, and to trace their logical deduction ; by which word, borrowed from a case strictly analogous in the modern expositions of the civil law, I understand a process such as, by a more learned term, would be called a systematic " genesis " of any com- plex truth, — the act, namely, of pursuing the growth which gradually carries that truth to its full expansion through all its movements, and showing of each separately how it arose, and in what change or movement of the principal idea, under what necessity supervening at that point, or on the suggestion of what occasional falling in with some other and kindred truth. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 15 I have now traced the generic idea of " value," taken absolutely and without further limitation, into the two subordinate modes of, 1st, Value resting exclusively on a power to serve a purpose ; and, 2d, Of value resting on that power, but combined with the accessory power of commanding an equivalent, — into value which does and value which does not involve the idea of property. The simpler mode of value I have announced to be identical with the Ricardian idea of wealth, and, under that head, it will come round for consideration in its proper place. But the other mode of value — viz. Exchange Value — which is far more important to political economy, being no longer a regulative but a constitutive idea, 4 now steps naturally into the place, standing next in order for inves- tigation ; and I warn the young student that, at this point, he steps forward upon perilous ground, of which every inch is debatable. Here it is that the true struggle takes place, that unavoidable combat between principles origi- nally hostile, which into every subsequent section carries forward its consequences, and which, upon every system past or to come, impresses that determinate character, exposes that determinate tendency or clinamen, event- ually decisive of its pretensions. SECTION H.— VALUE IN EXCHANGE. What is value in exchange ? What is its foundation ? Most remarkable it seems, that up to a certain point all systems of modern economy answer this question cor- rectly; yet, after passing that point, that all are wrong. In the vast accumulation of books on this subject, English, French, or Italian, (for German books go for nothing 16 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. here,) I have not met with one which sustains the truth to the end ; whilst, on the other hand, it would be hardly less difficult to point out one which fails at the opening. Ver- bal inaccuracies might indeed be cited from all; for in an age of hasty reading, and of contempt for the whole ma- chinery of scholastic distinctions, it cannot be expected that authors will spend much energy upon qualities which have ceased to be meritorious, upon nicety of distinction which perishes to the flying reader, or upon a jealous maintenance of consistency, which, unless it were appreci- ated by severe study, could not benefit the writer. In this way, there arises at once a natural explanation of that carelessness in the mode of exposition which has every- where disfigured the modern science of political economy. Almost all'writers have agreed substantially, and have rightly agreed, in founding exchangeable value upon two elements, — power in the article valued to meet some nat- ural desire or some casual purpose of man, in the first place, and, in the second place, upon difficulty of attain- ment. These two elements must meet, must come into combination, before any value in exchange can be estab- lished. They constitute the two co-ordinate conditions, of which, where either is absent, no value in the sense of exchange value can arise for a moment. Indeed, it is evident to common sense, that any article whatever, to obtain that artificial sort of value which is meant by ex- change value, must begin by offering itself as a means to some desirable purpose; and secondly, that even though possessing incontestably this preliminary advantage, it will never ascend to an exchange value in cases where it can be obtained gratuitously, and without effort, — of which last terms both are necessary as limitations. For often it will happen that some desirable object may be obtained gratuitously; stoop, and you gather it at your feet: but THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 17 still, because the continued iteration of this stooping exacts a laborious effort, very soon it is found, that to gather for yourself virtually is not gratuitous. In the vast forests of the Canadas, at intervals, wild strawberries may be gratui- tously gathered by ship-loads ; yet such is the exhaustion of a stooping posture, and of a labor so monotonous, that everybody is soon glad to resign the service into merce- nary hands. The same idea, the same demand of a twofold conditio sine qua non as essential to the composition of an ex- change value, is otherwise expressed (and in a shape better fitted for subsequent reference) by the two follow- ing cases, marked Epsilon and Omicron: — Case Epsilon. — A man comes forward with his over- ture, " Here is a thing which I wish you to purchase ; it has cost me in labor five guineas, and that is the price I ask." " Very well," you reply ; " but tell me this, what desire or purpose of mine will the article promote?" Epsilon rejoins, "Why, as candor is my infirmity, none at all. But what of that ? Useful or not, the article em- bodies five guineas' worth of excellent labor." This man, the candid Epsilon, you dismiss. Case Omicron. — Him. succeeds Omicron, who praises your decisive conduct as to the absurd family of the Epsilons. " That man," he observes, " is weak, — candid, but weak ; for what was the cost in your eyes but so much toil to no effect of real service ? But that is what nobody can say of the article offered by myself; it is serviceable always, — nay, often you will acknowledge it to be indis- pensable." " What is it ? " you demand. " Why simply, then, it is a pound of water, and as good water as ever you tasted." The scene lies in England, where water bears no value except under that machinery of costly arrangements which delivers it as a permanent and guar- 18 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. anteed succession into the very chambers where it is to be used. Omicron accordingly receives permission to follow the candid Epsilon. Each has offered for sale one ele- ment of value out of two, one element in a state of insu- lation, where it was indispensable for any operative value, i. e. price, to offer the two in combination ; and, without such a combination, it is impossible (neither does any economist deny this by his principles) that value in ex- change, under the most romantic or imaginary circum- stances, ever should be realized. Thus far all is right ; all is easy and all is harmonious ; — thus far, no hair-splitter by profession can raise even a verbal quillet against so plain a movement of the under- standing, unless it were by some such cavil as is stated below. 5 It is in the next step that a difficulty arises, to all appearance insurmountable. It is a difficulty which seems, when stated, to include a metaphysical impossibil- ity. You are required to do that which, under any state- ment, seems to exact a contradiction in terms. The de- mand is absolute and not to be evaded, for realizing an absurdity and extracting a positive existence out of a nonentity or a blank negation. To this next step, there- fore, let us now proceed, after warning the reader that even Ricardo has not escaped the snare which is here spread for the understanding ; and that, although a mascu- line good sense will generally escape in practice from merely logical perplexities, [that is, will cut the knot for all immediate results of practice which it cannot untiej yet that errors " in the first intention " come round upon us in subsequent stages, unless they are met by their proper and commensurate solutions. Logic must be freed by logic : a false dialectical appearance of truth must be put down by the fullest exposure of the absolute and hidden truth, since also it will continually happen, (as it THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 19 has happened in the present case,) though a plausible sophism, which had been summarily crushed for the mo-, ment by a strong appeal to general good sense upon the absurd consequences arising, will infallibly return upon us when no such startling consequences are at hand. Now, therefore, with this sense of the critical step which next awaits us, let us move forward. The idea of value in exchange having thus been ana- lytically decomposed, the question which offers itself next in order concerns the subdivision of this idea. How many modes are possible of value in exchange? The general answer is, — two ; and the answer is just : there are two. But how are these two distinguished? How is it that they arise ? Now here it is, in the answer to this question, that an infirm logic has disturbed the truth. Even Ricardo has not escaped the universal error. Sus- pensory judgments are painful acts. It is fatiguing to most readers, that a provisional view of the truth should be laid before them, upon which all the pains taken to appropriate and master it are by agreement to be finally found worthless. This refutation of error is better so placed as to follow the establishment of the truth, in which position the reader may either dismiss it unread, as a cor- ollary which already he knows to be too much, — as an offshoot in excess ; or, on the other hand, choosing to read it, will do so under the additional light obtained through the true doctrine now restored to its authority. The difficulty which strikes us all upon the possibility of raising any subdivision under that generic idea of ex- change value already stated, is this : — The two elements are, — 1st, Intrinsic utility; 2d, Difficulty of attainment. But these elements must concur. They are not recipro- cating or alternating ideas; they are not, to borrow a word from Coleridge, inter-repellent 6 ideas, so that room 20 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. might be made for a double set of exchange values, by supposing alternately each of the elements to be ■with- drawn, whilst the other element was left paramount. This is impossible; because, by the very terms of the analysis, each element is equally indispensable to the com- mon idea which is the subject of division. Alike in either case, if No 1, or if No 2, should be dropped out of the composition, instantly the whole idea of exchange value falls to the ground like a punctured bladder. But this seems to preclose the road to any possible sub- division of the generic idea, because immediately it occurs to the student, that when no element can be withdrawn, then it is not possible that the subdivisions can differ except as to degree. In one case of exchange value there might, for instance, be a little more of the element A, and a little less of the element B. In some other case these propor- tions might be reversed. But all this is nothing. When we subdivide the genus animal, we are able to do so by means of an element not common to the two subdivisions : we assign man as one subdivision,— brutes as the other, — by means of a great differential idea, the idea of ration- ality; consequential upon which are tears, laughter, and the capacity of religion. AJ1 these we deny to brutes; all these we claim for man ; and thus are these two great sub-genera or species possible. But when all elements are equally present to both of the subdividing ideas, we cannot draw any bisecting line between them. The two ideas he upon one continuous line, — differing, therefore, as higher and lower, by more and by less, but not other- wise ; and any subdividing barrier, wheresoever it is made to fall between them, must be drawn arbitrarily, without any reasonable foundation in real or essential differences. These considerations are calculated to stagger us ; and at this precise stage of the discussion I request the read- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMT. 21 er's most vigilant attention. We have all read of secret, doors in great cities, so exquisitely dissembled by art, that in what seemed a barren surface of dead wall, where even the eye forewarned could trace no vestige of a sep- aration or of a line, simply by a simultaneous pressure upon two remote points, suddenly and silently an opening was exposed which revealed a long perspective of retir- ing columns, — architecture the most elaborate, where all had passed for one blank continuity of dead wall. Not less barren in promise, not less abrupt in its transition, this speculation at the very vestibule of political economy, at the point where most it had appeared to allow of no further advance or passage, suddenly opens and expands before an artifice of logic which almost impresses the feelings as a trick of legerdemain, — not by anything un- sound in its own nature, but by the sudden kind of pan- tomime change which it effects. The demand is, that you shall subdivide exchange value into two separate modes. You are to do this without aid from any new idea that has arisen to vary the general idea ; you are to work with the two already contained in that general idea, — con- sequently with ideas that must be common to both the subdivisions, — and yet you are to differentiate these sub- divisions. Each is to be opposed to the other, each is to differ, and yet the elements assigned to you out of which this difference is to be created are absolutely the same. Who can face such conditions as these ? — Given a total identity, and out of that you are to create a difference. Let not the reader complain of the copious way in which the difficulty is exposed. After many hundreds of failures, — after endless efforts with endless miscar- riages, — it is no time for refusing his own terms to the leader of a final assault. So many defeats have natu- rally made us all angry. I am angry, — the reader is 22 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. angry; and that offer is entitled to consideration, even though it should seem needlessly embarrassed or circuit- ous, which terminates in the one object that can be worth talking about, — viz. in "doing the trick," — and carrying by a summary effort that obstacle which (whether ob- served or not observed) has so long thwarted the power of perfecting and integrating the theory of value. Once being convinced that it is a mere contradiction to solve the problem, the reader may be relied on for attending to anything offered as a solution by one who has almost demonstrated its impossibility. Out of nothing, nothing is generated. This is pretty old ontology; and apparently our case at present is of that nature ; for by no Laputan process of extracting sun- beams from cucumbers, does it appear how we can hope, out of two samenesses, to extract one difference ; yet do it we must, or else farewell to the object before us. And, in order that we may do it, let us disembarrass our prob- lem of all superfluous words ; and, by way of sharpening the eye to the point of assault, let us narrow it to the smallest possible area. "What we have to do, is to consider whether (and now) it is feasible so to use a sameness as to make it do the office of a difference. With one single sameness this would peremptorily not be possible ; for we could vary it no otherwise than by varying its degrees. Now, a differ- ence in degrees is no substantial difference in logic ; and the pretended subdivisions would melt and play into each other, so as to confound the attempt at sustaining any sub- divisions at all. But, on the other hand, with two same- nesses it is possible to move. A little reflection will show that there is a resource for making them alternately act as differences. In physics we see vast phenomena taking place all day long, which a priori might have been stated THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23 as paradoxes not less startling than that of extracting a difference out of a sameness. One gravity rises through another gravity. True ; it is specifically lighter ; but still it has a specific gravity : and thus we find as the result, with the usual astonishing simplicity of nature, that the same machinery serves for sinking objects and for raising them. By gravity they fall; by gravity they rise. So also, again, that same ocean, which to nations populous and developed by civilization offers the main high-road of in- tercourse, was to the same nations, when feeble, the great wall of separation and protection. And again, in the case before us, monstrous as really is the paradox,' yet it is true, that, by a dexterous management of two elements absolutely identical, all the effects and benefits may be obtained of two elements essentially different. Let us look more closely. The two elements are u and D. If both elements are to be present, and both are to be operative, then indeed we have a contradiction in terms such as never will be overcome. But how if both be uniformly present, one only being at any time operative ? How if both be indispensably present, but alternately each become inert? How if both act as motives on the buyer for buying at all, but one only (each in turn under its own circumstances) as a force operating on the price ? This is the real case : this is the true solution ; and thus is a difference obtained, — such a difference as will amply sustain a twofold subdivision from elements substantially the same. Both are co-present, and always. Neither can be absent ; for, if so, then the common idea of ex- change value would vanish, the case epsilon or the case omicron would be realized. But each of the two is sus- pended alternately. Thus, by way of illustration, walk into almost any possible shop, buy the first article you see ; what will determine its price ? In ninety-nine cases 24 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. of a hundred, simply the element d, — difficulty of attain- ment. The other element, u, or intrinsic utility, will be perfectly inoperative. Let the thing (measured by its uses) be, for your purposes, worth ten guineas, so that you would rather give ten guineas than lose it ; yet, if the difficulty of producing it be only worth one guinea, one guinea is the price which it will bear. But still not the less, though u is inoperative, can u be supposed absent ? By no possibility ; for, if it had been absent, assuredly you would not have bought the article even at the lowest price : xr acts upon you, though it does not act upon the price. On the other hand, in the hundredth case, we will suppose the circumstances reversed. You are on Lake Superior in a steamboat, making your way to an unset- tled region 800 miles ahead of civilization, and consciously with no chance at all of purchasing any luxury what- soever, little luxury or big luxury, for a space of ten years to come : one fellow-passenger, whom you will part with before sunset, has a powerful musical snuff-box; knowing by experience the power of such a toy over your own feelings, the magic with which at times it lulls your agitations of mind, you are vehemently desirous to pur- chase it. In the hour of leaving London you had forgot to do so : here is a final chance. But the owner, aware of your situation not less than yourself, is determined to operate by a strain pushed to the very uttermost upon v, upon the intrinsic worth of the article in your individual estimate for your individual purposes. He will not hear of d as any controlling power or mitigating agency in the case : and finally, although at six guineas 8 apiece in Lon- don or Paris, you might have loaded a wagon with such boxes, you pay sixty rather than lose it when the last knell of the clock has sounded which summons you to buy now or to forfeit for ever. Here, as before, only one THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 25 element is operative : before it was r>, now it is u. But, after all, d was not absent, though inoperative. The in- ertness of d allowed u to put forth its total effect. The practical compression of d being withdrawn, u springs up like water in a pump when released from the pressure of air. Yet still that d was present to your thoughts, though the price was otherwise regulated, is evident; both because u and d must coexist in order to found any case of ex- change value whatever, and because undeniably you take into very particular consideration this d, the extreme diffi- culty of attainment, (which here is the greatest possible, viz. an impossibility,) before you consent to have the price racked up to tr. The special d has vanished ; but it is replaced in your thoughts by an unlimited d. Undoubt- edly you have submitted to u in extremity as the regulat- ing force of the price ; but it was under the sense of d's latent presence. Yet d is so far from exerting any posi- tive force, that the retirement of d from all agency what- ever on the price, — this it is which creates, as it were, a perfect vacuum, and through that vacuum u rushes up to its highest and ultimate graduation. This is the foundation of any true solution applied to the difficulty of subdividing exchange value ; and this statement of the case is open to a symbolical expression of its principle; which principle, let the reader not for- get, is, — that, under an eternal co-presence of two forces equally indispensable to the possibility of any exchange value at all, one only of those forces (and each alter- nately, as the ultimate circumstances take effect) gov- erns and becomes operative in the price. Both must concur to raise any motive for purchasing ; but one sepa- rately it is which rules the price. Let not the reader quarrel beforehand with illustrations by geometrical sym- bols ; the use which will be made of them is not of a kind 3 26 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. to justify any jealousies of a surreptitious logic. It is a logic in applying which we abstract altogether from the qualities of objects, and consider them only in so far as they are liable to the affection of more and less. Simply the most elementary of geometrical ideas will be used; and the object is this, — sometimes to render the student's apprehension of the case more definite, but sometimes, also, to show bim that the same difficulty, or one anal- ogous, might arise and be representable in the austere simplicities of geometry ; in which case, by parity of argu- ment, the explanation of the difficulty as represented in space will become inversely the explanation for the origi- nal difficulty. Here the line tr represents the utility value to the purchaser of any article what- ever ; that is, the very ultimate value to 20 which, by possibility, it could ascend in the case that a screw were made to operate upon the purchaser's secret appreciation of 10 ' its serviceable qualities. But in ordinary circumstances this cannot happen ; and under such ordinary circumstances, what will be the price? It will be the price determined by d, — difficulty of attainment, — and this difficulty is ex- pressed by the line d. But mark how it acts. From the summit of the line r>, standing on the same base as u, draw at right angles the dotted line which cuts u ; that is to say, d, which is at present the operative force, the true determining force as regards the price, takes up from u precisely as much (and no more at any time) as corresponds to itself. D is, in this case, the true and sole operating force, tj, which must indeed be co-present, (because else the purchaser would not be a purchaser, he would have no motive for purchasing, - — case epsilon,) yet, THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMT. 27 for all that, is inert quoad the price ; itself submits to an action of d, but it exerts none, it reflects none the very smallest. Now, suppose the case reversed : suppose not d, but u, to become suddenly the ruling force, d has become infi- nite, (as in the case of the musical toy in Canada,) that is, the difficulties in the way of supplying the market by a continued reproduction of the article (in one word, the resistance) must be supposed so vast as to be quite beyond the power of any individual to overcome. Instantly, under these circumstances, u springs up to its utmost height. But what is the utmost? Because t>, by ceasing to be finite and measurable, has caused u to come into play, — will tr therefore follow d, so as also to become infinite ? Not at all : once called into action as the oper- ating principle, v will become the sole principle ; d will be practically extinct for any action that it can exert upon the price. The rare holders of the article, as surviving from past times or regions now inaccessibly distant, will fix a strain upon the few purchasers by means of the intrinsic or u value ; each of the candidates must submit to see his own outside or extreme esteem for the article made operative against himself as the law of the price. He must ascend to the very maximum of what he will pay, under the known alternative of losing the article for ever if he will not pay it. v is therefore governed by no recollection of the past d, by no consideration of the present unlimited d, 9 but simply thrown back upon its own potential force ; i. e. upon each purchaser's appre- ciation of the article for his own purposes, — which can have no connection whatever with the d, or variable resistance to the reproduction of that article in any partic- ular place or time. If you submit to pay £ 30 of income tax, doubtless the power of the state determines the gen- 28 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. eral result of your paying at all ; but it is not that which determines the how much : this is a mixed result from the Exchequer ratio on the one hand, and the amount of your income on the other. And that this is really so, that both u and d, under the alternate circumstances, will become passive — latent, nu- gatory, as regards the price — may be shown ex abun- danti ; viz. by showing that under any possible changes, either to u or to d, no beginning — no initial moment — of action will arise for the one, so long as the other is operative. Figure to yourself, as the object concerned in such a valuation, some powerful drug. Suppose it the Peruvian or Jesuit's bark, and that suddenly, by applying to it the agency of sulphuric acid, some hew product (the sulphate of this foreign bark) arises with prodigiously greater powers, — not only greater by far, when applied to the common cases open equally to the old medicine and the new, but also, in another respect, greater ; viz. that it is applicable to a set of cases from which the old med- icine, by its bulk, or by its tendency to febrile symptoms, had found itself excluded ; — suppose under this enlarged power, for the basis of the medicine, that the line tr, ex- pressing its utility value, should run up to triple or decu- ple of its present altitude, would that change disturb the present appreciation under x> ? Not by an iota. Nay, to press the principle to an excess, suppose u to become infinite, — still, in all the cases where d is at all the regu- lative force, d will continue even under this change to be the sole force. Nay, suppose that, even concurrently with this increase to u, — d, by some cheaper or briefer process for obtaining the sulphate, should descend; still, even in such a compound case, (vast increase for u, sudden decrease for d,) not the less, u would still con- tinue inert, — potentially capable, under the proper cir- 10 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 29 cumstances, of exerting an action which might centuple the price, and pitted against a decreasing force in d ; nevertheless, so long as u was not in circumstances to exert the whole action, it could exert none at all ; so long as d exerted any force, it would exert the whole. In the opposite case, where u, or the utility value, is suddenly called into action as the controlling force, it will generally 20 , be found that this force, in its extremity, has not only been latent previously as regards any effect upon the price, but 10 latent as regards even the consciousness of the individual appreciator. This we saw in the case of the musical toy on the Canadian lake. The buyer had not, until a certain mo- ment, been aware of the potential u which really existed to his own contingent appreciation. No necessity had ever arisen that he should inquire rigorously how much he would submit to give in the case of u becoming the operative force. So much of u as was requisite to sus- tain d, so much as corresponded to d, had always been within the consciousness of the purchaser ; and how much further it was capable of ascending, had been hitherto a mere question of useless curiosity. But when a sudden and violent revolution in all the circumstances has arisen for the purchaser, when d is felt to have become. infinite, the difficulty of obtaining the article (except by one sole anomalous chance) being now greater than any finite expression could measure, — What follows ? Does the price become infinite, as it would do if it were supposed at all to follow d ? No ; but d, though vexatiously pres- ent to the calculations of the purchaser, is no longer opera- tive : it has become silent ; and the alternate force u (now when the case has taken effect, that either v screwed up 3* 30 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. to its maximum must rule, or else the article must be lost) instantly steps into the place of d, and becomes ex- clusively operative. The dotted perpendicular line repre- sents the sudden ascent of u to double of its preceding altitude. How much further it would ascend, must de- pend entirely upon the feeling and taste of the individual as regulating his wishes, and upon his disposable money as regulating his power. Now, under this symbolic expression we may see at once the hyperbolic extravagance of that notion which has so often been cited with praise from Adam Smith, as though an object might be very great by its capacity in respect of d, and yet very little (or indeed nothing) by its capacity in respect of v. Diamonds, it is asserted, are trivial in respect of tr, but enormously high on the scale measured by d. This is a blank impossibility. The mistake arises under a total misconception of what u indicates, as will be shown in a succeeding section. The countervailing proposition in Adam Smith, viz. that other and ordinary objects, such as water, may reverse these conditions, being trivial in respect of d, but vast in respect of u, is also false ; false in the mode and principle of valuation. But this latter proposition is false only in fact ; it is, at the same time, a very conceivable case : whereas the former proposition is false as to the very ideal passibility, — it is inconceivable and monstrous, tt may outrun d in any extent; and generally does so to some extent. It is rare that the whole potential utility value is exhausted by the cost or difficulty value. But the inverse case is monstrous : d can never outrun u by the most fractional increment. A man who would, in a case of necessity, give fifty guineas for an article rather than absolutely miss it, may habitually buy it for no more than three, simply because such is the price as squared THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 31 to the scale of d. But it is impossible that a man, valuing the article (under the very ultimate pressure of u) at eight guineas, should consent to give twelve, because D could not be overcome for less. This latter part of the present section, viz. the sym- bolic illustration of the principles which control exchange value, may seem to the reader too long. Perhaps it is so ; but he cannot pronounce it positively " de trop," for it enforces and explains this law, viz. that the two eter- nally co-present forces, essential to the idea of exchange, nevertheless govern alternately one by one, — each alter- nately becoming inert, and neither modifying the other by the smallest fraction, when that " other " is raised by circumstances into the true controlling principle. Now, this explanation never can be held useless, so long as it shall be remembered that Adam Smith, in a passage not seldom cited as a proper basis for a whole system of dependent political economy, has absolutely declared it possible for a man to pay, by any assignable sum, a greater price for a commodity than that same man con- ceives its uttermost intrinsic value to justify : he will give more than the maximum which he would give. Not by one iota less extravagant is the proposition fairly de- ducible from his words. Diamonds have no u value, he assures us, — no use (which is the one sole ground upon which, at any price, a man buys anything at all) ; and yet, because the d value is great, in spite of this "no use," many a man will give an enormous price for dia- monds: which proposition is a fierce impossibility. And although, as will be seen in the proper section, the word "use" is here employed most abusively, and in a sense unphilosophically limited ; yet in the same proportion by which this distinction, as to the word " use," will redress some of the extravagant consequences deducible from the 32 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Smithian doctrine, — in that same proportion will the fa- mous antithesis upon diamonds and water, from which these consequences flow, vanish like a vapor ; and thus will become available (against a party not within that writer's contemplation) a remark made by the critical dissertationist on value, (as well as by the late Mr. Cole- ridge,) viz. that oftentimes these plausible paradoxes on that side which offers any brilliancy, will be found quite unsustainable ; whilst on that side which can be sustained, they will be found empty truisms, — brilliant so far as they throw up a novel falsehood ; but where they rever- berate a truth, utterly without either novelty or force. This remark was levelled by the dissertationist at others, — chiefly ( I believe) at Eicardo ; but there is a luxury in seeing the engineer of so keen a truth, either in his own person, or that of his friends, " hoist by his own petard." SECTION IU. — ON THE TRUE RELATIONS IN LOGIC OF THE EXPRESSIONS U AND D. There is no one manifestation of imbecile logic more frequent, than the disposition to find in all controversies merely verbal disputes. Very early in life I came to be aware that this compendious mode of dismissing weighty questions — by alleging, that in fact they seemed rather to offer a dispute about words, than about things — had been always one regular and conscious resource of cant with the feeble and the indolent. And amongst the first conclusions, drawn from my own reading experience, was this, that for one known dispute seeming to concern things, but ultimately evaporating in verbal cavils, (supposing even that one to exist in any recorded form,) there might THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 33 be cited many hundreds of disputes which seemed, or had been declared, to be verbal; whilst, by all their conse- quences, they set in violently towards things. 10 The ten- dencies of men are altogether towards that error. In private companies, where the tone of society is so under- bred as to allow of two people annoying the rest by dis- putation, — such things as verbal disputes may possibly occur ; but in public, where men dispute by the pen, or under ceremonial restraints, giving time for consideration, and often with large consequences awaiting the issue, — such follies are out of the question: the strong natural instinct attached to the true and substantial, the practical results at hand, and the delays interposed for reflection, bar all opening to such visionary cases, — possibilities indeed in rerum naturd, but which no man has ever wit- nessed ; and accordingly at this hour, throughout all our vast European libraries, no man can lay his hand upon one solitary book which argues, a verbal question as if it were a real one, or contends for a verbal issue. 11 The same capital mistake of false logic, mistaking its own greatest imbecility for conspicuous strength, has often alighted upon changes in terminology, or upon technical improvements of classification, as being in virtue no more than verbal changes. Here, again, we find Kant, though not the man meant by nature for clearing up delusions in the popular understanding, rightly contending that, in the science of algebra for instance, to impose new denomina- tions was often enough to reveal new relations which previously had not been suspected. In reality we might go much further ; and of some changes in algebraic ter- minology, (as particularly the invention of negative expo- nents,) I should say, that they had a value which could be adequately expressed only by such an analogy as might be drawn from the completion of a galvanic circle, 34 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. where previously it had been interrupted. Not merely an addition of new power, but the ratification of all the previous powers yet inchoate, had been the result. It was impossible to use adequately the initial powers of the science, until others had been added which distributed the force through the entire cycle of resistances. In the present case, although the reader may fancy that such excessive solicitude for planting the great dis- tinctions of value upon a true basis, is not likely to reap any corresponding harvest of results in subsequent stages of the science, further experience will satisfy him, that in all cases of dispute already existing, with the exception only of such as are still waiting for facts, and in all cases of efforts for the future progress of the science, it is really the ancient confusion overhanging this difficult theme of value which has been, or which will be, the sole retarding force. The question of value is that into which every problem finally resolves itself; the appeal comes back to that tribunal, and for that tribunal no sufficient code of law has been yet matured which makes it equal to the calls upon its arbitration. It is a great aggravation of the other difficulties in the science of Economy, that the most metaphysical part comes first. A German philosopher, who in that instance was aiming at anything but truth, yet with some momentary show of truth, once observed, with respect to the Catechism of our English Church, that it was the most metaphysical of books in a case which re- quired the simplest. "I," said he, "with all my philos- ophy, cannot swim where these infants are to wade." For my own part, I utterly deny his inference. To be simple, to be easy of comprehension, is but the second condition for a good elementary statement of Christian belief, — the first is, to be faithful. There is no necessity that all things should be at the earliest stage understood, — in part THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35 they will never be understood in a human state, because they relate to what is infinite for an intellect which is finite. But there is a high necessity that, early in life,, those distinctions should be planted which foreclose the mind, by a battery of prejudication and prepossession, against other interpretations, having, perhaps, the show of intelligibility, but terminating in falsehood, which means contradiction to Scripture. Now the condition of politi- cal economy is in this point analogous. Left to our own choice, naturally, none of us could wish to commence with what is most of all subtle, metaphysical, and perplexing. But no choice is allowed. Make a beginning at any other point, and the first explanation you attempt will be found to presuppose and involve all that you are attempting to evade ; and in such a case, after every attempt to narrow the immediate question into a mere occasional skirmish, you will find yourself obliged to bring on the general con- flict, under the great disadvantage of being already en- gaged with a separate question, — that is, on the most embarrassed ground you could possibly have selected. The great conflict, the main struggle, comes on at the very opening of the field ; and simply because that is too hastily and insufficiently fought out, are all students forced, at one point or other, to retrace their steps, — nay, simply from that cause, and no other, it is possible at this day to affirm with truth, that, amongst many other strange results, no statesman in our British senate, and no leading critical review, has escaped that error in particular, that grossest and largest of errors, which is exposed in the fourth chapter, upon market value. It is because men are impatient of the preliminary cares, efforts, and cau- tions, such as unavoidably they submit to in mathematics, that upon what is known in Economy there is perpetual uncertainty, and for any inroads into what is yet unknown, perpetual insecurity. 36 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. The object of this section is, to obtain a better, a more philosophic, and a more significant expression for the two modes of exchange value than those of u and d, employed hitherto; and, at the same time, to explode the expres- sions adopted by previous writers, as founded upon a false view of their relations. In any exchange value whatsoever, it has been agreed by all parties, that both u and d must be present ; there must be a real utility or serviceableness before a man will submit to be affected by d, — i. e. before he will pay a price adjusted to the difficulty of attainment; and, versa vice, there must be this real difficulty of attainment before the simple fact of utility in the object will dispose him to pay for it, not by d in particular, but by anything at all. Now, though this is indispensable, yet, in the preceding section, it has been shown that, whilst both alike are pres- ent, one only governs. And a capital error has been in fancying that value in use (value derived from u) is necessarily opposed to value in exchange ; whereas, being one horn of the two into which value in exchange divides, as often as the value in use becomes operative at all, it does itself become — it constitutes — value in exchange, and is no longer co-ordinate to exchange value, (in which case it is wealth,) but subordinate ; one subdivision of exchange value. Now, then, having shown, under two different sets of circumstances, the one element and the other will with equal certainty take effect and become dominant, I will request the student to consider what, after all, is the true, sole, and unvarying consideration which acts upon the mind of the purchaser in the first intention of wishing to possess. As regards the price, what acts is alter- nately u and d ; sometimes one, sometimes the other. But not so with regard to the general purpose of buying. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 37 Here only one thing acts. No man ever conceived the intention of buying upon any consideration of the diffi- culty and expense which attend the production of an article. He wishes to possess, he resolves to buy, not on account of these obstacles, — far from it, — but in spite of them. What acts as a positive and sole attraction to him, is the intrinsic serviceableness of the article towards some purpose of his own. The other element may hap- pen to affect the price, and, generally speaking, does affect it as the sole regulating force, but it can never enter at all into the original motive for seeking to possess the article ; uniformly, it is viewed in the light of a pure re- sistance to that desire. Here, then, present themselves two reasonable desig- nations for supplanting u and d, which are far better, — as being, 1st, in true logical opposition ; and idly, as point- ing severally each to its own origin and nature : tr may be called affirmative, d negative. The latter represents the whole resistance to your possession of the commodity concerned; the former represents the whole benefit, the whole positive advantage, the whole power accruing to you from possession of this commodity. There is always an affirmative value, there is always a negative value, on any commodity bearing an exchange value, — that is, on any which can enter a market ; but one only of these values takes effect at one time, — under certain circum- stances the affirmative value, under other and more or- dinary circumstances, the negative. And, accordingly, as one or other becomes operative, as it ceases to be latent and rises into the effectual force, we may say of it, that it has passed into the corresponding price; affirmative value into affirmative price, negative value into negative price. For price is value ratified or made effectual, — the potential raised into the actual. 4 38 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECOXOMY. Many years ago, in a slight and unfinished sketch of what is most peculiar to Eicardo, (bearing the title of "The Templar's Dialogues,") I made it my business to show that a general confusion had pervaded Political Economy between two cardinal ideas, — a measure of value, and a ground of value ; that no writer within my knowledge had escaped this confusion; that the former idea was demonstrably a chimera, an ens rationis, which never could be realized; that, except in one instance, 12 (viz. when needed as a test of the variations, whether real or only apparent, between successive stages of a paper currency,) no practical benefit would be derived from the realization of such a measure ; whereas, on the other hand, a ground of value is so indispensable an idea, that without it not one step can be taken in advance. The author of " A Critical Dissertation on Value,'' who does me much honor in saying (p. xxv. of Preface) that this little sketch of mine it was which " first suggested " his own work, gives two different opinions in the same page (p. 171) as to the original delivery of this broad dis- tinction. In the text he says, " The author of the ' Tem- plar's Dialogues on Political Economy ' is the only writer who appears to me to have been fully aware of this con- fusion of two separate and distinct ideas. He traces it partly to an ambiguity in the word determine." But in a foot-note on this same sentence he thus corrects him- self: " This was written before I had seen the second edition of Mr. Mill's ' Elements,' in which the distinction is for the first time introduced. His language on the point, however, is not uniformly consistent, as will . be shown in the next chapter." I apprehend that, if any such distinction has been anywhere insisted upon con- sciously by Mi-. Mill, it will be difficult to establish a priority for him. The fragment called "The Templar's THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 39 Dialogues" was written at the end of 1821, and, to the best of my recollection, printed in the spring of 1822. Having never seen any edition whatsoever of Mr. Mill's "Elements" until this present return to the subject, (spring of 1843,) I obtained a copy from a public library. This happens to be the first edition, (which is clear from the fact, that no attempt occurs in this work at any distinc- tion whatever between a " measure " and a '' ground " of value,) and this bears the date of 1821 upon the title- page. It seems probable, therefore, that the date of the second edition would be, at the earliest, 1822, — a ques- tion, however, which I have no means of deciding. But, be that as it may, two facts seem to discredit such a claim : 1st, that Mr. Mill, at p. iv. of the Preface, says, " I profess to have made no discovery " ; whereas, beyond all doubt, a distinction which exposes suddenly a vast con- fusion of thought affecting the great mob of books upon this subject, is a discovery, and of very extensive use. Idly, it turns out, from a charge alleged at p. 204, by the Dissertator on value, that Mr. Mill " confounds the stand- ard with the cause of value." I understand him to mean, not that constructively Mr. Mill confounds these ideas, not that such a confusion can be extorted from his words though against his intention, but that formally and avow- edly he insists on the identity of the two ideas. If so, there is an end of the question at once ; for " a standard of value" is but a variety of the phrase "measure of value." The one, according to a scholastic distinction, (most beneficially revived by Leibnitz,) is a mere prin- cipium cognoscendi ; the other (a ground of value) is a principium essendi. 13 What qualifies an object to be a standard of value, — that is, to stand still when all other objects are moving, — and thus by consequence qualifies it to measure all changes of value between any two objects, 40 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECON03IY. showing, as on a delicate scale, how much of the change has belonged to the one object, how much to the other, or whether either has been stationary: this is a thing which we shall never learn ; because no such qualification can arise for any object, — none can be privileged from change affecting itself. And, if liable to change itself, we need not quote Aristotle's remark on the Lesbian rule, to prove that it can never measure the changes in other objects. A measure of value is therefore not by accident impossible, but impossible by the very constitution of its idea ; precisely as the principle of perpetual motion is not accidentally impossible, (by failure of all efforts yet made to discover it,) but essentially impossible so long as this truth remains in force, — that it is impossible to propagate motion without loss. On the other hand, to seek for the cause or ground of value is not only no visionary quest, speculatively impossible and practically offering little use, but is a sine qua, non condition for advancing by a sin- gle step in political economy. Everything that enters a market, we find to have some value or other. Every- thing in every case is known to be isodynamic with some fraction, some multiple, or some certain proportion, of everything else. For this universal scale of relations, for this vast table of equations, between all commodities concerned in human traffic, a ground, a sufficient reason, must exist. What is it? Upon examination it is found that there are two grounds, because there are two sepa- rate modes of exchange value, for which I have deduced, as the adequate designations, the antithetic terms affirmative and negative. And if the reader will look forward to Section IV., which arrays before him a considerable list of cases under each form, he will perceive, (what in fact is my object in exposing those cases,) simultaneously, a proof of the necessity that such cases should exist, and an THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 41 illustration of the particular circumstances under which each arises. But first, and before all other remarks which he will be likely to make on this fet/yos, — this two-headed system of cases, — I anticipate the remark which follows ; viz. that, such and so broad being the distinction between this double system of cases, it is not possible that former economists should have overlooked it. "Under some name or other,'' he will say, "I am satisfied that these distinctions must have been recognized." He will be right. The distinction has been recognized, — has been formally designated. And what are the designations? Everywhere almost the same : the price, which corre- sponds to the difficulties, has been properly called the cost price, as representing in civilized societies the total re- sistance which is usually possible to the endless repro- duction of an article. So far there is no blame : but go forward ; go on to the opposite mode of price, — to that which I have called the affirmative price. By what name is it that most economists designate that? They call it " monopoly price" or " scarcity price." But monopoly, but scarcity, — these are accidents ; these are imperti- nences, — i. e. considerations not pertinent, not relevant to the case ; or, to place the logic of the question under the clearest light, these express only the conditio sine qua non, or negative condition. But is that what we want? Not at all : we want the positive cause — technically, the ■causa sufficient — of this antagonist price. That cause is found, — not in the scarcity or the monopoly, — Aris- totle forbid such nonsense! (how could a pure absence or defect of importation, how could a mere negation, produce a robust positive ens, — a price of sixty guineas ?) No ; but in something that has existed antecedently to all monopoly or scarcity ; in a strong affirmative attraction of the article concerned; in a positive adaptation of this 4* 42 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. article to each individual buyer's individual purposes. True, the accidental scarcity brings this latent affirmative cause into play; but for that scarcity, this latent cause might have concealed itself for generations, — might never have acted. The scarcity it is, the absolute stoppage to all further receipts of the article from its regular repro- duction, which has enabled something to rise into action as the regulator of price. But what is that something? You say, popularly, that the absence of a sentinel caused the treasury to be robbed : and this language it would be pedantic to censure, because the true meaning is liable to no virtual misconstruction. But everybody would cen- sure it, if the abstraction of " absence " were clothed with the positive attributes of a man, and absence were held responsible for the larceny to the exculpation of the true flesh-and-blood criminal. The case is in all respects the same as to scarcity : the scarcity creates the opening, or occasion for " something " to supersede the d, or negative value ; but that something is the u value, — the affirma- tive value. This must be too self-evident to require any further words : the technical term of " scarcity value," adopted as the antithesis of " cost value " by Eicardo, by Mr. M'Culloch, and many beside, will not be defended by any- body, except under the idea that the false logic which it involves is sure to undergo a correction from the logical understanding. But it is unsafe trusting too much to that. In the hurry of disputation it would be too late to revise our terms, to allow for silent errors, and to insti- tute pro hue vice rectifications. It is indispensable to the free movement of thought, that we should have names and phrases for expressing our ideas, upon which we can rely at all hours as concealing no vestige of error. Now, against the technical term in possession, besides the con- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 43 elusive reasons already exposed, there may be alleged these two sufficient absurdities as consequences to which it is liable : — 1st. That in any case of such, scarcity actually real- ized, the scarcity could not be imagined to create a price ; because neither as an absolute scarcity, nor as gradu- ated to any particular point, could it have more relation to one price than to any other, — to a shilling than to a thousand guineas. As rationally might it be said, that the absence of the sentinel, according to the degrees of its duration, had created the costliness of the articles robbed from the treasury. 2d. That if such a shadow as a blank negation could become a positive agency of causation, still there would arise many monstrous absurdities. One case will suffice as an illustration of all. Suppose the scarcity as to two articles to be absolute, — in other words, the greatest pos- sible, or beyond any finite degree, — then if the scarcity were the acting cause of the new price, which has super- seded the old d price, being the same in both cases, this scarcity must issue in producing the same price for both articles : whereas the true cause, which has been brought into action by the scarcity and the consequent abolition of D, being in reality the u, or utility value, (pushed to its maximum,) will soon show decisively that the one ar- ticle may not reach the price of half a crown, whilst the other may run up to a thousand guineas. It is useless to talk of " words " and " names " as being shadows, so long as words continue to express ideas, and names to distinguish actual relations. Verbalism it is in fact, and the merest babble of words, which can sub- stitute a pure defect — so aerial an abstraction as a want or an absence — for a positive causal agency. That is really scholastic trifling. The true agencies in the case 44 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. under discussion are eternally and alternately r> and u, — the resistance to the reproduction of the article, or the power in use of that article. Finally, it has been shown why these should be termed the affirmative and negative values of the article ; and from the moment when either value takes effect, (ceases to be latent, and becomes oper- ative upon the market,) should be termed severally affirm- ative and negative price. 14 SECTION IV. — ON THE TWO MODES OF EXCHANGE VAL- UE, — AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE. The business of this present section is chiefly to illus- trate by cases the two possible modes of exchange value ; viz. the alternate modes as founded on a negative prin- ciple, and as founded on an affirmative principle. Any reader, therefore, who is already satisfied with this dis- tinction and its grounds, may pass on (without disturb- ing the nexus or logical dependency of the parts) to Section V. That general principle which governs the transition under the appropriate circumstances from negative to affirmative value, might be brought forcibly before the reader by a political case drawn from the civil adminis- tration of ancient Rome. Any foreigner coming to Rome before the democratic basis of that republic had given way, would have found some difficulty (when reviewing the history of Rome) in accounting for the principle which had governed the award of triumphs. " I am at a loss," he would say, " to reconcile the rule which in some instan- ces appears to have prevailed with that which must have prevailed at others. In one case I see a rich province THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 45 overrun, and no triumph granted to the conqueror ; in another, I see a very beggarly (perhaps even a muti- nous and unmanageable) province, — no source of strength, but rather of continual anxiety to Rome, — made the oc- casion of a most brilliant triumph, and even of a family title, such as ' Macedonicus ' or ' Isauricus,' the most grat- ifying personal distinction which Rome had to confer." Here would seem a contradiction ; but the answer could dispel it. " We regard," it would be said on behalf of Rome, "two separate and alternate considerations. No province, whether poor or rich, has ever been annexed to our republic which had not this primary condition of value, — that it tended to complete our arch of empire. By mere locality, as one link in a chain, it has tended to the arrondissement of our dominions, the orb within which our power circulates." So far any province whatsoever added within the proper Mediterranean circuit, had always a claim upon the republic for some trophy of honor. But to raise this general claim to a level with triumphal honors, we Romans required 15 that one or other of these two extra merits should be pleaded: — either, .first, that the province, though not rich, had been won by peculiarly hard fighting; or, secondly, that, though won with very slight efforts, the province was peculiarly rich. The pri- mary, the indispensable value, as a link in the Roman chain, every province must realize, that tended to com- plete the zone drawn round the Mediterranean. Even a wilderness of rocks would have that value. But this being presumed, of course, as an advantage given by position without merit in the winner, we required, as the crest of the achievement towards justifying a triumph, either the affirmative value of great capacities for tax- ation, or the negative value of great difficulties overcome in the conquest. Cilicia, for example, returned little in 46 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. the shape of revenue to Rome ; for the population was scanty, and, from the condition of society, wealth was impossible. But the Isaurian guerillas, and the Cilician buccaneers, occupying for many centuries caves and moun- tain fortresses, that without gunpowder were almost im- pregnable, gave a sanguinary interest to the conflict, which compensated the small money value. For eight centuries Cilicia was the scourge of the Levant. Palestine again presented even a bloodier contest, though less durable, in a far narrower compass. But Egypt — poor, effeminate Egypt! always "a servant of servants"' — offered, amidst all her civilization, no shadow of resistance. As a test of military merits, she could not found a claim for any man; for six hundred miles she sank on her knees at the bidding of the Roman centurion. So far, the triumph was nothing. On the other hand, Egypt was by wealth the first of all provinces. She was the greatest of coeval granaries. 16 The province technically called Africa, and the island of Sicily, were bagatelles by comparison ; and what, therefore, she wanted is the negative criterion of merit, — having so much wealth, — she possessed redun- dantly in the affirmative criterion. Transalpine Gaul, again, was a fine province under both criteria. She took much beating. In the half-forgotten language of the fancy, she was " a glutton " ; and, secondly, on the affirmative side, she was also rich. Thus might an ancient Roman have explained and reconciled the apparently conflicting prin- ciples upon which triumphs had been awarded. "Where a stranger had fancied a want of equitable consistency, because two provinces had been equally bloodless acqui- sitions, and yet had not equally secured a triumph, he would now be disabused of his error by the sudden expla- nation, that the one promised great wealth, — the other little. And where, again, between two provinces equally THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 47 worthless as regarded positive returns of use, he had failed to understand why one should bring vast honor to the winner, the other none at all, — his embarrassment, would be relieved at once by showing him that the unhon- ored conquest had fallen at the first summons, possibly as a mere effect of reaction from adjacent victories ; whilst the other conquest had placed on the record a brilliant success, — surmounting a resistance that had baffled a series of commanders, and so far flattering to the Eoman pride ; but in another sense transcendently important, as getting rid of an ominous exposure which proclaimed to the world a possibility of hopeful opposition to Eome. Now exactly the same principle, transferred to the theory of value in exchange, will explain the two poles on which it revolves. Sometimes you pay for an article on the scale of its use, — its use with regard to your in- dividual purposes. On this principle, you pay for a suppose twice as much as you would consent to pay for b. The point at which you pause, and would choose to go without b rather than pay more for it, does not rise more than one half so high on the scale as the corre- sponding ne plus ultra for A. This is affirmative price. On the other hand, sometimes you pay for an article on the scale of its costliness ; i. e. of its resistance to the act of reproduction. This principle is not a direct natural expression of any intrinsic usefulness ; it is an indirect, and properly an exponential, expression of value, by an alien accident perfectly impertinent to any interest of yours, — not what good it will do to yourself, but what harm it has done to some other man, (viz. what quantity of trouble it has imposed upon him,) that is the immediate 11 question which this second principle answers. But unnatural (that is, artificial) as such a principle seems, still, in all civilized countries, this is the principle which takes effect by way 48 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. of governing force upon price full twenty times for once that the other and natural principle takes effect. Now, having explained the two principles, I find it my next duty to exemplify them both by appropriate cases. These, if judiciously selected, will both prove and illustrate. In the reign of Charles II. occurred the first sale in England of a Rhinoceros. The more interesting wild beasts — those distinguished by ferocity, by cruelty, and agility — had long been imported from the Mediterranean ; and, as some of them were "good fellows and would strike," (though, generally speaking, both the lion and the tiger are the merest curs in nature,) they bore tolerable prices, even in the time of Shakespeare. But a rhinoceros had not been yet imported ; and, in fact, that brute is a dangerous connection to form. As a great lady from Ger- many replied some seventy years ago to an Englishman who had offered her an elephant, " Mit nichten, by no means ; him eat too mauch.'' In spite, however, of a sim- ilar infirmity, the rhinoceros fetched, under Charles II., ■more than £ 2,000. But why ? on what principle ? Was it his computed negative value ? Not at all. A granite obelisk from Thebes, or a Cleopatra's needle, though as heavy as a pulk of rhinoceroses, would not have cost so much to sling and transport from the Niger to the Thames. But in such a case there are two reasons why the purchas- er is not anxious to inquire about the costs. In buying a loaf, that is an important question, because a loaf will be bought every day, and there is a great use in knowing the cost, or negative value, as that which will assuredly gov- ern an article of daily reproduction. But in buying a rhinoceros, which it is to be hoped that no man will be so ill-fated as to do twice in one world, it is scarcely to be hoped that the importer will tell any truth at all, nor is it of much consequence that he should ; for the buyer cares THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 49 little by comparison as to the separate question on the negative price of the brute to his importer. He cares perhaps not very much more as to the separate question upon the affirmative return likely to arise for himself in the case of his exhibiting such a monster. Neither value taken singly was the practical reply to his anxieties. That reply was found in both values, taken in combina- tion, — the negative balanced against the affirmative. It was less important to hear that the cost had been £ 1,000, so long as the affirmative return was conjecturally assigned at little beyond £ 2,200, than to hear that the immediate cost to the importer had been £2,000, but with the im- portant assurance that £5,000, at the very least, might be almost guaranteed from the public exhibition of so delicate a brute. The creature had not been brought from the Barbary States, our staple market for monsters, but from some part of Africa round the Cape; so that the cost had been unusually great But the affirmative value, founded on the public curiosity, was greater; and, when the two terms in the comparison came into collision, then was manifested the excess of the affirmative value, in that one instance, as measured against the negative. An " encore " was hardly to be expected for a rhinoceros in the same generation ; but for that once it turned out that a moderate fortune might be raised upon so brutal a basis. Turkish Hokses. — Pretty nearly at the same time, viz. about the year 1684, an experiment of the same nature was made in London upon an animal better suited to sale, but almost equally governed in its price by affir- mative qualities. In this instance, however, the qualities lay in excess of beauty and docility, rather than of power and strange conformation. Three horses, of grace and speed at that time without parallel in Western Europe, were brought over to England, and paraded before the 5 50 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMT. English court. Amongst others, Evelyn saw them, and thus commemorates the spectacle : — " December 17. Early in the morning, I went into St. James's Park to see three Turkish or Asian horses, newly brought over, and now first showed to his Majesty " (Charles II., who died about six weeks later). " There were " (had been) " four, but one of them died at sea, being three weeks coming from Hamborow. They were taken from a bashaw at the siege of Vienna, at the late famous raising that leaguer. 18 I never beheld so delicate a creature as one of them was ; of somewhat a bright bay ; in all regards beautifull and proportion'd to admiration ; spirited, proud, nimble ; mak- ing halt, turning with that swiftnesse, and in so small a compass, as was admirable. With all this, so gentle and tractable, as call'd to mind what Busbequius speakes to the reproch of our groomes in Europe, who bring up their horses so churlishly as makes most of them retain their ill habits." Busbequius talks nonsense. This, and the no- tion that our Western (above all, our English) horses are made short-lived by luxurious stables, &c, are old "crazes" amongst ourselves. Mr. Edmond Temple, in his Peru, evidently supposes that, with worse grooming, and if other- wise sufficiently ill-treated, our English horses would live generally to the age of forty, — possibly, I add, of a thou- sand, which would be inconvenient. As to the conceit of Busbequius, it is notorious to Englishmen that the worst- tempered horses in the world (often mere devils in malig- nity) are many of the native breeds in Hindostan, who happen, unfortunately for the hypothesis, to have often- times the very gentlest grooms. The particular horses brought over from the Turkish rout under Vienna, by their exquisite docility would seem to have been Arabs. The cross of our native breed by the Arab blood, which has since raised the English racer to perfection, was soon THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 51 after begun (I believe) under the patronage of the Godol- phin family. From this era, when Arab velocity for a short burst had been inoculated upon English "bottom," or enduring energy, the Newmarket racer rose to a price previously unheard of in the annals of the horse. So low, however, was the affirmative standard at this period in England, so little had the latent perfections of the ani- mal (the affirmative value) been developed, that of these matchless Arabians, sold on the terms of including the romantically gorgeous appointments for both horse and rider, even the finest was offered for five hundred guineas, and all three together for a thousand. This price had reference (as also in the case of the rhinoceros) exclu- sively to affirmative value. 13 Pakadise Lost. — "Were you (walking with a for- eigner in London) to purchase for eighteen pence a new copy of this poem, suppose your foreign friend to sting your national pride by saying : " Really, it pains me to see the English putting so slight a value upon their great poet as to rate his greatest work no higher than eighteen pence,'' — how would you answer ? Perhaps thus : " My friend, you mistake the matter. The price does not represent the affirmative value, — the value derived from the power of the poem to please or to exalt ; that would be valued by some as infinite, irrepresentable by money ; and yet the resistance to its reproduction might be less than the price of a breakfast." Now here, the ordinary law of price exposes itself at once. It is the power, the affirmative worth, which creates a fund for any price at all; but it is the resistance, the negative worth, or what we call the cost, which determines how much shall be taken from that potential fund. In bibliographic records, there are instances of scholars selling a landed estate equal to an annual livelihood for ever, in order to obtain 52 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. a copy of one single book, — viz. an Aristotle. At this day, there are men whose estimate of Aristotle is not at all less. Having long since reached his lowest point of depression from the influence of sciolism and misconcep- tion, for at least fifty years Aristotle has been a rising author. But does any man pay an estate in exchange for Aristotle as now multiplied ? Duval's in folio may be had for two guineas ; the elder edition of Sylburgius in quarto may be had (according to our own juvenile expe- rience) for ten guineas ; and the modern Bipont by Buhle, only that it is unfinished, may be had for less than three. There is the reason for the difference between former purchasers and modern purchasers. The resistance is lowered ; but the affirmative value may, for anything that is known, be still equal in many minds to that which it was in elder days, — and in some minds we know that it is. The fair way to put this to the test would be to restore the elder circumstances. Then the book was a manuscript ; printing was an undiscovered art ; so that merely the resistance value was much greater, since it would cost a much larger sum to overcome that resist- ance where the obstacle was so vast a mass of manual labor, than where the corresponding labor in a compos- itor would multiply, by the pressman's aid, into a thou- sand copies, and thus divide the cost amongst a thousand purchasers. But this was not all. The owner of a manu- script would not suffer it to be copied. He knew the worth of his prize ; it had a monopoly value. And what is that? Monopoly value is affirmative value carried to extremity. It is the case where you press to the ultimate limit upon the desire of a bidder to possess the article. It is no longer a question, For how little might it be afforded? You do not suffer him to put that question. You tell him plainly, that although he might have it THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 53 copied for forty pounds, instead of sinking upon the origi- nal manuscript a perpetual estate yielding forty pounds annually, you will not allow it to be copied. Conse- quently you draw upon that fund which, in our days, so. rarely can be drawn upon ; viz. the ultimate esteem for the object, — the last bidding a man will offer under the known alternative of losing it. This alternative rarely exists in our days. It is rarely in the power of any man to raise such a question. Yet sometimes it is ; and we will cite a case which is curious, in illustration. In 1812 occurred the famous Roxburghe sale, in commemoration of which a distinguished club was subsequently established in London. It was a library which formed the subject of this sale, — and in the series of books stood one which was perfectly unique in affirma- tive value. This value was to be the sole force operat- ing on the purchaser; for as to the negative value, estimated on the resistance to the multiplication of copies, it was impossible to assign any : no price would overcome that resistance. The book was the Valdakfek * Boccac- cio. It contained, not all the works of that author, but his Decameron, — and, strange enough, it was not a manu- script, but a printed copy. The value of the "book lay in these two peculiarities : 1st, it was asserted that all subsequent editions had been castrated with regard to those passages which reflected too severely on the Papal Church; 2dly, the edition, as being incorrigible in that respect, had been so largely destroyed, that, not without reason, the Roxburghe copy was believed to be unique. In fact, the book had not been seen during the two previ- ous centuries-; so that it was at length generally held to be a nonentity. And the biddings went on as they would * Valdarfer was the printer. 5* 54 THE LOGIC 01' POLITICAL ECONOMY. do for the "Wandering Jew, in case he should sudden- ly turn up as a prize-subject for life insurances. The contest soon rose buoyantly above the element of little men. It lay between two "top-sawyers," the late Lord Spencer and Lord Blandford; and finally was knocked down to the latter for two thousand two hundred and forty pounds, — at a time when five per cent was obtained everywhere, and readily, for money. It illustrates the doctrine on which we are now engaged, — that the pur- chaser some few years later, when Duke of Marlborough, and in personal embarrassments, towards which he could draw no relief from plate that was an heirloom, or from estates that were entailed, sold the book to his old com- petitor Lord Spencer for one thousand guineas. Noth- ing is more variable than the affirmative value of objects which ground it chiefly upon rarity. It is exceedingly apt to pall upon possession. In this case there was a secondary value, — the book was not only rare, but was here found in its integrity: this one copy was perfect: all others were mutilated. But still such a value, being partly a caprice, and in the extremest sense a pretium affectionis, or fancy price, fluctuates with the feelings or opinions of the individual; and, even when it keeps steady, it is likely to fluctuate with the buyer's fortunes. On the other hand, where a pretium affectionis is not without a general countersign from society, we do not find that it fluctuates at all. The great Italian master- pieces of painting have long borne an affirmative value (i. e. a value founded on their pre-eminence, not on the cost of producing) ; and that value pushed to the excess of a monopoly, continually growing more intense. It would be useless now to ask after the resistance price: because, if that could be ascertained, it would be a mere inoperative curiosity. Very possible it is that Leonardo THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 55 da Vinci may have spent not more than £ 150 in pro- ducing his fresco of the Last Supper. But, were it pos- sible to detach it from the walls of the convent refectory which it emblazons, the picture would command in Lon- don a king's ransom; and the Sistine Chapel embellish- ments of Michael Angelo, probably two such ransoms within a week. Such jewels are now absolutely unique, — they are secure from repetition ; notorious copies would not for a moment enter into competition. It is very doubtful if artists of power so gigantic will reappear for many centuries ; and the sole deduction from their in- creasing value is the ultimate frailty of their materials. Salmon is another instructive case. At present it is said pretty generally to bear the average price of fifteen pence a pound ; * and this price is doubtless the resistance value. But, if the price should ever come to represent the affirmative or power value, it might easily rise consid- erably higher. There are many men who would prefer one pound of salmon to four of beef; and up to that level, if the stress should ever lie on a man's intrinsic esteem for salmon, it might ascend easily. But it could not as- cend very much higher; because a limit is soon reached at which it would always be pulled up suddenly by some other commodity of the same class in still higher esteem. A majority of palates prefer turbot, i. e. true turbot, not the rubbish which passes for such. And vicarious articles, possibly even superior substitutes, will generally avail to fix a limit on the maximum side, beyond which few arti- cles will be pushed even by the severest strain upon their affirmative qualities ; that is, by the situation where the question ceases entirely to the seller, "What can you # Since this was written, a Dutch competition in the markets of Lon- don has reduced the price. 56 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. afford to take? and is turned against the buyer, "What is the utmost that you,* rather than lose the article, will consent to give? The simple demand for variety, as one amongst the resources of hospitality, might long avail to support a rack-price (that is, an affirmative price) for salmon, if it were ever to reach it. People are called upon daily to buy what may allow a reasonable choice to their guests ; that is, what may be agreeable as one luxury amongst others, even though to their own estimate it may not avail as one luxury against others. Croton Oil. — This case of salmon represents that vast order of cases where the article is within limits. Press as you will upon the desire of a man to obtain the article for its intrinsic qualities, for its power to gratify, (which, as in itself capable of no exact estimate, might seem susceptible of an unlimited appreciation,) there is, however, hi all such cases, or very nearly all, a practical limit to this tendency. Easily the article may rise to a price double or triple of what would notoriously suffice to overcome the resistance, or cost. But this very ascent brings it at every step into direct competition with articles of the same class usually reputed to be better. It is of no consequence, in such a competition, whether the supe- rior article is selling on the principle of affirmative value or of negative, — selling for its intrinsic qualities or its cost. Turbot, for instance, being at four shillings a pound, whether that four shillings represents a value far beyond the cost, or simply the cost, naturally the candidate for salmon will pause, and compare the two fishes with a single reference to the intrinsic power of each for the common purpose of gratifying the palate. If, then, he shared in the usual comparative estimate of the two as luxury against luxury, here at once a limit is reached beyond which monopoly of salmon could never exten- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 57 sively force it. Peculiar palates are, for that reason, rare. Limits, therefore, are soon found, and almost universally. But now we pass to a case where no such limits exist. About nineteen years ago were introduced, almost simul- taneously, into the medical practice of this country two most powerful medicines. One of these was the sulphate of quinine ; the other was croton oil, amongst drastic medicines of a particular class the most potent that is known. Both were understood to be agents of the first rank against inflammatory action; and, with respect to the last, numerous cases were reported in which it had, beyond a doubt, come in critically to save a patient, pre- viously given up by his medical attendants. Naturally these cases would be most numerous during the interval requisite for publishing and diffusing the medicine, — an interval which, with our British machinery, is brief. There was time enough, however, to allow of a large number of cases in which it had not been introduced until the eleventh hour. Two of these came under my personal knowledge, and within the same fortnight. Both were cases of that agonizing disorder, inflammation affecting the intestines. One was near to London : a mounted messenger rode in for the medicine ; returned within a hundred minutes ; and the patient was saved. The other case lay near to Nottingham : the person despatched with the precious talisman to the post-office, then in Lombard Street, found the mail just starting ; but, by an inflexible rule of office, neither guard nor coachman was at liberty to receive a parcel not entered in the way-bill : the man had not the presence of mind to intrust it with one of the passengers; the patient was already in extremity; and, before the medicine reached Nottingham by a coach leav- ing London the next morning, he had expired. Now, in the case of such a magical charm, to have or 58 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. to want which was a warrant for life or for death, it is clear that, amongst rich men, the holder of the subtle elixir, the man who tendered it in time, might effectually demand an Oriental reward. " Ask me to the half of my kingdom!" would be the voluntary offer of many a miUionnaire. And if this undoubted power, occasionally held by individual surgeons, were not neutralized by the honor governing our medical body, cases of excessive prices for critical operations would not be rare. Accord- ingly Marechal Lannes in 1809, who had been accus- tomed in his original walk of life to a medical body far less liberal or scrupulous than ours, used the words of the dying Cardinal Beaufort, — "I'll give a thousand pounds," he exclaimed convulsively, "to the man who saves my life ! " Not a very princely offer, it must be owned; and we hope it was not livres that he meant. But the case was hopeless ; both legs shattered at his age were beyond art. Had it even been otherwise, Baron Larrey was a man of honor; and, under any circumstances, would have made the same answer, — viz. that, without needing such bribes, the surgeons would do their utmost. Still the case requires notice. Accidentally in our British system the high standard of professional honor turns aside such mercenary proposals, — they have become insults. But it is clear, that, per se, the value of the aid offered is very frequently in the strictest sense illim- itable. Not only might the few monopolists of exqui- site skill in operating, or the casual monopolist of an amulet, a charm, like the croton oil, press deeply upon the affirmative value of this one resource to a man else sealed for death : but also it is certain that, in applying their screw, medical men would rarely find themselves abreast of those limits which eternally are coming into THE LOGIC 01? POLITICAL ECONOMY. 59 play (as we have illustrated in the case of salmon) with regard to minor objects. A man possessing enormous strength of wrist, with singular freedom from nervous trepidations, is not often found ; how very rarely, then, will he be found amongst those possessing an exquisite surgical science ! Virtually, in any case where a hair's- breadth swerving of the hand will make the difference of life and death, a surgeon thus jointly favored by nature and by art holds a carte blanche in his hands. This is the potential value of his skill ; and he knows it ; and generally, we believe, that out of the British empire 20 it would be used to some extent. As it is, what value do we find it to be which really takes place in such instances ? It is simply the resistance value. Disdaining to levy a ransom, as it were, upon the fears and yearnings after life in the patient, or upon the agitations of his family, the honorable British surgeon or physician estimates only the cost to himself; he will take no account of the gain to the other party. He must compute the cost of his journey to and fro; the cost in practice lost during his absence from home ; and that dividend upon the total costs of his education to which a case of this magnitude may fairly pretend. These elements compose the resist- ance to his being in the situation to offer such aid ; and upon these he founds his expectation. By this time, therefore, the reader understands suffi- ciently our distinctions of plus and minus — power and resistance — value. He understands them to be the two ruling poles towards which all possible or conceivable prices must tend; and we admit that, generally, the re- sistance value will take place, because generally, by apply- ing an equal resistance, the object (whatever it be) may be produced. But by way of showing that it is no roman- tic idea to suppose a case of continual recurrence where 60 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. the affirmative value will prevail over the negative, where an object will draw upon the purchaser not for the amount of cost, (including as we need not say, the ordinary rate of profit,) but for an amount calculated according to the intrinsic powers, we will give the case of — Hunters, as against Race-horses. — If a man were to offer you a hunter, master of your weight, and other- wise satisfactory, you would readily give him a fair price. But what is a fair price ? That which will reproduce such a hunter, — his cost; the total resistance to his being offered in this condition. Such is the value, and such the law of value, for a hunter But it is no longer such for a racer. "When a breeder of horses finds one amongst his stud promising first-rate powers of contending at Newmarket, he is no longer content to receive a cost price for the horse, or anything like it. The man who (as a master of pearl-divers) sells the ordinary seed pearls at the mere cost and fair profit on the day's wages which have earned them, when he reaps a pearl fit to embellish the schah of Persia's crown, looks to become a petty schah himself. He might sell it with a profit by obtain- ing even that whole day's wages, during one hour of which it was produced: but will he? No more than, amongst ourselves, the man who, by a twenty-guinea lot- tery-ticket, drew a prize of £ 10,000, would have sold his ticket for a profit of cent per cent upon its cost. The breeder of the race-horse would take into his estimate the numerous and splendid stakes which the horse might hereafter win; sometimes at Epsom, on one Derby day, as much as £ 5,000 to £ 6,000 ; to say nothing of the Leger at Doncaster, or other enormous prizes. It is true that the chances of mortality and failure must also be weighed: and unluckily no insurance has yet been done on racers, except as regards sea-risk. But after all THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 61 drawbacks, the owner may succeed finally in obtaining for a first-rate horse (once known for good perform- ances) as much as £ 4,000 ; whilst the whole value, com- puted on the resistance, may not have been more than as many hundreds. And this fact,- though standing back in the rear as regards public knowledge, we may see daily advertised in effect by that common regulation which empowers the loser in many cases to insist on the win- ning horse being sold for £200, or a similar small sum. Were it not for this rule, which puts a stop to all such attempts without hazard of personal disputes, it would be a capital speculation for any first-rater, though beaten at Newmarket, to sweep all the stakes without effort on a tour through the provincial courses : justice would cease for the owners of inferior horses, and sport for the spec- tators of the competition. The last case must have convinced the reader, that, however uncommon it may be, the cost — the resistance — does not always take place even in the bosom of high civilization. And, by the way, amongst many other strange examples which we could state of anomalous values not considered in books of political economy, it would be easy to show that the very affirmative values of things have shifted under shifting circumstances. Pearls were most valued amongst the ancient Romans, diamonds and rubies amongst modern nations. "Why? We are persuaded that, besides other reasons founded on resistance for the varying ratio of prices, this follow- ing affirmative reason has prevailed: the Roman festi- vals were all by daylight, under which sort of light pearls tell most at a distance. The modern are chiefly by lamplight, where the flashing and reverberated lustres of jewels are by far the more effective. The intrinsic powers have shifted. As an embellishment of female 6 62 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. beauty or distinction, pearls are no longer what they were. Affirmatively they have shifted, as well as in the resistance, or negatively. Slaves are valued alternately under both laws. Enter the slave-market at Constantinople ; not in its now ruined state, but as it existed at the opening of this nineteenth century. The great majority of ordinary slaves were val- ued, simply as effects derived from certain known causes adequate to their continued reproduction. They had been stolen ; and the cost of fitting out a similar foray, when divided suppose amongst a thousand captives, quoted the price of each ordinary slave. Even upon this class, how- ever, although the cost (that is, on our previous explana- tion, the negative value) would form the main basis in the estimate, this basis would be slightly modified by varieties in the affirmative value. The cost had been equal; but the affirmative value would obviously vary under marked differences as to health, strength, and age. Was the man worth five or eight years' purchase ? — that question must make a slight difference, even where the kind of service itself, that could be promised, happened to rank in the lowest ranges of the scale. A turnip cannot admit of a large range in its appreciation ; because the very best is no luxury. But still a good turnip will fetch more than a bad one. "We do not, however, suppose that this difference in turnips will generally go the length of mak- ing one sort sell at negative or cost value, the other at affirmative. Why? Simply because the inferiority in the turnip A, is owing to inferior cost on its culture ; and the superiority in turnip B, to superior cost. But in the case of the slaves this is otherwise. Upon any practicable mode of finding their cost, it must prove to have been the same. The main costs of the outfit were, of necessity, common to the total products of the expe- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. G3 dition. And any casual difference in the individual ex- penditure, from sickness or a longer chase, &c, must be too vague to furnish a ground of separate appreciation. Consequently the mob, the plebs, amongst the slaves, must be valued as the small ordinary pearls are valued, — simply so many stone-weight on the basis of so much outlay. But the natural aristocracy amongst the slaves, like the rarer pearls, will be valued on other principles. Those who were stolen from the terraces and valleys lying along that vast esplanade between the Euxine and the Caspian, had many chances in favor of their proving partially beautiful ; by fine features and fine complexions at the least. Amongst the males, some would have a Mameluke' value, as promising equestrian followers in battle, as capital shots, as veterinary surgeons, as sooth- sayers, or calculators of horoscopes, &c. All these would be valued affirmatively; not as effects that might be continually reproduced by applying the same machinery of causes to the resistance presented by the difficulties; but inversely, as themselves causes in relation to certain gratifying effects connected with Mohammedan display or luxury. And if we could go back to the old slave- markets of the Romans, we should meet a range of prices (corresponding to a range of accomplishments) as much more extensive than that of the Ottoman Porte, as the Roman civilization was itself nobler and ampler than that of Islamism. Generally, no doubt, the learned and the intellectual slaves amongst the Romans, such as Tiro, the private secretary of Cicero, were vernce, — slaves not im- mediately exotic, but homebred descendants from slaves imported in some past generation, and trained at their master's expense upon any promise of talent. Tutors (in the sense of pedagogues), physicians, poets, actors, 64 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. brilliant sword-players, architects, and artists of all classes, savans, litterateurs — nay, sometimes philosophers not to be sneezed at — were to be purchased in the Roman mar- kets. And this, by the way, was undoubtedly the cause of that somewhat barbarian contempt which the Romans, in the midst of a peculiar refinement, never disguised for showy accomplishments. "We read this sentiment conspicuously expressed in that memorable passage where Virgil so carelessly resigns to foreigners, Graeculi, or whatever they might be, the supremacy in all arts but those of conquest and government ; and, in one instance, viz. " orabunt causas melius" with a studied insult to a great compatriot recently departed, not less false as to the fact than base as to the motive. But the contempt was natural in a Roman noble for what he could so easily purchase. Even in menial domestics, some pretensions to beauty and to youth were looked for : " tall stripling youths, like Ganymede or Hylas/' stood ranged about the dinner-table. The solemn and shadowy banquet, offered by way of temptation to our Saviour in the wil- derness, (see Paradise Regained?) is from a Roman din- ner; and the philosophic Cicero, in the midst of eternal declamations against luxury, &c, thinks it a capital jest against any man, that his usual attendants at dinner were but three in number, old, shambling fellows, that squinted perhaps, two of them bandy-legged, and one with a ten- dency to mange. Under this condition of the Roman slave-shambles as respected the demand, we must be sure that affirmative price would interfere emphatically to gov- ern the scale. Slaves possessing the greatest natural or acquired advantages, would often be thrown, by the chances of battle, into Roman hands, at the very same rate as those who had no advantages whatever. The cost might be very little, or it might be none, except for THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 65 a three months' voyage to Rome ; and, at any rate, would be equal. So far, there would be no ground for differ- ence in the price. But if at all on a level as to the cost, the slaves were surely not on a level when considered as powers. As powers, as possessors of various accom- plishments ministering to the luxury or to the pom- pous display of some princely household, the slaves would fetch prices perhaps as various as their own numbers, and pointing to a gamut of differences utterly unknown to any West Indian colonies, or the States of Continental America. In that New "World, slavery has assumed a far coarser and more animal aspect Men, women, or child- ren, have been all alike viewed in relation to mere prasdial uses. Household slaves must there also be wanted, no doubt, but in a small ratio by comparison with the Roman demand; and, secondly, they were not bought originally with that view, so as materially to influence the market, but were subsequently selected for domestic stations, upon experimental discovery of their qualities. Whereas in Rome — that is, through all Italy and the Roman colo- nies — the contemplation of higher functions on a very- extensive scale, as open almost exclusively to slaves, would act upon the total market, — even upon its inferior arti- cles, — were it only by greatly diminishing the final residuum available for menial services. The result was, that, according to the growth of Rome, slaves were grow- ing continually in price. Between 650-660 U. C. (the period of Marius, Sylla, &c.) and 700-710 (final stage of the Julian conflict with Pompey), the prices of all slaves must prodigiously have increased. And this object it was — viz. the slave-market, a most substantial specula- tion, not by any means the pearl market (as rumor stated at the time) — which furnished the great collateral motive (see Mitford's Greece) to Caesar's two British expeditions. 6* 66 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Land is another illustration, and of the first rank. Ricardo ought not to have overlooked a case so broad as this. You may easily bring it under examination by contrasting it with the case of a machine for displa- cing human labor. That machine, if it does the work in one hundred days of one hundred men in the same time, will at first sell for something approaching to the labor which it saves, — say, for the value of eighty men's labor : that is, it will sett for what it can produce, not for what will produce itself; that is, it will sell for aflirmative, not for negative value. But as soon as the construction of such a machine ceases to be a secret, its value will totally alter. It will not sell for the labor produced, but for the labor producaViy. By the sup- position, it produces work equal to that of a hundred men for one hundred days ; but, if it can itself be pro- duced by twenty men in twenty days, then it will finally drop in value to that price : it will no longer be viewed as a cause equal to certain effects, but as an effect cer- tainly reproducible by a known cause at a known cost. Such is the case eventually with all artificial machines ; and for the plain reason, that, once ceasing to be a secret, they can be reproduced ad infinitum. On the other hand, land is a natural machine, — it is limited, — it can- not be reproduced. It will therefore always sell as a power, — that is, in relation to the effects which it can produce, not as itself an effect; because no cause is adequate to the production of land. The rent expresses one year's value of land ; and, if it is bought in perpe- tuity, then the value is calculated on so many years' purchase, — a valuation worthy, on another occasion, of a separate consideration. For the present, it is enough to say, that land is not valued on any principle of cost, — does not sell at negative value, — but entirely on the THE LOGIC OJP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 67 principle of its powers or intrinsic qualities : in short, it sells for affirmative value, • — as a power, as a cause, not as an effect. Popish reliques put this distinction in a still clearer light. The mere idea of valuing such articles as pro- ducible and reproducible, as effects from a known ma- chinery, would at once have stripped them of all value whatever. Even a saint can have only one cranium; and, in fact, the too great multiplication of these relics, as derived from one and the same individual saint or martyr, was one of the causes, co-operating with changes in the temper of society, and with changes in the inter- course of nations, which gradually destroyed the market in relics. But we are far from deriding them. For the simple and believing ages, when the eldest son of bap- tism, the King of France, led by the bridle the mule who bore such relics, and went out on foot, bareheaded, to meet them, — these were great spiritual powers ; al- ways powers for exalting or quickening devotion, and sometimes, it was imagined, for the working of benign miracles. This was their affirmative value; and when that languished, they could not pass over to the other scale of negative value, — this was impossible ; for they could not be openly reproduced: counterfeited, forged, they might be, — and too often they were. But this was not a fact to be confessed. They could sell at all only by selling as genuine articles. A value as powers they must have, a value affirmatively, or they could have none at all. 68 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. SECTION V. — ON THE PRINCIPAL FORM OP EXCHANGE VALUE, — VIZ. NEGATIVE VALUE. Tiros far I have been attempting to extricate from the confusion which besets it, and to establish in coherency through all its parts, that idea of value in general, and those subdivisions of exchange value, which come for- ward as antithetic principles in the earliest stages of the deduction. And thus far it is undeniable that Ricar- do's views were as unsound as those of any man, the very weakest among all, who had gone before him. Casual words which he has used, and the practical inference from his neglect to censure, betray this fact. But now the deduction has reached a point at which Bicardo's great reform first comes into action. Henceforward, the powerful hand of Ricardo will be felt in every turn and movement of economy. It may now be assumed as a thing established, that there are two great antithetic forms of value, and no more; viz. affirmative value, resting upon the intrinsic powers of the article valued for achieving or for aiding a human purpose, — and negative value, which neglects altogether the article in itself, and rests upon an acci- dent outside of the article, viz. the amount of resistance to be overcome in continually reproducing it. Upon the first form of value there is little opening for any further explanation, because no opening for any error, except that one error which arises from yielding, through lachete of the understanding, to the false im- pression of the word "use,'' as though "use" meant use beneficial, — a use approved by the moral sense, or the understanding, in contradistinction to a false, facti- tious, and imaginary use. Whareas this is all pure imper- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 69 tinence; and the use contemplated is the simple power of ministering to a purpose, though that purpose were the most absurd, wicked, or destructive to the user that could be imagined. But this misconception is treated in a separate section (viz. in Section VI.). At present, therefore, and throughout this section, we have nothing to distract our attention from the single question which remains, — Value in exchange being founded either on power or on resistance, and the case of power being dismissed to a subsequent section, what is it that consti- tutes the resistance ? This value measured by resistance, — once for all, this negative value, — being in fact the sole value ever heard of in the markets, except for here and there a casual exception, by much the greatest ques- tion in political economy is that which now comes on for consideration. How stood the answer to this question when first Eicardo addressed himself to the subject? According to many writers, — according to Ricardo himself and Mr. M'Culloch, — the answer was occasionally not amiss ; only it was unsteady and vacillating. Is that so? Not at all : the answer was amiss, — was always amiss, — was never right in a single instance. For what is it to us that a man stumbles by some accident into a form of expression which might be sustained at this day as toler- ably correct, (simply because ambiguous,) if, by five hun- dred other expressions in that same man's book, we know to a certainty that he did not mean his own equiv- ocal language to be taken in that sole sense — one sense out of two — which could sustain its correctness ? You urge as decisive the opinion of some eminent witness, who, being asked, " To whose jurisdiction does such a case belong?" had answered, "To the pope's," — mean- ing only that it did not belong to that of the civil power ; 70 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. whilst yet the proof was strong against him, that he had not been aware of two popes being in the field, pope and anti-pope, and whilst the question of jurisdiction had undeniably concerned not the old competition of temporal and spiritual, but that particular personal schism. A very dubious, because a very latitudinarian, expression is cited abundantly from Adam Smith, and the civil crit- ics in economy praise it with vehemence. " Oh, si sic omnia I " they exclaim. " Oh, if he had never forgot himself!" But that is language which cannot be toler- ated. Adam Smith appears to be right in some occa- sional passages upon this great question, merely because his words, having two senses, dissemble that sense which is now found to be inconsistent with the truth. Yet even this dissembling was not consciously contemplated by Adam Smith; he could not dissemble what he did not perceive; he could not equivocate between two senses which to him were one. It is certain, by a vast redun- dancy of proof, that he never came to be aware of any double sense lurking in his own words ; and it is equally certain that, if the two senses now indicated in the ex- pression had been distinctly pointed out to him, he would not have declared for either as exclusive of the other; he would have insisted that the two meanings amounted to the same, — that one was substantially a reiteration of the other, under a different set of syllables, — and that the whole distinction, out of which follows directly a total revolution of political economy, had been pure scho- lastic moonshine. That all this is a correct statement, one sentence will prove. What was the foundation, in Adam Smith's view, of that principal exchange value which in all markets predominates, and which usually is known as the cost value? This mode of exchange value it is which I am THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 71 treating in this fifth section. I have called it negative value; but, call it as you please, what is the eternal ground which sustains it ? Adam Smith replied in one word, that it is labok. "Well, is it not? Why, at one time it might have been said, with some jealousy, that it was; for this elliptical phrase might have been used by Ricardo himself to denote all which it ought to denote ; and, without exam- ination, it could not be known that Adam Smith had not used it in this short-hand way. But proofs would soon arise that in fact he had not. Suppose him questioned thus : — " By the vague general phrase ' labor,' do you mean quantity of labor, or do you mean value of labor ? Price in a market, you affirm, is governed and controlled by labor ; and therefore, as double labor will produce double value, as decuple labor will produce decuple value, so, inversely, from double value you feel yourself at liberty to infer double labor, and from decuple value to infer decuple labor. In this we all agree, — we moderns that are always right, and our fathers that were always wrong. But when you say that, when you utter that unimpeach- able truth, do you mean, that from double value could be inferred double quantity of labor ; as that in Portugal, for instance, because the same cotton stockings will cost thirty shillings which in England may be had for fifteen, therefore two days' labor is required, on the bad Portu- guese system, to equal in effect of production one day's labor on the English system? Is this what you mean? Or, on the contrary, is it this, that therefore the value of labor (that is, wages) may be inferred to be double in Portugal of what it is in England?" Mirrors are undoubtedly cheaper by much amongst us English peo- ple in 1843 than they were in the year of Waterloo. I saw, in 1832, a small one of eight feet high, the very fellow to one which, in 1815, had been used for the 72 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. very same purpose, of filling up a five feet recess, over- arched by wooden carvings, between two separate com- partments of a library, and thus connecting the two into the unity of one. In every point — of dimensions, of reputed quality, of framing, and of application — the two mirrors were the same, and both had been manufactured on a special order to meet the disposable vacancy; yet the one of 1815 had cost forty-eight guineas, the one of 1832 had cost only thirty pounds. Now in reporting from Adam Smith labor as the ground of value, and in applying that doctrine to this case of the mirrors, is it your construction of the word " labor " that the young mirror had cost so much less than the old mirror in consequence of fewer days' work being spent upon it, or in consequence of the same precise days' work (no more and no fewer) being paid at a lower rate? I ab- stract from the quality of money in which the wages happened to be paid. "We are all aware that, between 1819 and 1832, there was full time to accomplish that augmented value of money which the believers in the war depreciation 21 suppose to have been the natural anti- strophe, or inverse series of motions pursued by our Eng- lish currency under the speculative measures of Sir Eobert Peel in his earlier years. For a moment, therefore, the reader might fancy that the cheapness of the one mirror was no more than an expression of a currency re-estab- lished in power, and that the dearness of the other had been a mere nominal dearness. But this fancy is de- stroyed by a comparison with the mass of other commod- ities, all of which must have been equally affected (if any had) by a fall and rise in the value of money. The dilemma, therefore, resolves itself into these alternative propositions ; viz. that the later and cheaper of the mir- rors had been produced through some smaller quantity THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 73 of labor, or else that the same unvarying quantity of labor had been obtained at a very much less rate of wages. Now, which of the two alternative explanations does that man declare for, who adopts the vague language of labor being the foundation of price ? Does he make his election for quantity of labor, or for value of labor ? Either choice will satisfy the mere understanding for the moment, since either will explain the immediate phenom- enon of a large, and else unaccountable difference in the prices of the two mirrors : but one only will satisfy Political Economy, because one only will stand the trial of those final consequences into which economy will pursue it. Greatly it has always surprised me, that Ricardo should not have introduced in his first chapter that experimentum cruets which, about four years later, I found myself obliged to introduce in " The Templar's Dialogues " ; because, as the matter now stands, Bicardo's main chapter is not so much a proof of his new theory as an illustration of it. For instance, he begins by saying that, in the earliest period of society, the hunter and the fisherman would exchange their several commodities on the basis laid down; viz. a day's produce of the one against a day's produce of the other. 22 But if any opponent had gone a step further, so as next to suppose the case of a master fisher- man employing twenty journeymen, and the hunter em- ploying a similar body of ministerial agents, the whole question under discussion would have come back in full force upon the disputants. Circumstances would imme- diately have been imagined under which the quantities of labor had altered for the same produce, or (which is the same thing) where the produce had altered under an unvarying quantity of labor. Opposite circumstances would have been imagined, where not the quantities, but the rewards, or prices of labor, had altered; and then, 7 74 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. thirdly, circumstances 'would have been imagined where both alterations had been in motion simultaneously,, the one in the fisherman's business, the other in the hunt- er's. And the resulting prices would have been affirmed to be the same under all these varying circumstances, or to be in any degree capriciously different, according to the views of the writer. Simply as illustration against illustration, one case is as good as another, until it is shown to involve an absurdity. Now, it is true that obscurely, and in a corner, Kicardo does indicate an absurdity flowing from the notion of wages governing the prices of the articles produced. But this absurdity should have been put forward pointedly and conspicu- ously, in the front of the main illustrative case between fishermen and hunters ; whereas, at present, it is only said, that thus does the hunter, thus does the fisher; and upon either doing otherwise, that the other will remonstrate. To be sure he will. But the case de- manded a proof that neither party could do otherwise. Such a proof let me now attempt. Case the First, — where the quantity of labor gov- erns the price. A beaver hat of the finest quality has hitherto cost two guineas. At length, after centuries of beaver-hunt- ing, which have terminated in altering the very habits of the animal, compelling it to become shy and recluse where once it had been careless and gregarious, 28 natu- rally the price of -a beaver hat will begin to advance. But why? What is the essential movement that has taken place ? The novice will object that it is not in the quantity of producing labor; for assuredly the process of manufacturing a beaver-skin into a hat will not have been retrograde : if it changes at all, it will be for the better ; instead of the former process, will gradually be THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 75 substituted a shorter. Or, if it should seem not so much a short process that superseded a long one, as a cheap process that superseded a dear one, still, in any case, it would be for the better. And in fact, though a cheaper process may seem at first sight diiferent from a shorter, eventually they will be found to coincide. For how can, it be cheaper ? Either first by dispensing, through some compendious contrivance, with part of the labor (in which case it is cheaper, obviously because it is shorter) ; or, secondly, because something (whether implement or ma- terial) at a low price is substituted for something formerly used at a higher price. But in that case why was the old displaced article at a higher price ? Simply because it required more labor to produce it. This truth is illus- trated in the present objection: the novice objects that the hat does not cost more, on account of more labor being required to manufacture a hat, but because the raw material is more costly : and this strikes him as being quite a separate element in the cost of an article, and perfectly distinct from the labor spent in producing that article. All this, however, is misplaced ingenuity. The raw material seems to be distinct from the producing labor ; but in fact it is the same thing : it is part of the producing labor contemplated in an earlier stage. The beaver can be valued only as the hat is valued, on the same principle applied at a different time. How is the manufacturing process more or less costly? Exactly as it requires more or less labor. How else is the beaver more or less costly? That also, viz. the raw material, can vary in cost only as it requires more or less labor; that is, twenty men, fifteen, or ten, within the same num- ber of weeks, to secure a given quantity of beaver-skins. The manufacturer of rum, of arrack, of ale, of perry, speaks of the labor employed in his own particular pro- 76 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. cess of distillation, brewing, fermentation, as antithetically opposed to the raw material on which his skill is exercised. But this is only because naturally he abstracts his atten- tion from processes belonging to a stage of labor previous to his own stage, and with which earliest processes per- sonally he has no connection. Up to the moment which brings the raw material into his own hands, he postulates that article as thus far a product unknown to himself; viz. so far as it is a product from a skill or science not within his own profession. Else he is well aware that the sugar, the rice, the malt, the pears, all alike are valued, and can be valued, only upon that same consid- eration of so much labor applied to their production, which consideration it is that assigns a value and a price to the final product from his own professional series of operations. SECTION VI.— ON THE TECHNICAL TEEM, VALUE IN USE. I. It has been already explained, that the capital and influential error of Adam Smith, in his famous distinc- tion between value in use and value in exchange, lies in his co-ordinating these ideas. Yet how? Are they not co-ordinate? Doubtless they are sometimes; doubt- less they divide sometimes against each other as collat- eral genera of value ; that is, whenever each excludes the other. In the case where a particular value in use has no value at all in exchange, there the two ideas stand in full antithesis to each other, exactly as Adam Smith represents them. But, secondly, value in use is often not co-ordinate but SMJordinate to value in exchange. Value in use sometimes excludes all value in exchange, — THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 77 that is one mode. But value in use sometimes so en- tirely includes exchange value, as to form in fact but one subdivision of that idea; one horn out of the two into which exchange value divaricates. This has been sufficiently illustrated in the last sec- tion, and it may be repeated once for all in this logical type or diagram : — First relation: Value, as opposed to non-value, Subdivides into Value in use: Value in exchange. Second relation : Value in exchange, as opposed to pure teleologic yalue bearing no price in exchange, Subdivides into Value in use (as a possible Value in cost (as the ordi- ground of price). nary ground of price). Any man acquainted with logic will apprehend at once the prodigious confusion likely to ensue, when genera and species, radical ideas and their subdivisions, are all confounded together. A glass full of water, taken out of a brook in England to quench a momentary thirst, has only a use value ; it stands opposed as a collateral idea (not as ajilial, but as a sisterly idea) to value in exchange. And the two hostile ideas jointly, compose the general abstract idea of value as opposed to worthlessness ; they are its two species as in Diagram I. But, on the other hand, a glass of medicinal water, having its value meas- ured by the resistance to its production, is not opposed co- ordinately to exchange value; it ranks under exchange value as one of two modes: — 1. Teleologic power ( = use) ; 2. Cost. It is only requisite to look back upon the case of the musical toy in Canada, selling, under pecu-* 78 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. liar circumstances, for a price founded on its teleology; whilst in London or Paris, at the very same time, in contempt of this teleology, (or consideration of serviceable- ness,) it sells on the principle of its cost, in order to see value in use no longer collateral and opposed to value in exchange, but, on the contrary, to see it coinciding with exchange value, and as one subordinate mode of exchange value, (incapable, therefore, of opposition to ex- change value,) to see it dividing against cost as the other mode. In general, it may be said, that value in use, as excluding value in exchange, has no place in political economy; from the moment when it begins to interest the economist, it must be because it happens to coincide with the value in exchange : it has itself become the value in exchange. Here lay the original error, the irpmrov ^euSos, viz. in the false position of use value, as if always and neces- sarily contra-arranged to exchange value ; whereas often enough the use value becomes for a time the sole basis of the exchange value. But this first error is followed by two others. II. How came Adam Smith to say of water, that it bears little or no value in exchange? you might as well say that abstractedly, and without reference to spe- cific gravity, pine timber was heavy or not heavy : it is heavy or not in the absolute sense, as you take much of that timber, or little of that timber. Specific gravity, indeed, already presupposes a past collation of weights, because it compares the weights under equal bulks : and then it becomes reasonable to say that lead is heavy, else the proposition is unmeaning. A little water, and in the wrong place, has no value : a great deal of water, and in the right place, even in watery England, has a very great value. Not merely as a fishery, but as a THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 79 bath for swimmers ; as a reservoir, or Roman " castellum," for supplying the domestic purposes of a city; as a tor- rent, or water-power, for turning machinery; as a dock for shipping, as an anchorage for boats, as a canal for transporting great bulks and weights of commodities, — water is often incalculable in its exchange value. The late Duke of Bridgewater derived a larger rental from one of his canals, than perhaps he could have done from half the diamonds in the regal treasuries of Europe or of Asia. 24 How has a man, in comparing water with diamonds, the right of staking against any single diamond one ounce of water, rather than ten thousand ounces, or than ten million ounces, or these rather than a grain ? Even the ancients, little as they knew of political econ- omy, knew better than this. Before they attempt a com- parison between two commodities, they are careful to assign the particular quantities (usually the weights) between which the equations shall be made. Aurelian, for instance, would not allow his wife a silk (or pos- sibly a silk velvet) gown, because he thought it too dear for authorizing by so authentic a precedent. But how dear? At that time, (say 250 years after Christ,) it was laoaraaiov rat xpvo-w, drew in the scales against gold ; a pound weight of the silk tissue exchanged for a pound weight of gold at the ordinary alloy. Thus Plautus, in his Epidicus [Act iii. sc. 3]: " Nse tu habes servom graphicum, et quantivis pretii ! Non caru' est auro contra." " Indeed you have an accomplished slave, and worth any money ! He is cheap weighed against gold: i. e. against his own weight in gold." Otherwise says an old French commentator, he might be sold au poids de For ; and so in many scores of places. To make an intelligible valuation in gold, the weight of the article in question is assumed as the basis of the 80 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. equation. Else it is the old Cambridge problem, — Given the skipper's name, to determine the ship's longitude. III. How came Adam Smith (by way of retaliation for stripping water of its exchange value) to say, that diamonds have little or no value in use ? Diamonds realize the "use" contemplated by political economy quite as much as water. Water has the exchange value of diamonds, diamonds have the use value of water. The use means the capacity of being used, that is, of being applied to a purpose. It is not meant that, by pos- sessing value in use, a thing is useful — is valuable — quoad commodum or quoad utilitatem, but valuable ad utendum, utendi gratia, with a view to being used; not that it accomplishes some salutary or laudable purpose, but that it accomplishes a purpose, — however monstrous, pernicious, or even destructive to the user ; and that its price, instead of being founded on its cost, (or the resistance to its reproduction,) is founded on its power to realize this purpose. From the Greek word for a purpose (or final cause), viz. reXos (telos), we have the word teleologic ; to denote that quality in any subject by which it tends towards a purpose, or is referred to a purpose. Thus the beauty of a kitchen-garden, of a machine, of a systematic theory, or of a demonstration, is said to be teleologic ; as first of all perceived upon referring it to the purposes which it professes to answer. On the same principle, all affirmative value, or value in use, is teleologic value, — value derived from the pur- pose which the article contemplates. 25 Lastly, upon any other explanation of the word " use" as part of the term " value in use," the puerility of the consequences must startle_ every man whose attention is once directed to the point. It is clear that political econ- omy neither has resources nor any motive for distin- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 81 guishing between the useful and the noxious ; it is clear that political economy has quite as little of either, for distinguishing between the truly useful and the spu- riously useful. No man has paid for an article less or more because it is fascinating and ruinous ; no man has paid for an article, either less or more, because it is dull and useful. On what fiction, therefore, or under what pretence, should political economy insinuate her proboscis into such inquiries ? She may " hope that she is not intruding " ; but it is certain that she is : and if a value can be tolerated which founds itself on the use- ful, then with equal reason may be introduced a value founded on the virtuous, or a value peculiar to Birming- ham, to "Wednesday, to Friday, and to Robinson Crusoe. But whilst "the useful" must be deplorably imperti- nent as a subject of inquiry to political economy; the " use " of any article in the sense of its purposes, func- tions, or teleological relations, as furnishing the ground for their values or prices, will offer one entire hemisphere in that field of science. And for this reason, because the purpose which any article answers, and the cost which it imposes, must eternally form the two limits, within which the tennis-ball of price flies backward and forward. Five guineas being,- upon the particular article x, the maximum of teleologic price, the utmost sacrifice to which you would ever submit, under the fullest ap- preciation of the natural purposes which x can fulfil, and then only under the known alternative of losing it if you refuse the five guineas ; this constitutes the" one pole, the aphelion or remotest point to which the price for you could ever ascend. But, on the other hand, it is quite consistent with this potential teleologic price, that, considered as a product, (not as itself a power for raising products,) irieasured in its value by the resistance 82 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. to its own endless reproduction, x might not be worth more than five shillings. The cost of reproducing might be no more. And so long as that state of things sub- sisted, you would not listen to any call made upon your ultimate or teleologic appreciation. You would insist on the appreciation by cost — on the five shillings — so long as nothing hindered the reproduction upon those terms. Here you have the other pole, the perihelion, countervailing the higher extreme which comes into play, only in that case where circumstances suspend the free reproduction of the article. These, therefore, constitute the two limits between which the price must always be held potentially to oscillate. Consequently for itself this pair of limits, — the use and the cost, — the use as the positive or virtual measure, the cost as the measure, by resistance, must be as all-important as the other pair of limits between the useful and the noxious must be impertinent. But, secondly, the former pair of limits is also the basis or ground of genesis from which the whole science is eventually developed. Thus, by way of brief illustration, a genuine picture of Da Vinci's or Raphael's, sells always on the principle of value in use, or teleologic value. An enlightened sensibility to the finest effects of art, — this constitutes the purpose or teleologic function to which the appre- ciation is referred ; no regard is paid to the lower limit, founded on the difficulty of reproduction ; that being now, and ever since the death of the great artists, a limit in the most absolute sense unapproachable. It is right, therefore, to say that the picture sells for its use, i. e. its capacity of being used or enjoyed ; and that this price cannot now be intercepted (as so generally the affirma- tive prices of articles are) by a price founded upon cost of reproducing. So, again, the phial of prussic acid, THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 83 which you buy in a remote Australian colony, acciden- tally drained of its supplies, at a price exorbitantly be- yond its ordinary cost, must be classed as a price founded on value in use, notwithstanding that I will assume it to have been bought with a view to self-destruction. It would argue great levity of heart to view in the light of a useful thing, any agency whatever that had termi- nated in so sorrowful a result as suicide. Usefulness there was not in the prussic acid, as any power sufficient to affect or alter the price ; but a purpose there was, however gloomy a purpose, a teleologic use attached to the acid, under the circumstances supposed. Now, if this purpose is considered in the price, then the use of the article, its teleologic function, has operated ; and in bar of its more customary ground. But, it is perhaps retorted, " considered ! why, the purpose, the application, the possible uses of an article, must always be considered in the price; for, unless it promised those uses, there would be no price at all." True ; and this it is which always causes a confusion : that even in the common case where merely the cost it is which cuts off from a possible line that section of the line representative of the price, still it is the affirmative uses of the article which make it first of all conceivable for any such line to exist. The cost cuts off, suppose from a valuation of twenty, (as corresponding to the affirmative use of the article,) six as corresponding to itself; but that the twenty should at all exist, without which even the six would be impos- sible, is due originally, and in all cases, to the affirma- tive ground, — not to the negative, and in those cases even where the negative price actually takes effect. This, however, does not disturb the principle, — that whilst the affirmative value only can cause any fund at all to be available for price alternately, it is either that affirmative 84 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. value or the negative value of cost, which settles how much out of this fund shall be in fact disposable for price. Here, for instance, as to the prussic acid, always it must be the capacity of this acid to meet a purpose which could cause any price at all to arise. And this effect of affirmative value must always continue to act, even when the ordinary state of things shall have been restored by some English vessel bringing an abundant supply of the acid, and after the cost or negative value shall have been reinstalled as the operative price. This primary and latent action of the affirmative value must not be for a moment forgotten. In fact, the confusion arising out of this one oversight has been the real cause why the idea of value has never yet been thoroughly and searchingly investigated. It must be remembered that in every case of price alike, whether terminating in a negative or affirmative result, invariably and necessarily it commences on affirmative grounds. Without a pur- pose contemplated, no article could be entertained in the thoughts for a moment as even potentially susceptible of a price. But, secondly, this being presumed to be realized as a sine qua non condition, then always a two- fold opening arises : the original, intrinsic, affirmative value, has first determined the possible quantity of money, &c, available in the extreme case for price, say twenty. But in the last step it is either this affirmative value, or the negative, which settles how much of that twenty shall be cut off and rendered effective, — whether the entire twenty, or perhaps only one. And in the very delicate management of forces so contradictory coming always into a collision, or into the very closest juxtaposi- tion, it cannot be wondered at that the popular and hurried style of thinking in economy has led most men into confusion. THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 85 Before concluding, it may be well to remark that even the Pagan Greeks, ignorant as they necessarily were on political economy, perceived the main outline of distinc- tion between affirmative and negative price. A passage exists in the " Characteristics " of Theo- phrastus, which presents us with this distinction in a lively form, and under circumstances which will prove interesting to the reader. By pure accident, this pas- sage came under the separate review of two eminent scholars, — Casaubon and Salmasius. Greater names do not adorn the rolls of scholarship. Casaubon was dis- tinguished for his accuracy in the midst of his vast comprehensiveness ; and every page of his writing is characterized by an overruling good sense. Salmasius, on the other hand, was too adventurous to be always safe. He was the man for riding steeple-chases, — for wrestling with extravagant difficulties, — or for dancing upon nothing. Yet, with all the benefit from this cau- tion of his intellectual temper, upon the passage in Theophrastus did Casaubon write the most inexcusable nonsense ; whilst the youthful Salmasius, at one bound of his agile understanding, cleared the "rasper" in a style which must have satisfied even the doubts of Isaac. The case illustrates powerfully the uselessness of mere erudition in contending with a difficulty seated in the matter, — substantially in the thing, — and not in the Greek or Latin expression. Here, in Theophrastus, it was not Greek, it was political economy, that could put it to rights. I will give the very words, construing as I go along, for the benefit of non-Grecian readers. Kai Trakav n, and when selling any article, fvq \eyew, not to say, (i. e. it is amongst his characteristic traits not to say,) rocs avovjuvois, to the purchasers, irocrov dv a7roSoiro, in exchange for how much he would deliver it, aXV iparav, 86 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. but to ask Ay, " but to ask " — What is it that he asks? Casaubon, we are concerned to report, construes the words thus, — ecquid inveniat damnandum? — what is it that he (the purchaser, I suppose) finds to complain of? But, besides that such a rendering could not be sustained verbally, it is still worse, that this sense, if it could be sustained, would be irrelevant. How would it be any substitution for the plain declaration of what price he asked, to turn round upon a buyer, and insist upon that buyer's saying what blemish could be detected in the article? And then, venerable Isaac, in which of your waistcoat-pockets did you find the word damnan- dum? And again, as the Greek expression had been plural, tois wvovficvots, to the purchasers, whence comes it that the verb is evpio-Kei, and not pluraliter cva-pucovo-i ? Ought Casaubon to have been satisfied with that blunder, so apparent on his construction, in the syntax? Salmasius saw the truth at a glance, His version needs no justification : itself justifies itself. Thus it is : u n cvpta-Kft ; ad verbum quid invenit? hoc est, quid pretium mereat hsec res ; quanti valeat ? " Instead of saying at a word how much he demands, our knavish friend insists upon asking, ti eipia-Kei ; -. — " What does it fetch? What do we say, gentlemen, for this glorious sabre from Damascus? What price shall I have the honor of naming for these jewelled stirrups from An- tioch ? " The antithesis designed is gross and palpable : that it is the antithesis, and sharply drawn, between affirmative and negative price, — power price (in refer- ence to the power in the article to fulfil human purposes) as opposed to resistance price, (or price measured by the amount of resistance to its reproduction) — price, in short, regulated by what x will produce in opposition to price regulated by what will produce x — all this (which is THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 87 but the same idea under three different formulas) ■will appear at once by the following reflection : — What is it that Theophrastus inputes to him as the form of his trickery? (whatever might be its drift.) It is, — that he evaded a question to himself, and turned round upon the company with a question of his own. Now, it is evident that the question of price, when thrown into the negative form as a question about the cost, was a question for Mm to answer, and not for the company. The cost could be known only to himself. But, when our friend has taken his resolution of translating the onus to the buyers, the only way to accomplish this is, — by throwing that question about price into a shape which only the company could answer. " Nay, gentlemen, how can I tell the value ? Every man knows best what pleas- ure or what benefit he will draw from an article. Do you mind your own business: the cost is my business; but yours is, — the worth of the thing for use ; for your uses, not for mine.'' Scamp seems to have the best of it: their benefit from the article could not be affected by the terms on which he had acquired it. And thus even Hellas was up to this elementary distinction. 26 SECTION m — MODES OF CAPITAL AS AFFECTING VALUE. Finally, there arises a modification, first indicated by Bicardo, of value, from the different proportions in which capital fixed or circulating, predominates in the production of the articles. In this case, it can very often no longer be said that the prices of the resulting articles, according to the general rule of Ricardo, vary as the quantities of the producing labor, — a disturbance of that law occurs. 88 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. The difference between what; is called fixed capital and what is called circulating capital, has often been represented as shifting and shadowy. However, with- out entering upon that dispute further at this point, it will be sufficient to say, that they may be distinguished essentially. Circulating capital, in its normal idea, means any agent whatever used productively which perishes in the very act of being used. Thus, wages are con- veniently said to be for a month, a week, or a day ; but, in fact, a commensurate "moment" of wages perishes upon every instant of time. So of candlelight or gas, so of the porter or drink of any kind allowed by the master of a manufacturing establishment, — none of it holds over for a second act of consumption. That part which may accidentally survive, is a part wholly distinct, not concerned at all in the first act. But in fixed capital this is otherwise. The workman's tools hold over from one act of production to a thousandth act. The same identical chisel, saw, grindstone, and not successive parts of them, have operated on many hundreds of cases ; and by how much larger has been the range of these itera- tions, by so much the more intensely is the tool, engine, or machinery, entitled to the denomination of fixed. The leading case under circulating capital — what we chiefly think of — is wages ; the leading case under fixed capi- tal is machinery. Now, in practice, although one kind of capital often preponderates, rarely is it found altogether to exclude the other. Where wages, for instance, form the main element of cost, there will yet be implements required ; and, inversely, the most extensive machines require human vigilance, direction, and sometimes very considerable co- operation. But, though this is always the practical case, for the sake of trying the question, it is better to suppose THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMT. 89 an extreme case, in which alternately the products arise exclusively from a machine, demanding no aid whatever from circulating capital, and again exclusively from human labor, demanding no aid whatever from capital fixed in stationary machines or instruments. On such an as- sumption, Ricardo undertakes to show that the commod- ities produced in the first case could sustain a far greater fall in price under the same change in the circumstances, and with the same injury (no more and no less) to the manufacturing capitalists, than those produced in the second. He bids us suppose a case of circulating capital, where for the production of certain articles, two thousand pounds annually are paid in wages. We are to suppose an opposite case, in which two thousand pounds have been sunk in a very durable machine for producing a partic- ular set of articles. Now, the annual profits will be the same for both parties : say at ten per cent, two hundred pounds. Consequently, we may say of the total products turned out from either establishment, that they will sell for two thousand two hundred pounds in the first case, for two hundred pounds in the second. Some trifle should be added for current repairs on the machine, and also another trifle as a sinking fund for replacing the machine finally, — yet, as this machine is of variable duration, and in one case calculated to last for a century, both provisions are uncertain, and frequently too inconsider- able to affect the results, so that they may be safely neglected. Now then, such being the circumstances of the two cases, suppose a rise in wages of two per cent to affect the prices of articles issuing from the first establishment. For a time this is peculiar to that establishment ; it does not reach the second at first, because that by the case 8* 90 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. pays no wages. But at last it reaches the second set of products also, through the rebound upon profits. The two per cent extra on wages will be forty pounds in the whole. Now, the loss upon wages must be borne by profits. But the forty pounds levied upon two hundred pounds will reduce the prices of the articles by that amount, i. e. twenty per cent ; whereas the forty pounds levied upon the two thousand two hundred pounds, is simply transferred to the laborers, and the price continues as it was. The case here imagined by Ricardo, and which is subsequently varied through lower stages of durability, greatly disturbing the violence of the results as to price, is exceedingly important by its tendency. And he goes on to show, what will naturally have suggested itself to the student, that between different sorts of fixed capital there is the same difference of tendency as between fixed and circulating. And why? Because the durability, which forms the ground of the generic distinction be- tween fixed and circulating, varies also, and therefore becomes a ground for a special distinction, between any different orders of the fixed. When a man sows corn, which is intensely circulating capital, he seems absolutely and violently to throw it away. But this eventually comes back to him in a new shape. But on every year he renews this violent sacrifice of capital. Other modes of capital, in an opposite extreme, as a thrashing ma- chine, last for his life or even longer. Now, the inter- mediate modes, such as horses, next cows, carts, rakes, as they outlast uses continually less durable, come nearer and nearer to the principle of the circulating capital; and consequently the difference of result upon price, under any changes occurring in productive agencies, tend more and more to become evanescent. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 91 This is the amount of Eicardo's restriction applied to his own general principle of value. An objection, made by Malthus, which to himself appeared fatal, stumbled in the very statement, not conforming to the conditions presupposed by Eicardo. There is, however, some degree of obscurity still overhanging this final section of Bicar- do's great chapter on value ; and for a large system of political economy, which, without regard to names, should endeavor severely to settle the truth as affecting every part, this particular section would require a more searching consideration. But in a little work professing only to state the separate principles (which happen to be fundamental) and the separate theory of Eicardo, there seems no reason for extending the inquiry beyond the limits fixed by his own views. CHAPTER II. ON MARKET VALUE. A "veey short chapter, and a very bad one, (the worst in the whole series,) has been introduced by Eicardo upon market value, quite out of its natural place ; it stands forth in succession by the arrangement of the first edition; whereas it ought, upon any principle, to have ranked immediately after the first. I mention this be- cause the dislocation of the chapter from its true place naturally suggests the cause of its unsoundness ; it was a hurried after-thought, introduced to provide for incon- veniences which, until they had begun to crowd upon 92 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. his experience, the writer had not previously anticipated. What was Ricardo's specific object in this chapter? Was it, as in his great inaugural chapter on value, to amend or reconstitute the old notions current upon this impor- tant section of economy? By no means; for that con- struction of his object there is no opening, since he neither objects to any one point in the old definition and old employment of the idea, nor does he add silently or indirectly any new element to that idea ; he neither am- plifies the use of this idea, nor regulates by any limita- tion its logical relations. As he found it he adopts it; as he adopts it he leaves it. Every other chapter formed a distinct precedent against his title to write this. But it was hi3 necessity which threw him upon such an anomaly. He found that a case was gathering upon him, which would else call in every page for a distinc- tion and a caution. As often as it should happen, — that either to the question of rent, or profits, of wages, or of foreign trade, he should apply his own new laws of value, he would be eternally crossed and thwarted by one and the same form of objections ; viz. by those which are drawn from market value. He would be supposed, by the unskilful student, always to overlook that from which always and systematically he abstracted. The modifications to value, arising out of accidental disturbances in the market, out of casual excesses or casual defects in the supply, are in fact no objections at all. The capital and ruling law de- termine such an article A to be worth 25. Then super- venes a modification, which, by accident, is equal in virtue to 3 ; if this modification (from a defect in the supply) happens to be -|-3, in that case the result will be 28 ; if it happens (from a corresponding excess in the supply) to be — 3, in that case the resulting price will THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 93 be 22. But alike in either case the original determina- tion of the primary law has had its full effect. To have reached 28, when a casual disturbance arose from an additional 3, argue3 sufficiently an original or natural price of 25 ; to have settled at 22, when a disturbance had arisen equal to the effect of subtracting 3, equally argues back to the original price of 25. Consequently all such disturbances are vainly alleged as answers to the capital laws of value, or as in the very least degree objections to those laws. As well might it be said that gravitation is not gravitation, because a magnet is so placed as to effect the velocity of descent. The gravi- tation, you may rely on it, exerts its full power without abatement; and all which is neutralized by the magnet, must be fully accounted for. This is what Eicardo contemplates in the fourth chapter. He wishes to check the rash reader by a timely caution, — "Do not go on complicating the matter to no purpose, by eternally sub- mitting every assertion upon price to the disturbance of a well-known irregularity. "We are all alike aware of that irregularity. It is an irregularity as regards its amount in any particular case ; but it is perfectly regu- lar in its mode of action. We cannot tell beforehand what will be the supply of an article in relation to its demand ; that is uncertain and irregular ; but, once known and certified, we can all anticipate its effects." The case was the same precisely as when Eicardo announced beforehand that he should neglect the varia- tions in the value of money. What could be the use of stating every proposition as to price three times over; first, in the contingency of money remaining stationary; secondly, in the contingency of its rising ; thirdly, in the contingency of its falling? Such an eternal fugue of iterations, such a Welsh triad of cases, would treble the 94 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. labor of writer and reader, without doing the slightest service to either. Within ten pages it would become a mere nuisance. Why not, once for all, abstract from such regular irregularities, which affect no principle, but merely tend to make every conclusion needlessly operose and perplexing? That was the course which Ricardo did take in the case of money : he announced his inten- tion of abstracting from all disturbances of that nature : he made it understood, that from this point onwards he would always assume money as ranging at its stationary natural value ; that is, at the value predetermined by the cost, without looking aside this way or that to changes in the value from the momentary market supply. Now, then, exactly that same intention of abstracting from the casual oscillations of a market, which he had announced in regard to money, here in this fourth chapter he desires to announce universally with regard to all other articles whatsoever. He will fatigue neither him- self nor his readers, by entertaining an eternal set of changes which can be rung upon all cases alike, and which affect no principle in any. Having thus shown what it was that Ricardo designed in this chapter, (viz. a general caveat through all time coming, as to a particular useless practice ;) and secondly, what it was not that Ricardo designed, (viz. a new view of the subsisting doctrine on market value ;) thirdly, let me have permission to show what it was that he ougltt to have intended. He ought to have disengaged the old doctrine from a foul logical blunder, which (if not the very greatest in political economy) is certainly the great- est upon a point of equal simplicity, and the greatest for practical effect. What is "market value"? Does it mean value in a market? Precisely upon that blunder has turned the THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 95 whole distortion of this doctrine, which else, and separate from its misconstructions, is essential to political economy. Let the reader ask himself this question : What is the antithesis to " market value " ? Upon that there is no dispute: all are agreed in calling it "natural value." And what does natural value mean ? Confessedly, it means the value which is central to the oscillation right and left, arising from supply either redundant or defec- tive. Consequently, whilst market value means value as it is disturbed by such oscillations, natural value (being the direct antithesis) means value as it is not disturbed by such oscillations. Such being the nature of this fa- mous distinction, how shameful an error it has been in all writers since the idea of market value was first intro- duced, and much more so in Ricardo, the great, malleus hereticorum, that they speak of " the actual value," 2 ' i. e. the present or existing value, as a term interchangeable with that of market value. Ricardo does so in the very first sentence of his fourth chapter. " In making labor the foundation," &c, "we must not," says he, "be supposed to deny the accidental and temporary deviations of the actual or market price of commodities from this their primary and natural price." Actual or market! why, that would stand, if "market price" meant "price in a market " ; but it means nothing of the sort. And, if it was designed to do so, then I ask, for what was it ever introduced? Exactly because price in a market is not always the same thing as market price, was this latter phrase ever introduced, and guarded as a technical term. Every man will grant that the " actual price '' may happen to coincide with the "natural price"; he will grant also (for he must) that actual price may happen at another time to coincide with market price: but if actual price, or existing price, may at one time coincide with the 96 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. technical term market price, and at another time with its direct antithesis, — that is, may coincide indifferently with A or with non-A ; with what color of decency could a man make actual price and market price to be con- vertible terms ; that is, essentially united, and yet by necessity at times essentially opposed? Adam Smith it was who first brought up the distinc- tion of market value. What did he mean by it? He meant value of any article as adfected (purposely I use the algebraic term) by the state of the market, disturbed from its equilibrium. He was not ignorant that no quan- tity of an article, whether in excess or in defect, could ever mainly fix the price : the cost it is only that could do that ; but the quantity in the market would, if not level to the demand, be a coefficient in regulating that price. Sometimes this quantity might be a great deal too much for the demand ; sometimes it might be a great deal too little ; and, accordingly, as either case happened, it would (by raising or by depressing) modify the simple result obtained from the cost. Having thus set up a term, viz. market value, to express cost value as adfected by quantity in excess or in defect, next he looked out for a contradictory term, (viz. natural value,) in order to express cost value as it is not adfected by quantity in excess or in defect. These two terms, therefore, express the two opposite poles of a law. They indicate always an agency of law. But the terms actual value, or value in a market, ex- press only a fact. When you speak of the actual value, meaning in good English the present or existing value, you cannot but be aware that it might coincide equally with the cost price as adfected by quantity, or with the cost price as not adfected by the quantity ; that is, with technical market price, or with technical natural THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 97 price, (which is non-market price.) The actual price of a coach-horse, for instance, " sixteen hands high, grand action, six years old," will generally turn out to be a "market price" in the true technical sense; for horses never travel entirely out of that circle: they are always somewhat in excess or in defect. And the reason of this is, that the breeding of horses cannot adapt itself fast enough to the oscillations in the demand. It is not until an oscillation in one direction has begun to make itself felt steadily in the prices, that it is assumed to be certain, and acted upon ; and by that time it is too late to countermand the scale of arrangements which has already been in action through four years back. Hence, in horses, or wherever it is impossible to equate the sup- ply abruptly with an altered state of the demand, large elongations occur, this way or that, between the oscil- lating market price (reflecting the cost adfected by the quantity) and the steady central price, or natural price, (reflecting the cost only, without regard to quantity.) On the other hand, whilst horses are perhaps always at market value, boots and shoes are never known to bear a market value. Some variation may occur slowly in the price of hides, and therefore of leather. This, however, is not much, where no changes happen in the course of foreign trade, and none in the duties. As to the manufactured article, there is so little reason for supplying it in any variable ratio, and shoemakers are notoriously such philosophic men, and the demand of the public is so equable, that no man buys shoes or boots at any other than the steady natural price. The result of this difference is seen in the two orders of men, shoemakers and horse-dealers. The horse-dealer is always too clever ; whilst it is in no scorn, but in thankful remem- brance of such men as Jacob Boehmen, &c, that Mr. 9 98 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Coleridge and many others have declared the shoemakers' craft to be the most practically productive of meditation amongst men. This has partly been ascribed to its seden- tary habits ; but much more, I believe, depends upon the shoemaker's selling always at natural, never at unnatu- ral or market price; whilst the unhappy horse-dealer, being still up to his lips in adfected price, and absolutely compelled to tamper with this price, naturally gets the habit of tampering with the buyer's ignorance, or any other circumstance that shapes the price to his wishes. Market price, therefore, is so far from meaning the rude idea of price in a market, that such a term would never have been introduced as a technical distinction, except expressly for the purpose of contradicting that rude idea. This, it was felt, might or might not hap- pen to include the double affections of cost and quan- tity. But what the economist wanted was a term that always should, and must include them ; and, observe, no sooner has he got his term, trimmed it, fought for it, than instantly he unsettles it from its foundation. "With one Alnaschar kick he destroys the whole edifice upon which he has employed himself so painfully. But is this confusion of the idea the worst result from the defeated doctrine? By no means. A crazy maxim has got possession of the whole world; viz. that price is, or can be, determined by the relation between supply and demand. The man who uses this maxim does not himself mean it. He cannot say, " I think thus ; you think otherwise." He does not think thus. Try to extract price for wheat from the simple relation of the supply to the demand. Suppose the supply to be by one tenth part beyond the demand, what price will that indicate for eight imperial bushels of the best red wheat, weighing sixty-four pounds a bushel? Will the THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 99 price be a shilling, or will it be a thousand pounds? You guess at the first would be too little, and the second too much. Perhaps so ; but what makes you " guess '' this? Why, simply, your past experience. You fancy yourself ascertaining the price by the relation of supply to demand, and, in fact, you are ascertaining it by pri- vately looking for the cost in past years ; the very thing that you had pledged yourself to dispense with. Now, mark how a man does really proceed in solving such a problem. He finds upon inquiry that an excess in the supply of wheat by one tenth, will cause a deprecia- tion perhaps by one sixth : the accident of excess has told to the extent of a sixth. But of what? A sixth of what ? Manifestly, a sixth upon the last price of wheat. .The pretended result, that could be known by knowing the mere amount of excess, now turns out to be a mere function of the former cost, previous to the depreciation. But that price includes the whole difficulty; for always the price of wheat will express the cost in the first place, as the principal (oftentimes the sole) element. This call c Then, secondly, the other (the movable) element of the price will represent any modification upon this c, by means of too much or too little wheat in the market. This modifying element of quantity call q ; and then any existing price in any particular corn-market will always be C -\- Q in the case where there is a deficiency ; always c — Q in the case where there is an excess ; always c (i. e. a mononomial) in the case where there is neither deficiency nor excess, consequently where market price does not take place, but, on the contrary, the price which contradicts market price, or, in Adam Smith's language, natural price. Thus it is shown, by pursuing the problem to the last, that every possible case of technical market value 100 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. (that is, not value in a market, but value in a market whose equilibrium has been disturbed) cannot by possi- bility rest upon a single law, (whether cost on the one hand, or relation of supply to demand on the other,) but of necessity upon two laws; briefly, that it must be a Binomial. It is scandalous and astonishing that Adam Smith, the introducer of this important distinction, should himself be the first, in very many cases, to con- found it with its own formal antithesis. It is still more scandalous that Bicardo — actually making war upon the logic of Adam Smith, and founding his theory upon a much severer logic — should equally have confounded the law of market value with the direct contradiction to that law. Both did so under the misleading of a ver- bal equivocation 28 in the term "market;" and the pos- sibility of this equivocation would be banished henceforth by substituting for "market value" the term Binomial value. CHAPTER III. "WAGES. Theke are four elements in the condition of every working body, which (like so many organs of a complex machine) must eternally operate by aiding or by thwart- ing each other. According to the social circumstances at the time given, these elements must act either in the same direction or in different directions ; and conform- ably to the modes of cambining the action under four THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 101 distinct causes, operating by different proportions, and often in conflicting directions, must be the practical result, — the tendencies upwards or downwards which will affect wages universally. The four elements are these : — 1. The rate of movement in the population: Is that steadily advancing or slowly receding? Does that tend to raise the value of wages, or to depress it? 2. The rate of movement in the national capital : Is that advancing or receding? And does it pro tanto therefore tend to raise or to depress the rate of wages ? 3. The fluctuations in the price of necessaries, but, above all, of pood : Are those fluctuations from one decennium to another tending, upon the whole, to an advance or to a decline? Is the price of food from century to century, when taken with its complementary adjunct in the price of clothes, fire, and lodging, such as, upon the whole, to sustain wages — to stimulate wages — or to depress them? 4. The traditional standard op living: Is that for- tunately high and exacting in its requisitions ? or is " man's life," to cite a strong word from Shakespeare, (whose profound humanity had fixed his attention upon the vast importance of a high scale in domestic comfort,) — " is man's life cheap as brutes' ? " Is it in short an old English standard 29 which prevails, or a modern Irish standard? Is it that standard which elevated the noble yeomanry of England through six centuries, or that which has depressed to an abject animal existence the Irish serfs ; and depressed the houseless lazzaroni of Naples, Peru, and Mexico to a sensual dependence upon sun- shine and sleep? To these four elements some hasty thinkers would add a fifth, viz. the relative quantity of work to be done, — and this certainly is important; 9* 102 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. for, undoubtedly, if the population should increase, it will be a balance to that increase if the national work increases by the same proportion ; and it will be more than a balance if the national work should increase more than proportionally. But the element of work to be done is already expressed implicitly in the first two ele- ments of population and of capital ; for, if the popula- tion increase, then the work of raising food must increase commensurately : and, again, if the capital increase, it will force some corresponding employment for itself by tentatively exploring every kind of new work that has any chance of proving profitable. It is more important to notice, that all these four modify- ing causes of wages, though each separately for itself capa- ble of several action, are also fitted to act in pairs, each two as a separate combination, feuyor, or yoke of forces. Thus No. 1, or population, will act on wages at any rate ; but it will act differently according as it is supported or thwarted by concurrent changes in capital. Population moving forward too rapidly would, cesteris paribus, be un- favorable to the prosperous movement of wages ; yet if No. 2, the national capital, — i. e. if the funds for employing labor, — should advance even faster than the.labor, then it might happen that wages would rise, although under a state of the population otherwise unfavorable to wages. This conditional action of one element according to the state of the other is continually exhibited, and often ruinously, in our infant colonies. "Work of some kind, in such colonies, there must be ; for there is a population of some class and quality to feed and to furnish with dwelling-houses, firing, and the very coarsest manufactures ; as to the finer, these are long supplied by importation. But with this primary basis for going to work, sometimes there is labor in excess present with little capital for employing it ; sometimes there THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 103 is capital in excess, with no adequate labor of a proper quality for receiving the action of capital. Very lately, and therefore after all the benefit of our long experience on such subjects, the government commissioners sent down to Paisley (with a view to the relief of that town from her surplus population) shipped off to distant settlements in strange climates mechanics and weavers, who were found more useless for colonial labors than a band of mere gen- tlemen ; having none of the hardy habits which, more even than practised skill, are requisite for rural industry, and, in general, for industry of that elementary class required in young or infant communities. And universally it may be said, as a first consideration in the general theory of colo- nization, that not only capital and labor should be harmo- niously combined, so that neither agency may languish from defect of the appropriate feagency, but also that labor itself, in its several subdivisions, should be more cautiously assorted than has generally been the case. Houses form an instantaneous class of necessaries in new colonies ; those rare cases being excepted in which the season of the year and the climate allow of a long encampment. 80 Yet how can houses advance harmoniously (that is, in such a con- currency of the parts that one part may not be kept wait- ing for the other) unless the masons or bricklayers are in. due proportion to the carpenters, — both to the woodcut- ters and sawyers, — and all four classes to the plasterers, slaters, (or tilers,) and glaziers ? Or, again, supposing the forest game to be scarce, but that a river, frith, or bay, near to the settlement, offers an unusual abundance of fine fish^ how injurious must be that neglect which should defeat this, bountiful provision of nature by leaving unsummoned a due proportion of fishermen, boats, nets, &c, and, in some cases, of a curing establishment, completely mounted. Five hun- dred men thus employed might support the whole colony, 104 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. and leave its main labor disposable for a wide variety of mixed pursuits ; whilst, otherwise, the whole strength of the colony must be unavoidably sequestered into the one channel of raising subsistence. Mr. Gibbon Wakefield's improvement in colonization, first suggested about ten years ago, was the earliest step taken upon principle in the phi- losophic theory of this subject. He saw the fatal schism or divorce which took place continually between capital and labor. Rich men had hitherto bought vast tracts of land at a small cost, not with any view of really enclosing and cultivating their allotments, but in the confidence that a public interest would grow up in the colony, that other lands would be improved, and that their own private shares (however neglected) being well situated, and at length in- sulated by thriving farms, would benefit by the reacting value from the circumjacent lands; upon which consum- mation taking place, it would become their policy to sell. Thus was a considerable capital transferred to the colony, but not a capital which had much tendency to attract labor. Mr. Wakefield's system put an end to this abuse, or, at least, to its ruinous operation upon labor. The funds raised by the sale of the colonial land were applied, under regu- lations of law, and by fixed proportions, to the transporta- tion of proper working families ; as fast as the land sold itself, so fast were the funds raised for the attraction of labor ; consequently, the want, the chief demand, bred com- mensurately its own relief, — land, as at any rate it is a call for labor, now became a pledge or security for labor. This was a great improvement. But there is still much of the colonizing theory in arrear as respects the organization, in more salutary proportions, of labor according to its great capital varieties. We see that an army is a machine, not merely in the sense of its unity as to purpose through the great artifice of its discipline, but also through the variety THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 105 of its arms, or organs, for services differing in kind, though yet co-operating to a common result. Social life requires a composition of the same nature in the adjustment of the labor by which it advances towards its purposes ; and this composition cannot be neglected without deranging colonies in their infancy, by retarding, if such neglect of assortment does not wholly intercept and strangle, their expansive energies. From all this, so far as we have yet gone, what is the inference? The inference is, that of the four great ele- ments for determining wages, not one can be relied upon as an insulated or unconditional force ; all are dependent upon each, and each upon all. For, if we call the rate of advancing population p, and the rate of advancing capital C, then, because p expresses the supply of men, and c ex- presses the demand for men, (since men are supplied in the ratio denoted by the growth of population, and men are demanded in the ratio denoted by the growth of capital for employing them,) it follows that in fact p -|- c makes but one compound force as regards wages ; the final effect upon wages being determined by the excess of either element, p or c, in its modification of the other. And again, if we denote the average rate of price, upwards or downwards, upon the necessaries of workmen by N, and the traditional standard of living amongst the workmen of that nation by s, then will s -\- N express practically, through each period of a generation, not two separate forces acting upon wages, but one single force, resulting from the balance or inter- modification between the two. In this way the treatment of the question is simplified : we are not called upon, like an Indian juggler, always to play with four balls at once. The four elements, working in pairs, become two ; and the problem is this, to compute a priori, (that is, by inference from a principle,) or to trace a posteriori, (that is, experi- 106 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. , mentally,) the degree in which wages (known already as an average rate) are modified for the present by the bal- ance resulting from P -j- c, and secondly, by the balance resulting from N -\- s. Population as working against capital; price of necessaries as working against the old traditionary standard of comfort, — these, in effect, are the ordinary forces operating in the same direction, or in different directions, upon wages. In illustration of this principle, we have had of late years a memorable case in our slave colonies. We all know at present, if we did not know at the time, that no legislative experiment was ever conducted with so much sentimental folly, and mischievous disregard of reversionary interests as the sudden emancipation of our "West India slaves, — that is, the sudden admission to the rank of men, of those who, intellectually and in self- restraint, were below the condition of children. Our own levity in granting was dramatically mimicked by their levity in using. They were as ready to abuse ungratefully as we to concede absurdly. At present we are suffering the penalties of our folly ; and amongst them the mortification of seeing that ancient enemy of ours, always so full of light-minded precipitancy, and once in this very field of slavery manifesting that pre- cipitancy in results so bloody, (causing, in fact, a gen- eral massacre of her own children by the legislation of fifteen minutes,) now, alas! building wisdom upon our irretrievable madness, and putting forth a statesmanlike providence such as used to be characteristic of our English senate, while that English senate has trifled sentimen- tally in the way once characteristic of Paris. The French scheme now in preparation is as thoughtful and cautious as the English scheme, unhappily irrevocable, was pit- iably frantic. More truly and comprehensively than ever THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Ij07 that word was applied to .such a case, it may be said that the British Parliament ruined the "West Indies. For if Spain by her narrow policy ruined both herself and her magnificent colonies, it cost her three centuries to do so ; but we " did the trick " in about as many years, — a consummation that could not have been possible except in the case of sugar-colonies, which were in reality mere factories. All human follies, however, whether tragic or comic, must have their better and worse scenes. 81 And this was the more to be expected in the "West Indies, as circumstances forbade any free circulation of labor between the several islands. Accordingly, in some islands, where the balance upon p -|- c was particularly favorable to the laborer, (as, for instance, in Jamaica and Trinidad,) there the derangement of all social interests upon this harlequin experiment was total. The slaves, by relation to the funds for employing them regularly, were in defect, whilst the funds for employing them irregularly, i. e. so as to set their natural superiors at defiance, were vast. For, amongst other follies, our senate at home had quite forgotten to make any regulations against their throwing themselves for luxurious indolence (the besetting vice of negroes and lazzaroni) upon the ample waste lands. The same state of things amongst the negroes — the same capital oversights in Parliament — applied also to part of our continental colonies, as Brit- ish Guiana. But, on the other hand, in islands like Antigua and Barbadoes, where the natural circumstances were different, P in relation to c being much nearer on a level, and no such plentiful resources for idleness to fall back upon, the blow fell more lightly, n -)- s, as being probably near to the same level in all these islands, might be safely neglected in a question of wages. Now, from this "West Indian condition of the laboring class, 108 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. suddenly summoned to a mighty revolution by a legisla- ture which took no thought of this condition, nor for this condition, turn to a laboring class ranking in the opposite extreme amongst European nations. The Swiss population are not, per se, (that is, by any superiority of nature, intellectual or moral,) an interesting race. But by their social economy, they are amongst the most respectable working orders on the Continent. Their pop- ulation advances, in some places, in the healthiest way, — not by excessive births counterworking excessive deaths, but by few deaths (locally not more than one annually upon seventy-five) compensating their few births, (some- times one annually upon forty-five.) The rate of increase is therefore generally moderate. On the other hand, capital is nearly stationary. Thus far, therefore, as con- cerns p -|- c, the situation of Switzerland is not hope- ful; and but for emigration, (which in Switzerland does not act as it will do generally, — to defeat itself by extra stimulation to the rate of population,) the distress would be much greater than as yet it appears to be. But why is this ? By what privilege in her institutions or usages, does Switzerland escape the curse which has so contin- ually besieged the Scottish Highlands, and other regions of a redundant population? There is nothing romanti- cally fine in the present condition of the Swiss. On the contrary, they are a nation of low-toned sensibility ; and, from the languor amongst them of all religious principle, they are in danger of great eventual demoralization. But, in the mean time, they struggle with some success against the downward tendencies of their situation ; and they do not yet exhibit a squalid Irish surplus upon their population, — one out of four, fierce, famishing, and with- out prospect of regular employment. Still less do the Swiss carry the contagion and causes of pauperism THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 109 amongst their next neighbors, as do the Irish. Their own cup of woe has long been full for the Irish; and. through the last score of years, or since the improvement of steam navigation, its overflowings have been settling ruinously upon England 82 and on Scotland. Now, Swit- zerland at least evades these evils : she neither exhibits misery in her own bosom, as the Scottish Highlands often, and Ireland for ever ; nor is she the rank cause of misery to neighboring nations, as is Ireland. But again I ask, through what advantage or privilege of her situation? The answer is undeniable : it is simply through her high patriarchal standard of comfort and respectability. In some countries, merely through the one habit of living too much abroad and in the open air, it has happened that a very low standard of comfort or pleasure is con- nected with the domestic hearth. Home is not there a word of sanctity or endearment. This is the case pretty widely upon Italian ground, and not solely amongst the lazzaroni of Naples. This is the case in Peru, in Mexico, and indeed more or less everywhere in South America. The genial climate has defeated "itself as a blessing. Co-operating by its own temptations with the constitu- tional luxurious languor in the natives, the climate has become a withering curse to the better instincts of the people. But Ireland, but Switzerland, have not been subject to that mode of temptation. Welcome the appar- ent curses, which (like labor itself) finally become bless- ings, of stern northern climates ! Yet the same tempta- tion, in effect, has operated upon both, through a different channel. The luxury of excessive indolence had, from the earliest period, fascinated Ireland into a savage life. A scale almost brutal of diet and of lodging had already long reconciled' itself to the Irish feelings in the labor- ing class, when the fatal gift of the potato stepped in to 10 110 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. make the improgressive state compatible with a vast expansion of the population. To Switzerland, agitated nobly by the storms of the Reformation, and starting from a much higher point of self-valuation, such a tempta- tion proved none at all. To this day she adheres indom- itably to the ancient habits of her fathers. Other nations preserve their economy through their morals ; Switzerland preserves her morals through her economy; and even yet her children will not marry without guarantees for the continued prospect, in the coming generation, of what they witnessed in the last. And thus two nations, not originally standing upon a very different basis of landed wealth, are now seen in the most absolute repul- sion to each other, upon the two polar extremities as to comfort and self-respect. SECTION n. Hitherto we find nothing peculiar to Ricardo in the forces acting upon labor. It was necessary to notice these four elements in that complex machinery which finally moulds the vicissitudes of wages ; but, after all, it is only one of the four, viz. the current price of the articles essen- tial to a poor man's household, which can, by any sudden change, produce a correspondingly sudden change upon wages. The rate of increase upon population, the changes incident to capital, the national traditionary standard of domestic life, — all these are slow to move, and, when they have moved, slow to embody themselves in corresponding effects. Population, for instance, perseveres often through generations in the same prevailing rate ; and if this rate should, from any cause, sustain the most abrupt change, it would take a score of years before that change could begin THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Ill to tell upon the labor market. But the fourth element, the daily cost of necessaries, alters sometimes largely in one day ; and upon this, therefore, must be charged the main solution of those vicissitudes in wages which are likely to occur within one man's life. The other forces vary, by degrees fine and imperceptible, so as to affect the condition of working men deeply and radically from century to cen- tury. But such an effect, though sure, and important to the historical grandeur of nations, is not rapid enough to be concurrent with the corresponding changes upon other functions of productive power. "We look for an agency upon wages able to keep abreast of these other agencies, fitted by its easy motion for receiving their effects, and for returning to them a continual modification from itself. Here, therefore, it is, upon this one force out of four which control the price of labor ; viz. upon the poor man's household consumption for the diet of his family, for their clothing, their lodging, for the annual dividend upon the cost and maintenance of his furniture, (amongst which only the beds and bedding are expensive,) for his fuel, (some- times, from land-carriage, costly,) for his candles and his soap, with a small allowance for medicine and medical attendance, and too often (though most naturally) a large one for strong liquors, — upon these items in a poor man's expenditure it is, that the main agency of change settles, — schooling for his children he generally obtains gratis. Now the reader is aware, that, according to Bicardo's view, an expenditure on this humble scale is chiefly deter- mined by the costs of production upon the land. Yet why ? The furniture and the clothes (with the exception of the woollen or iron parts amongst them) do not arise from the domestic soil, though much of the food does ; yet, even amongst thai, the tea and the sugar (two very impor- tant articles) are wholly foreign ; and all the other articles, 112 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. except fuel, are trivial in price. Certainly it must be granted that the habit of estimating the laborer's expenses by the cost of his diet, (nay, exclusively by one item of his diet, — bread,) is radically false ; and of that Ricardo is sensible, though apparently he does not allow sufficiently for the true proportion held. The corn-law incendiaries here, as everywhere when they approach the facts or the principles of the question, betray an ignorance which could not be surpassed if the discussion were remitted to Ashan- tee or Negroland. They calculate a change of ten per cent upon wheat as if it meant a change of ten per cent on wages, (though, by the way, often denying elsewhere that wages at all sympathize with the price of food.) Now, suppose the total food of a working man's family to cost two fifths of his total wages, and suppose that of these two fifths one moiety, i. e. one fifth of the wages, is spent upon flour, and oatmeal, and bread ; in that case a change of ten per cent upon wheat will amount to one tenth upon one fifth of the total wages. But one tenth of one fifth is one fiftieth, or two per cent upon the total wages ; so trivial is the result upon wages from a change in wheat which is very considerable. Suppose the change upon wheat to be even as much as fifteen shillings less upon sixty, i. e. twen- ty-five per cent, then the total change will be one fourth of one fifth, which is one twentieth, — that is, five per cent upon the total wages ; and everybody is aware that a fall of fifteen shillings upon sixty, is greater than we often experience in any single season. Ricardo, indeed, attempts to justify the supposition, that, as a natural state of things, an English laborer might spend one half of his wages upon wheat, (p. 106,) and the other half upon " other things," by alleging (p. 97) that " in rich countries a laborer, by the sacrifice of a very small quantity only of his food, is able to provide liberally for all his other wants." No; not THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 113 necessarily. That remark arises only through a neglect (habitual to Eicardo) of the antagonist principle, which is eternally at work to compensate the declensions of land, by countervailing improvements of endless kinds: so that at this time, all over western Europe, there cannot be a doubt that, with a far worse soil as the regulating soil for cost, wheat is cheaper than it was a thousand years ago. Yet, if Eicardo were right in supposing a laborer to spend half his wages upon wheat only, then his beer, bacon, cheese, milk, butter, tea, and sugar, must proportionably cost, at the very least, all the rest of his wages ; so that for clothes, lodging, fuel, to say nothing of other miscellanies, he would have no provision at all. But these are romantic esti- mates, and pardonable in Eicardo from his city life, which had denied" him, until his latest years, all opportunities of studying the life of laborers. Meantime it will, not be denied, that flour and bread compose an important item upon the laborer's housekeep- ing, though not by possibility so important as Eicardo chooses to fancy. Now then, so far as this flour and bread are obtained from a soil continually worse, (since, 1st, population forces culture for ever upon worse soils ; and, 2dly, the very worst always gives the price for the whole,) so far the flour and bread would be continually dearer were there no such compensating law as that which I, almost too frequently, have noticed, for the reason that Eicardo too systematically forgets it. Let us also forget it for the pres- ent, so as to pursue the principle of wages more clearly by pushing it into an extreme, which in practice does but rarely take place to that extent. On this basis the follow- ing short extract from Eicardo, (pp. 105, 106,) accompanied by a single word of commentary, will explain the whole of what is peculiar to Eicardo in his theory of wages : — 10* 114 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. " When wheat was at £ 4 per quarter, suppose the laborer's wages to be £ 24 per annum, or the value of six quarters of wheat, and suppose half his wages to be expended on wheat, and the other half (or £ 12) on other things, he would receive £ 24, lis. ) (£4 4 8) ( 5.83 quarters. 25, 10s. ( when wheat J 4 10 L or the val- J 5.66 quarters. 26, 8s. f was at ~) 4 16 f ue of ) 6.50 quarters. 27, 6s. 8d. ) ( 5 210j (. 5.33 quarters. £24 £13 10 12 £ 25 10 £14 12 8 £26 8 He would receive these wages to enable him to live just as well, and no better than, before ; for, when corn was at £ 4 per quarter, he would expend for three quarters of corn, at £ 4 per quarter, . . £12 And on other things, . . . 12 When wheat was at £4, 10s., three quarters of wheat would cost And other things When at £4 16s., three quarters of wheat would cost . Other things, .... " In proportion as corn became dear, he " (the laborer) " would receive less corn wages, but his money would always increase ; whilst his enjoyments, on the above supposition, would be pre- cisely the same. But, as other commodities would be raised in price, in proportion as raw produce entered into their composi- tion, he would have more to pay for some of them. Although his tea, sugar, soap, candles, and house-rent would probably be no dearer, he would pay more for his bacon, cheese, butter, linen, shoes, and cloth ; and therefore, even with the above in- crease of wages, his situation would be comparatively worse." The principle of advance is this : — When wheat was at 80s. per quarter, the laborer had received £24; when wheat rose to 90s., it might seem that he should receive THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 115 £27 ; because 80 : 90 : : £24 : £27. But, in fact, he re- ceives only one half of the difference, viz. 30s. His wages are now £ 25, 10s. Why is this ? Because only one half of his original wages had been spent on wheat. But the full development of this principle I refer to the chapter on Kent, that I may not be obliged to repeat myself. CHAPTER IV. SECTION I. — RENT. The particular situation of this chapter in Kicardo, placed immediately after the chapter on Value, is not with- out significance. By placing the consideration of Bent where he does place it, he is to be understood as viewing Kent under the idea of a disturbance to Value. Under that fiction, or at least under that relation, selected from other relations equally conspicuous, he brings up the ques- tion before his own bar. For the ordinary and continual disturbances of value, growing out of the varying propor- tions between fixed and circulating capital, Ricardo had allowed, in a striking part of his opening chapter. He had shown conclusively, that the universal principle of varying quantity in the producing labor as the cause of varying price, is subject to two modifications; as, first, that the price will be greater in the case where circulating capital predominates, than in the opposite case where fixed capital predominates ; secondly, that the tendency will be in the same direction, according to the degrees in which the fixed 116 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. capital has less and less of durability ; for the plain reason, that so far the fixed capital approximates in virtue to the separate nature of circulating capital. These are settled reagencies of co-causes, which sometimes arise jointly with the great general cause of price, sometimes arise singly, and sometimes not at all. They must not be called anom- alies or irregularities, any more than the resistance of the air is an irregularity or exception to the law governing the motion of projectiles. It is convenient to abstract from this resistance in the first steps of the exposition. But afterwards, when you allow for it, this allowance is not to be considered in the light of any concession, as if origi- nally you had gone too far, and now wished to unmask the whole truth by instalments. Not at all. The original force, as you had laid it down from the first, continues to be the true force : it exerts its whole agency, and not a part or fraction of its agency, even under the co-presence of the opposing and limiting cause. If, being left to itself, it ought to have reached an effect of 50, but, under this lim- iting force, it has fallen to 35, then the true logic is not to say that it has yielded to an exception, or suffered an irreg- ularity : on the contrary, all is regular. Since, if at first sight, it seems simply to have lost 15, (which, pro tanto, seems an irregularity,) on severer examination it appears to have expended that 15 on neutralizing a counter-agency ; so that the total force exerted has been equally 50 accord- ing to the theory, and according to the true concrete case of experience. Now, then, is rent a disturbance of value simply in the sense of being a modification, (as here explained,) or does it suspend and defeat that law? Kicardo has not pushed the question to that formal issue ; but gener- ally, he has endeavored to bring the question of rent into immediate relation with value, by putting the ques- THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 117 tion upon it in this shape, — " "Whether the appropriation of land, and the consequent creation of rent, will occa- sion any variation in the relative value of commodities, independently of the quantity of labor necessary to pro- duction?" "Whether, in short, the proportions between the two labors producing a and b will continue, in spite of rent, to determine the prices of A and b ; or whether this law will be limited by the law of rent ; or whether, in any case, this law will be actually set aside by rent ? Upon Adam Smith's principles, rent introduced a new element into price. Is that so ? It is the question moved at present. So important a question brings forward the obligation of investigating the new doctrine of rent as a duty even for Eicardo, who else could not have any particular interest in discussing a doctrine which had not been discovered by himself. The modern doctrine of rent was, in reality, one of those numerous discoveries which have been made many times over before they are made ; that is, it had been ideally detected at different eras by some inquisitive and random intellect, prying where it had no business, several times before it was perceived to involve those weighty consequences which give dignity to the truth, by giving practical motives for remembering it. Eicardo had been acquainted with this truth for nearly two years when he wrote his own book. It is not improbable that, previously to this knowledge, he had tentatively sketched his theory of value; but he must have been impeded by the defect of such knowledge in carrying out this theory into a satisfactory harmony with the laws regulating wages and profits; for both these presuppose the law of rent. Without knowing rent and its principles, it is impossible to know the princi- ples which control wages in the first place, and profits in the second. 118 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. Natural it is, when a man enters upon a new theme, that he should introduce it by a definition ; and, as regards what logicians call the nominal definition, such a course is perfectly right But as to the real definition, this is so far from taking precedency in the natural process of thought, that, on the contrary, it ought to be the last result 83 from the total discussion. However, without insisting upon this, what is the definition ? " Rent," says Ricardo, " is that portion of the products of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil." Can this definition be sustained ? Certainly not. The word " indestructible " is liable to challenge ; and, in order that the student may see why, first let me explain to him under what prepossession it was that Ricardo intro- duced that word. He was thinking of the casual and the intermitting when he suggested the indestructible. At pp. 50 and 51, he notices two cases — one being the case of a Norway forest, and the other of a coal-mine or a stone-quarry — where Adam Smith had applied the popular term "rent" as strictly pertinent. But Ricardo thinks otherwise. In any one of these cases he views the payment for the mine or quarry, colloquially called "the rent," as no rent at all in any strict sense. Now, as against Adam Smith, in the quoad hominem sense, the censure of Ricardo is not applicable : he is but con- sistent ; for he could not be bound to any strictness of distinction growing out of a doctrine which in his days was unknown. But understand Ricardo as speaking of Adam Smith, in an argument spoken to more modern writers, and still, even in that case, Ricardo is wrong. He contemplates the Norway forest, the coal-mine, the stone-quarry, as if all alike leased out to the tenant, not with any view to a continued succession of crops, but THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 119 as simply transferred on the consideration of that crop now ready for removal. He puts the question, in fact, precisely as he would do on the case of a man's leasing out his coal-cellar to another with the privilege of empty- ing it. Now, this is not the real case of a forest or a coal-mine. In the forest there is a regular process pursued with the purpose of creating a continual suc- cession of " falls,'' so arranged that, hy the fifteenth year, for instance, the section thinned in the first year may be ready again for thinnings, and so on perpetually, ac- cording to the nature of the wood. In a coal-mine, again, the known uncertainty of the veins as to direction and density of the different strata, gives a reasonable pros- pect of continuous succession in the annual yield. But suppose all this not to be so. Take the case as Eicardo apparently shapes it, — viz. that you let off a coal-cellar with liberty to the lessee of emptying it within a year or two. Here the profitable product, the " crop,'' of the cellar is known beforehand to a hundred-weight, and you are not to suppose any concealment as to this fact, or any deception. Clearly, now, this coal cannot be described as any produce from "the original and inde- structible powers" of, the cellar. And therefore, says Eicardo, 84 the term "rent" could not be applied in any other than an improper sense to the consideration paid by the lessee of the cellar. But is that so ? Not at all. In the modern (and most exclusive) sense of the term, "rent" might be paid by such a lessee. For take the cellar, or take the stone-quarry, and imagine the coal, the stone, or the stercoraceous deposit in the vast crypts cleaned out by Hercules, to have been accurately meas- ured, it would be no impossible bargain that a day's produce from the labor of fifty men in any one of the chambers supposed, should be set off against a similar 120 THK LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. product from known mines, quarries, crypts, in the same neighborhood, and should be charged with a rent corre- sponding to the assignable differences in the "put-out." A neighboring coal-mine, for instance, worked by a hun- dred colliers, would furnish a standard for the com- parison. If our carbonaceous crypt, or our stercoraceous crypt, yielded a produce larger by twenty-five per cent upon the same quantity of labor, then we should have a good ground for rent in the severest sense, although the crypt were notoriously exhaustible in one, two, or three years. It is not, therefore, the inherent or indestructible powers of a subject which will make it capable of rent, but the differential powers ; and the true definition of rent is, in the strictest terms, that portion of the produce from the soil (or from any agency of production) which is paid to the landlord for the use of its differential powers, as measured by comparison with those of similar agencies operating on tlie same market. Though Aristotle should rise from the dead, that definition (I humbly submit) will stand. Undoubtedly, there are found cases in England, and cases very numerous, where, at first sight, Ricardo's defini- tion seems almost indispensable for reaching the true dis- tinction between what is rent, and what is not. For instance, he himself supposes the case where " of two adjoining farms," otherwise exactly equal, (same size, same quality,) " one had all the conveniences of farming build- ings, was, besides, properly drained and manured, and advantageously divided by hedges, fences, and walls ; while the other had none of these advantages." Now, surely Ricardo has the right to presume; that for the improved farm ." more remuneration would naturally be paid " than for the unimproved. But would that excess of remunera- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 121 tion be " rent ? " " No," says Kicardo himself, " it would not ; but, popularly, it would be called rent. And then he goes on to show that the true rent, which probably would be the same in each case, is that part of the total " remu- neration" which is " paid for the original and indestructible powers of the soil ; " whilst that part of the remuneration which is strictly pseudo-rent, must be viewed as " paid for the use of the capital" sunk in the improvements. Is that not sound ? Certainly it is ; quite sound : and, by the way, it is the more noticeable in Ricardo, because it has been accidentally his ordinary oversight to talk of rent as if this were the one great burden on the farmer of land : whereas so much greater is the burden in this island from the capi- tal required, that Mr. Jacob 35 (well known in past times to the British government as an excellent authority) reports the proportion of capital to rent, needed in ordinary cir- cumstances, as being then little less than four to one. From fifty-two reports made to a Committee of the Lords in the year before Waterloo, the result was, that upon one hun- dred acres, paying in rent no more than £161 : 12 : 7, the total of other expenses (that is, of the capital fixed and cir- culating) was £601 : 15 : 1 per annum. And in some other cases, as, for instance, in bringing into tillage the waste lands known technically as " cold clays," the propor- tion of capital required for some years appeared to be much greater, — on an average, three times greater; so that the capital would be ten or eleven times as much as the rent ; and, in such circumstances, the total sacrifice, of rent by the landlord would be no serious relief to the im- proving tenant. Such being the true relation of agricultu- ral capital to rent, which generally Ricardo seems to over- look, it would be strange indeed to blame him for this particular passage, in which he does not overlook it. The distinction is just and necessary. The payment for the 11 122 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. house, barns, stables, fences, drains, &c, is rightly distin- guished from the rent; it is interest paid upon capital invested in the farm, and therefore, in fact, lent to the far- mer. As reasonably might you call the interest upon twenty thousand pounds, which the farmer had brought into his business, either as a loan from the neighboring bank or as his own patrimonial inheritance, part of his rent. But still the rent (speaking with that strictness which must always be a duty where we are speaking polemically) is to be calculated from the rating, from the place occupied on the differential scale, howsoever that place has been reached. Now, at this moment, much land is thus or thus rich, in consequence of this or that sum of capital co-operative with its original powers. You are not careful to distinguish between the original power and the acquired power ; any more than, with regard to a man of talents, you care to say, " So much is due to nature, so much to education and personal efforts." Often you cannot ■ distinguish. The farmer, indeed, as a private secret, may guess that so much of his nominal rent arises upon the im- provements, so much upon the original powers of the land. But the true rent is calculated severely upon these differ- ential powers, however obtained, as found by comparing it with other lands cultivated on the prospect of the same markets ; and the only ground for separating the nominal rent into true rent and pseudo-rent, is because some im- provements do not directly increase the differential powers of a particular estate, but only increase the convenience, the respectability in appearance, the variable divisibility of the estate ; or, potentially, they raise a basis upon which, as yet, no additional power perhaps has been raised, but on which the tenant (being a man of energy) can raise such a power much sooner than otherwise he could. For in- stance, an excellent road has been made to lime or marl, THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 123 or new pits of those manures have been opened. Now, it is for the tenant to use those advantages. If he does not use them, to him they are as if they did not exist ; but, if he does, then he finds a saving of possibly fifty per cent upon all that he fetches, which may be seven or ten per cent on his total costs. So, again, as to better divisions of lands, by which they may be applied to a larger cycle of uses ; or, where the divisions have previously existed, here- tofore they may have been rude and fixed. Now, by means of light iron hurdles, they may be much more effectual, and yet susceptible of variable arrangement, according to the wants of the particular season. Or, again, the house upon the estate, the approach to it, and the outhouses universally, may have been improved. Where, indeed, the improvement has tended to the direct conservation of the produce, as by leaded tanks of shallow capacity for receiving cream, or by granaries fenced against vermin, or by reservoirs prepared for receiving manure without waste, they are equivalent to direct augmentations in the soil of natural power. The logical incidence of the last paragraph, though plain in its parts, may seem obscure in the whole ; and I add this explanation. There is a large distinction into two cases to be made for agricultural improvements. And this was not overlooked by Eicardo. The difference is, that one class actually augments the power of your land : it did produce ten, — it does produce twelve. But the other class leaves the power where it was ; having produced ten formerly, it produces ten now. How, then, is it an improvement ? In this way, that, whereas formerly this ten required a cost of five guineas, now it requires only a cost of three. I do not at all overlook that oftentimes this saving is but an in- verse form of announcing an increased power, since the two guineas saved may be used in further corresponding 124 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. production ; and the blindness to this possible inversion of the case is that which so unaccountably misled Malthus. But sometimes it happens that improvements are not so used, and do not naturally suggest such a use. For in- stance, on obtaining marl cheaper, you save annually ; but perhaps, even at the old price of marl, you had enough. You feel the difference, therefore, not in a larger amount of marl, for you want no more ; and perhaps you spend the difference as income, not productively. So, again, if " Re- becca's Daughters'' save you five guineas a summer on tolls, naturally you spend the money in drinking Rebecca's health, — not upon improvements. Now, this distinction of cases is of a nature to fortify Ricardo's distinction be- tween the indestructible advantages of land, and its casual advantages in convenience. The first will, the second will not, operate upon the future rent. So far it seems as if I were justifying Ricardo. But what I do say is, that the special plausibility, in this instance, of Ricardo's illustra- tion must not lead us away from the fact, that even here it is not the indestructibility of the powers, taken singly, which could sustain the difference of the two improvements stated, were not that indestructibility manifested on a differ- ential scale. SECTION n. Rent having been thus denned as the series of in- crements arising upon the differential qualities of land, no matter in what way that land may happen to be employed, it follows that this series will begin to expand iiself concurrently with the earliest advances of the population. And because these original differences in quality of soils, keeping pace altogether in their development with THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 125 the movement of the population, are best understood by a scale of graduations addressed to the eye, — at this point, ready for the references and explanations which may be found necessary hereafter, I place such a diagram or ocular construction of the case : — No. 1. 2. 3. In Tuscany there may be 300, in England many more than 300, qualities of soil expanded; but three, as amply as 300, will explain the law for the whole. No. 1 represents the class of soils first brought under culture. And why first? For the natural reason that these soils were seen obviously to be the most productive under an equal expenditure of capital: they are first in order of development, which is an act of human choice, because they are first in order of merit, which is a con- sequence of natural endowment. The precedency allotted by man does but follow and advertise the precedency allotted by nature. And if a second-rate soil close to a great market like Birmingham, if a third-rate soil close to a great seaport like Newcastle, is sometimes more profitable in the very same year, 1770, than a first-rate soil in the wilds of central Cardiganshire, — possessing at that time neither a domestic population for consuming its produce, nor roads of any kind for transporting such supplies to the corresponding centres of demand, thus far no doubt the regular expansion of the series will be slightly disturbed: to that extent it cannot be denied that the rigor of that graduation must 11* 126 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL, ECONOMY. be interrupted. But it is a sufficient answer to say, — that, in so large a territory as England, the final effect upon the general balance -will be trivial ; and, secondly, that lands -which are thus ' accidentally privileged, for which the local position is able to defeat the natural en- dowment, will be inevitably raised artificially by the compensations of culture and rich manures to the real rank of No. 1, which originally they had usurped. No. 2 represents the second class of soils, called up into the series as soon as the growing population has made No. 1 insufficient. No. 3 represents the third class of soils called up under the same pressure continually increasing. Now, in the next step, retaining the very same diagram, let us circumstantiate its internal relations by filling in the secondary divisions, which shall be distinguished by a dotted line: — No. 1. 2. i 3. The novice understands, that the increments or excesses, by which each superior No. runs beyond its next lower No., express and measure the relations of quantity amongst the products. For example, the product upon No. 2 ex- ceeds that upon No. 3, the product upon No. 1 exceeds that upon No. 2 ; but by how much ? By the section which the dotted lines mark off. But this section on each of the upper soils, (No. 1 and No. 2,) — this absciss marked off by dotted lines, — is Rent. THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 127 Finally, to complete this preparation of the diagram before any argument or explanation is applied to it, let us mount the whole scaffolding of subdivisions, the tertiary as well as the secondary changes which follow the develop- ment of the scale, adding the letters denoting the particular function of revenue to which each of these sections corre- sponds. No. 1. w P i K ! K E 2. w P i K R 3. w P E 4. TV P To this third and final diagram, is added a fourth soil ; whereas, in general, it is quite needless to persecute the reader with a scale carried lower than the third round. I suppose it almost superfluous to add, — that "W" expresses the function of wages, p of profit, and k the several increments of rent, as they emerge successively under the series of agricultural expansions. When No. 2 was first summoned into use, one single chamber out of the six marked R (viz. that on the extreme east or right hand of the diagram) was struck off ipso facto from No. 1 by that movement of No. 2. In the next stage, when No. 3 was summoned, two chambers (ranging north and south on the diagram) were simultaneously struck off from No. 2 and No. 1, as equally disposable for rent. And, finally, when No. 4 was summoned, three chambers (all rising perpen- dicularly on the same meridian, but varying in latitude) were again simultaneously struck off, as being each the 128 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. separate absciss for rent, which became due for the same reason, and therefore at the same moment, on No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. SECTION III. "Now/' having prepared my tables, and sufficiently- armed myself for the decent conjurations of political economy, in the language of Prospero, " Now, I arise," and the reader will suppose me pointing with a long wand, or caduceus, to the hieroglyphics of the diagram ; and if he would further suppose these subdivisions framed of mosaic tablets, ivory and ebony, for instance, (as on a chess-board,) for symbolizing even to the random eye the separate sections of wages and profit, whilst golden tessells9 at the very least would be proper to express the eternal encroachments of rent, 86 " (Acherontis avari,) the logic of what follows would then become more em- phatic, and more authoritative, as it always does by many degrees, where it is made to speak sensuously to the eye. A construction (i. e. a geometrical exhibition) of any elaborate truth, is not often practicable ; but, wherever it is so, prudence will not allow it to be neg- lected. What is called evidentia, that sort of demon- stration which " shows out " which is ostensive, (in the old language of mathematicians,) and not merely dis- cursive, or founded on dialectic discursus of the under- standing, is, by a natural necessity, more convincing to the learner. And, had Kicardo relied on this constructive mode of illustrating his chapters upon rent and upon wages, they would not have tried the patience of his students in the way they have done ; still less would they have baffled the efforts of really able men (when not sup- THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 129 ported by some obstinate interest in the study) at. de- ciphering the very outline of their principles. The case is astonishing. Two doctrines in Ricardo's system, viz. value and rent, (with its complement in wages,) consti- tute the well-heads of his economy: these mastered, all is mastered; for the, rest runs down in a torrent of in- ferences from these prcecognita. Yet these two chapters in Ricardo are perhaps his obscurest. Upon value, though churlishly penurious in illustrations and in guai-d- ed distinctions between cases liable to be confounded, the exposition is substantially present ; it has a local manifestation. But upon rent it is not quite certain that all the grounds of decision are present, even in cipher. What is clear, is general and expansive ; what is special, what involves the differential portion of the truth, the novel, the esoteric, and the characteristic, all this is thrown upon the overcharged duty of one single page (viz. the last page in the chapter). It is therefore dis- proportionately brief at any rate ; but by a most unhappy arrangement, even so much as is communicated, lies dispersed and vagrant through a complex table of numer- ical proportions; whilst for this table there is wanting some guiding Ariadne's thread to the explorer, before he can apprehend even the principium motus, — that is, in which one of the several columns he must look for the original impulse to the series of changes displayed. Action and reaction he perceives to be going on strenu- ously ; but where do they commence ? Suppose, now, the wand pointed to diagram the first, and striking the upper part of this diagram. What I wish first to engage the reader's attention is the original starting-point of society as to rent, which (fiercely as many people have disputed it, even in the sense of a possibility,) must be assumed even as a postulate of the understanding. It is a 130 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. mere necessity of logic to assume as the starting-point that primitive condition of the land under which it neither did nor could pay rent. Originally, when the population had called only for No. 1, it is seen by looking back to diagram I. that the land did not trisect itself into rent, profit, and wages. There was no rent ; there could be none ; the land bisected itself only into the two capital sections of wages and profit. But exactly on this point it is that many a coarse sceptic comes forward. Let political econ- omy say what it will, he for his part will not believe that any proprietor of land would give up his land gratuitously to the public service. All others engaged in the laborious manufacture of corn, of oxen, and of horses, being so noto- riously moved to it by considerations reasonably selfish, why should the landowner stand alone in his unappreciated patriotism ? But it is not alleged that he will. And now, since this mode of argument has been adopted as the main thesis of separate books and pamphlets, it is worth noticing it by a severe and formal exposure. For the first thing broadly noticeable in such an argument, is the puerile style of ana- chronism which it betrays ; assuming (as if it were a mat- ter of course) the modern perfect subdivision of the agri- cultural class into owners and tenants by lease. On the part of society there is a necessity for an article, which, on the part of the owner, it seems by the objection there is no motive for giving up to the public service. But how so ? In a period of society so early as that must be when only No. 1. is called for, no separate class of occupants or ten- ants distinct from the class of owners can have been formed. As yet, no motive towards such a class can have arisen in the secretion of rent, as a separate function of revenue, from profit. There goes to wreck the total objec- tion ; for, at this stage of society, profit upon land will be THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 131 enormous. Now, what reason can there be for supposing that the owner will deny himself an immoderate income, because it happens to reach him under the name of profit, rather than under the name of rent ? Simply by that one exposure, we see how thoroughly the objector has been mastered by his own modern prepossessions. But next, as the necessity for substitutes and locum-te- nentes on landed properties (i. e. in some sense, for tenants or lessees,) must have arisen in every period of society, under personal accidents, of lunacy, orphan nonage, mili- tary absence, &c, long before the case arose as a profes- sional classification, denned and separately guarded by law, it follows that, for such tenants, where at all they existed, necessity would suggest a mode of payment : that payment would naturally be charged on the high rate of profit inci- dent to that early era of society. A division of profits would, in such times, give a higher return to both parties than the whole profits, in other times, to one. But then, that would not be in a technical sense rent? True, it would not : and rent in that scientific sense is exactly what we are denying, as a possibility, at this stage of expansion upon land, viz. when only No. 1 was in cultivation. Thirdly, as the estate could be delegated on the land- lord's account to a servant or ministerial agent, even the second arrangement, and also the first, is not indispensable ; so that, even in that false sense, rent would not often or necessarily arise. FourtMy, where a nominal quitrent is received in con- sideration of kinship or past services, or where feudal inci- dents of aid might be rendered, both the first, the second, and the third arrangement, would often be needless. Fifthly, upon whatever scheme of partition, or of feudal service substituted for partition, a landlord might choose to make his estates profitable, this result is palpable : the land 132 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. is cultivated, or it is not cultivated; and in either case what is the event to us ? How are we (the maintainers of rent technical in the modern sense) interested in either issue ? Say that the land is not cultivated : in that case none of us, on either side, is affected. Say that the land is cultivated, and on what terms. The landlord receives only some recognition of his feudal superiority : here, then, is confessedly no rent. Again, the landlord, upon some arrangement or other, first, second, or third, enters upon a share, known or unknown, of the profits. Still, what is that to us ? Profits are profits, and rent is rent ; and the things will not be confounded because an obstinate man attempts to confound the words. It is altogether needless to waste arguments on proving that, in the circumstances supposed, rent proper could not rise. For until No. 2 is called into action, how can any difference exist upon the products of soils ? Until a difference exists, how can an excess founded on that difference exist ? Until such a dif- ferential excess exists, how can rent be measured ? In any other sense we do not deny rent ; in this sense the objector does not affirm it, unless he is of opinion that an excess or difference could arise upon No. 1, by comparison with itself. " Sambo and Quaco are very like each other, but particu- larly Sambo." On the other hand, if the objector fancies a possibility of refusing this definition, and says, — " In my eyes anything shall be rent which is paid to- the landlord, in consideration of the right conceded to cultivate; and from whatever fund that payment is derived, equally if deduced by the laborers from their wages, or by the occu- pying capitalist from his profits ; " — in that case where is the dispute between us ? Is it we that deny the power of laborers to make such a deduction from wages, and to pay this over to the landlord ? On the contrary, this has been practised for generations in Ireland, as respects the conacre. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 133 Is it we that deny the power of the farming tenant to deduct a sum for the landlord's demand, — 1. From his own profits ; 2. From the income of some other property belonging to himself; 3. From the bounty of an indulgent aunt or grandmother ? On the contrary, this is going on for ever even at this day in England : and to deny it would be to affirm that every man occupied in farming must uni- formly succeed : wheresoever he does not, the rent (if paid at all) will be paid out of alien funds ; in that case it is rent only by a verbal trick. So long as words are the only representatives of our ideas, so long there will always be an opening for a trickster to charge upon any verbal dis- tinctions the pretence of verbalism. But the short answer in this case is, that rent, considered as an index or expo- nent to a series of differences upon a scale of soils, obeys one set of laws, — whilst rent, in the ordinary lax sense, obeys none. The ebbs or Sowings of rent, taken in the strict sense, are governed by laws as regular as marine tides; but in the vague sense of an acknowledgment to the landlord, made from any fund whatever, rent will be as capricious in its regulating principles, as in its original motives. Next, let me point to that feature in all the three dia- grams, — that always the lowest soil yields no rent. The cause of this, and the effect, are equally apparent. The cause is, that no soil yields rent until a soil lower than itself has defined and marked off a difference of produce. For the same reason why there can be no rent on No. 1, when no other No. is used, there can never be any rent on 4he No. which happens' to be lowest in the scale : equally in both cases there is wanting a lower soil, to mark off a difference. Rent is the excess of produce upon any given quality of soil, by comparison with another quality worse than itself. Until this worse quality comes into play, there 12 134 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. can be no such comparison, and, by consequence, no such excess. Until there is a point of comparison, — that is, until the soil now last in the scale becomes the penultimate, — you cannot point to any difference as more than a future possibility. All soils promise a potential difference ; but this cannot be realized until a lower base of comparison arises. Such is the cause : the effect is more likely to be contested. It is this. According to the modern doctrine, the price of the produce on all the soils is regulated by this lowest soil ; and for this reason, — that the price of pro- duce must be such as to cover that which is grown on the least advantageous terms. A price, sufficient for the upper soils, would be quite insufficient to continue the culture upon the lower ; since, in a market, no distinction can be allowed in the price for differences of advantage. Of those differences the public has no knowledge ; or, if it had, could not allow for them. Results are allowed for : quali- ties of grain, affirmatively better, sell higher ; but grounds of qualities, as, that a man has spent more capital upon his grain, or that he has won an equal grain from a worse soil by superior skill, — for these there can be no allowance. And, in fact, it is from these disadvantages, as graduated into a regular descending scale, that a regular series of increments becomes disposable for rent. So far an oppo- nent will submit, because he must ; but he will dispute the possibility of any such lowest soils existing by a whole class as rentless soils. This, however, is the same question recurring, which has already been recently canvassed with respect to No. 1. And in a field, where it is impossible to find room for every discussion, it is quite sufficient to make" these three replies : — (1st,) That a lowest class of soils may always be available as rentless soils, in the case where the owner unites with that character the character of occu- pying farmer. (2dly,) That the mode of the non-payment THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 135 often explains its possibility. A tenant has been able to pay a rent upon land not absolutely the worst, but the pe- nultimate : at this rent he has been warranted in bestowing upon the land so much capital : secondly, he stimulates the land by more capital, and obtains a second though inferior crop : for that secondary crop, equivalent to the crop on a lower soil, he pays no rent. Now, here the rentless capi- tal will be concealed and masked to the general eye by the associated capital which does pay rent This is one of the cases in which virtually the lowest land is concerned ; for those secondary powers in a higher soil, which have been called out by the second application of capital, are often exactly on a level with the primary qualities of the lowest. (3dly,) A very common case, sometimes a very extensive one, is where the tenant holds, jointly with superidr land, other land of the very lowest quality at present susceptible of culture. The one quality, out of which really is paid all the rent that he does pay, shelters and disguises the other quality, out of which, in fact, he pays none. Not the by- standers only, but even himself and his landlord, are pos- sibly deceived. An entire estate comprehending much good land, but also some too bad for cultivation, has been let on a surveyor's calculation, — 85 acres of the land No. 4 and No. 5, lying dispersed amongst 1140 of land No. 3, 2, and even 1, have virtually not affected the contract; they have been, in fact, thrown in gratuitously. No. 5 it has been found at that period unprofitable to cultivate. But No. 4 is cultivated, and is part of that land which fixes price, by paying wages and profits only. It ought, there- fore, as the lowest soil actually in use, to pay no rent ; how that is possible, has. been shown by the circumstances of the contract ; and how such a fact may escape the knowledge even of the parties to that contract, is explained by the scattered interfusion of some bad land amongst much that is very good or in various degrees better. 136 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. SECTION IV. Now remains the final task. It is seen, it has been proved, that an eternal series of differences is developed upon the land by the unresting advance of population. These differences, these increments, are undeniable : a question arises, — How are they disposed of? How do they operate? How do these eternal changes on the land effect the distribution of its produce? We know how a certain phenomenon called rent arises. Its ori- gin, its mode of advancing, — these are no longer doubt- ful. But what we now want to know, what as yet we do not know, is — the results of this phenomenon upon all interests connected with the land ; its operation upon the amount of their several shares. Here is, at first sight, a perplexing question. ~ Had that question been confined to this, — What becomes of the increments eternally arising upon land, as each lower qual- ity is developed? in that caSe the answer would have been easy. We all know, by this time, that these incre- ments are rent ; no rent except from these increments ; no increments which can be applied otherwise than to rent. But the real question is larger. There is a sin- gular delusion which takes place here. Because the increment takes place on occasion of the inferior soil being called up, there is a natural subreptio intellectus, a hasty impression .left on the mind, that the inferior soil actually causes the increment, — actually produces the addition which becomes available for rent. So far from that, so far from adding anything, every descent of this kind upon a lower soil takes away something. It seems to add — and for the landlord's benefit it does add — for it makes that a portion of his share which THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 137 previously had been the share of other people. But absolutely (that is, in relation to the aggregate claims of capitalist, farmer, laborer) this increment is mani- festly a decrement,, and never anything else. Fast as these increments travel westwards® 7 on the diagram, exactly in that ratio does the residuum — the portion available for the other shares on the land — grow ever narrower and narrower. The evolution of No. 2 (which suppose to have occurred during the Saxon polyarchy) did not add anything to the actual produce on No. 1. The action of No. 2 was simply to measure off on No. 1 a portion equal to its own defect, and to make it other- wise disposable than it had been. But obviously this separation on No. 1 has not enlarged the total shares : absolutely, the total produce on No. 1 is left exactly where it was, and the only real change is a different distribution of this produce. This distribution is the subject of the present section ; and it will most merit the attention of the student, first, because (being already per .se the most difficult part of the subject) it happens to be that part most cursorily explained by Bicardo. And secondly, it is charged with illusions from the first. One of these I have explained, — the random impression that the series of increments, which are increments only quoad hoc, is a series of actual bona fide additions. A second illusion is this, — Because all the increments, as fast as they take place, pass into rent, it is a most natural inference that these successive additions do not disturb the distribution of the other shares. Were any part of the increments otherwise applicable than to rent, — inversely, were any part of rent otherwise derivable than from the increments, you feel that the work of assigning their several shares to profits, wages, &c, would become perplexed. But 12* 138 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. you fancy it to be kept exceedingly simple by the known fact, that the constant excesses arising through the devel- opment of the land-scale are not divisible upon any mixed principle, — so much to profits, so much to wages ; but go in mass, and without one farthing of reservation, to rent. The natural but false, conclusion from this will be, — that rent, being itself quite unaffected by the other shares, will reciprocally not in the least affect those other shares. This, however, is altogether erroneous. From the moment when rent becomes developed upon the land, a perpetual change is going on derivatively in the shares allotted to laborers and to farmers. The grounds, the clockwork, of this change, lurks in a tabular statement of proportions by Eicardo ; this I shall trans- fer accurately from his pages to my own ; and then, be- cause all judicious readers complain heavily of the man- ner in which Eicardo has treated the exposition of this subject, I shall make it my business to fill up the scheme which he, from carelessness, (and perhaps more from nat- ural inaptitude 88 for the task of simplifying knowledge,) has left so obscure. Table oe Proportions drawn up by Ricardo, for the Purpose of ex- plaining the Collateral or Parallel Changes which take place in the Affec- tions of Value, through all Interests, upon tjie Land, contingently upon each successive Development of Lower Soils. Price per Quarter. Rent in Wheat. Kent in Money. Profit in Wheat. Profit in Money. Wages in Wheat. Wages in Money. Total of Money for Wages,Pro- flt, & Kent. £ s. d. A. 4 B. 4 4 8 c. 4 10 D. 4 16 E. 5 2 10 qrs. None. 10 20 30 40 £ s. d. None. 42 7 6 90 144 205 13 4 qrs. 120 111.7 103.4 95.0 86.7 £ s. d. 480 473 465 8 456 445 15 qrs. 60 58.3 56.6 55 63.3 £ s. d. 240 247 255 264 274 6 £ s. d. 720 762 7 6 810 864 925 13 4 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 139 COMMENT AKY. In this table the case A indicates the original condition of rural husbandry, when as yet no land is under culture but the best (or No. 1 of the Diagrams). Case B indi- cates, therefore, the secondary condition, when No. 2 is called for. Case c the tertiary condition, when No.'3 is called for, and so onwards. The price of wheat per quarter in the one sole case A, must be understood to have been arbitrarily assumed by Ricardo ; everywhere else it is not arbitrary. It could not signify what price was assumed at the starting-point, only that Ricardo should have explained how much of his table was assumption, and not have left to students a perplexing inquiry about his reasons, where, in fact, no reasons at all existed. It was sufficient at the starting-point to take for a basis any possible price ad libitum. But ever afterwards, in the descending scale of cases b, c, d, &c, there is no further room for discretion or arbitrary choice. Each price of wheat in the four which follow is determined by an a priori principle : it is derived (as will be shown immediately) by a rule-of-three propor- tion from the amount of produce on the land, compared with the same amount when diminished by the growing deductions for rent. These modifications of price, derived from rent, are very important ; for through this organ of price it is that rent operates upon the money compen- sations (however imperfect compensations) to decaying wages, and still more decaying profits. By throwing his eye down the proper columns, the reader will see that wages are always declining in wheat returns, but always rising (though not proportionably rising) in money returns. Profits, on the other hand, suffer in both modes. Their corn returns sell, indeed, with the same advantage from the 140 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. new price of wheat as that which benefits the wages ; but still, as the positive declension of these corn returns is con- siderably greater for profits than for wages, the money returns will be seen to decline absolutely for profits, and not merely (as in the case of wages) proportionately. Lastly, by looking down the two contiguous columns for the changes on rent, the reader will see that rent benefits in both ways, viz. in corn returns and in money returns. And even that is a careless expression of the case ; for, in a sense, both wages and even profits benefit ; that is, if they suffer, they certainly suffer less than they otherwise would do, in consequence of a higher price being obtained for land produce concurrently with every expansion of rent. How, then, does the case of rent differ from their case ? It differs thus : rent benefits absolutely in all senses, in wheat not less than in money ; wages benefit in money, but lose upon the wheat return ; profits lose upon both returns. Originally, for instance, (case a,) ten laborers had received, collectively, sixty quarters of wheat, or (at £ 4 per quarter) £ 240 sterling, — giving to each man sixty quarters, or, in money, £24. Now, in case b, when rent has commenced, the abstraction of ten quarters for this purpose makes it impossible that the remainder, left for distribution between wages and profits, can allow the same corn return. Ac- cordingly, wages sink in wheat from 60 to 58 quarters, plus three tenths of a quarter. But, on the other hand, as a compensation pro tanto, this diminished quantity of wheat sells for £7 more. The ten laborers receive now £247 instead of £240. Does that addition (of 14s. a man) reimburse his loss ? Not at all. To do this, the money addition ought to have been double. Each man, if no part of his expenditure were for bread and flour, might rejoice 89 that his money wages were more, even if not commensur- ately more. But, for every eight bushels of wheat which THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 141 his family consumes, he must now pay four guineas, plus eightpence, instead of four pounds. Say that his house- hold were of four and a half heads, here (under the usual random computation of eight bushels annually per head) we have four and a half times four shillings and eight- pence extra, — that is, precisely one guinea extra on the man's annual outlay ; whilst, upon the table of Eicardo, his relief proceeds no further than by 14s., i. e. two thirds of his loss. This, besides, in the case b ; but, if such things happen in the green ear, what will happen on the full har- vest of development under c, d, e, and quarters of the alphabet still more ominous? By any law that Eicardo impresses on his student, the very wheels of the social watchwork must be clogged and motionless long before the land-scale would come in sight of detestable m, or even of gloomy h. Only through that great antagonist force for ever at work in Great Britain, — through skill, capital, and the energy of freemen ; only by an antagonist law for ever operative in throwing back the descents, — in raising the soil of case e, in the year 1700, to the level of b as it was in 1500, — the soil of O, in the year 1800, to the level of e as it stood in 1600, — thus, and only thus, do we escape, have escaped, and shall escape, the action of rent ; which action, by the just exposures of Eicardo, tends always to engulf us ; which action, by the unjust concealments of Eicardo, ought long ago to have frozen us into a dead lock, anything to the contrary, notwithstanding, which has ever been insisted on by that great master of economy. The tendencies of a natural law like that of rent, (which word rent I use as a shorthand expression for the case, otherwise it is not rent, but the cause of rent, or degradua- tion of soils, which in very truth is the original principle of movement,) — these tendencies it is always right to expose ; and Eicardo first did expose them. Others had 142 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. discovered the law ; he first applied his sagacious sense to its consequences upon profits, wages, price ; and, through them, upon universal economy. That was right ; for that we are irredeemably his debtors. But it was not right to keep studiously out of sight that eternal counter-movement which tends, by an equivalent agency, to redress the dis- turbed balance. This concealment has the effect of intro- ducing marvels into a severe science ; since, else, what other than a miracle is it that rent has not long ago ab- sorbed the whole landed produce, — a result to which so manifestly it tends ? Secondly, this concealment with- draws from the notice of young students a truly philosophic instance, or case, of that providential benignity which meets every natural growth of comprehensive evil by a commensurate compensation, or else by a process of posi- tive counteraction. Our own social system seems to har- bor within itself the germ of our ruin. Either we must destroy rent, i. e. that which causes rent, or rent will destroy us, unless in the one sole case where this destroy- ing agency can be headed back uniformly as it touches the point of danger, — that point where it would enter into combination with evil co-agencies. Now this great case of reservation, this saving clause, (which by the intervention of an " unless," i. e. of an " if not," entitled, of course, to the benefits of a Shakespearian " if," defeats a dreadful ten- dency always lying couchant in our social mechanism,) being almost unnoticed by Ricardo, or not finding a syste- matic locus in his exposition, besides leaving room for a sort of wonderment not creditable to a severe science, has the further bad effect of inviting a malignant political dis- affection. Both in France, Germany, and England, a dreadful class is forming itself of systematic enemies to property. As a wild, ferocious instinct, blind as a Cyclops and strong as a Cyclops, this anti-social frenzy has natu- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 143 rally but too deep a root in the predispositions of hopeless poverty. And it happens (though certainly not with any intentional sanction from so upright a man as David Ricardo) that in no instance has the policy of gloomy dis- organizing Jacobinism, fitfully reviving from age to age, received any essential aid from science, excepting in this one painful corollary from Ricardo's triad of chapters on Rent, Profit, and "Wages. A stress lies on this word triad; for it is not from insulated views of rent that the wicked inference arises : it is by combined speculations upon the three. Separate, the doctrine of rent offers little en- couragement to the anarchist; it is in connection with other views that it ripens into an instrument of mischief the most incendiary. Since Ricardo's time, the anti-social Jacobins, — attacking, in France, the whole theory of taxa- tion, of public worship, of national education ; in England, attacking the fabric of civil administration, the liability of one generation to the debts or civil obligations of another, the right to property or to accumulations of any kind ; and, in Germany, going far beyond these insanities of licen- tiousness — find often a convenient policy in having ex- oteric and minor degrees of initiation. To the aspirant, during his novitiate, they preach the abolition of entails, of regal courts, of ambassadors, and privileged bodies of sol- diery, as appendages of courts ; but on no phasis of the social economy now prevailing, do they dwell with more effectual bitterness than on the tendencies of rent as exposed by Ricardo. Here is a man, they argue, not hos- tile to social institutions, nor thinking of them in connec- tion with any question of elementary justice, who reveals as a mere sequel, as an indirect consequence, as a collateral effect from one ordinary arrangement of landed property, that it does, and must encroach steadily, by perpetual stages, upon other landed claims, through all varieties of 144 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. kind and of degree. The evil, they'allege, is in the nature of an eclipse ; it travels by digits over the face of the planet. A shadow of death steals gradually over the whole disk of what once had offered a luminous field of promise. And that which was meant for the auspicious guarantee of indefinite expansion to human generations, viz. the indefinite expansibility of food and clothing from the land, becomes the main counteraction of these pur- poses of Providence, and the most injurious monument of social misarrangement. The class of landlords, they urge, is the merest realization of a scriptural idea, — unjust men reaping where they have not sown. They prosper, not pending the ruin, not in spite of the ruin, but by the ruin of the fraternal classes associated with themselves on the land. Not by accident, but by necessity, — not by inter- mitting effects of position, but by very coercion of their original tenure, — it is the organic function of rent-receivers to encroach, to engulf all the shares at last, and to approxi- mate this consummation of total absorption by yearly stages of partial absorption ; like Schiller's cannon-ball, " Shattering what it reaches, and shattering that it may reach." And thus, whilst universal society is viewed as the victim of institutions, yet this fatal necessity is received as no plea for those whom it coerces ; but the noblest order of men amongst us, our landed aristocracy, is treated as the essential scourge of all orders beside. Now, were all this true, God forbid that it should be charged upon Ricardo as an offence to have exposed it ! But it is the little learning here, as elsewhere, which grounds the ignorance and prop- agates the calumny. No man could know this better than Ricardo. And yet lie has suffered these perilous false- hoods (perilous, because fatally " simular '' of truth) to accredit themselves upon his authority. These pestilent THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 145 errors, oftentimes preached by dull men, have borrowed wings and buoyancy from his profound truths unfortunately mutilated. For the whole truth, when not one hemisphere, but both hemispheres are exhibited at once, is, that logi- cally speaking, rents are themselves inevitable consequen- ces, bound up with the necessities of the case ; secondly, that, as inevitable results, these increments upon land import no blame to landlords, seeing that under any system of civil interests, and any administration of those interests, such increments eternally arising must be enjoyed by somebody ; thirdly, that having thus reduced the question to a simple case of comparison between country gentlemen (as the most ordinary class of rent receivers) and any other assignable receivers, Ricardo was too conscientious to pretend that this class was not, amongst us, one of our noblest. If we have led Europe in political counsels since 1642 ; if we first founded a representative government, — by whom else than our country gentlemen, in Parliament assembled, were we ourselves guided ? But, fourthly, Ricardo is chiefly blamable as overlooking that great pursuing counter-agency which travels after the tendency on land, overtakes it continually, and once at least in each century, like an annus Platonicus, restores the old relations of our system. Ricardo knew, in that extent which made it a duty to proclaim, that to this indefinite expansion of rent, absolutely unlimited as it is by original tendency, on that very argument, and merely by that proof, some active and commensurate remedy must have always been operating. Too evidently the evil must have found or have generated its own check, else why had it not long ago destroyed us ? I have made it a point to dwell a little on this great question, because here chiefly it is that political economy inosculates with politics and the philosophy of social life ; and because, from mere inad- 13 146 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. vertence, Bicardo is here found in a painful collusion with the most hateful of anarchists. Now remains one sole task. The novice has seen gen- erally, that the laborer and the capitalist are affected by changes in rent ; it remains to ask, In what exact propor- tions ? Although every fresh projection of rent is carried off " neat " and entire by its own class of owners, and therefore it might be supposed that this class would go off, leaving the two other classes to settle their dividends un- disturbed by the action of rent, that is not so. Every fresh pulse of rent causes a new arrangement even for that which rent leaves behind ; and this new arrangement more and more favors wages at the expense of profits. One short explanation will make this clear, and finish the whole development. Looking back to Ricardo's table, let us take the case c. 40 And, in order to begin at the beginning, what is the prin- cipium movendi ? Where arises the initial movement ? It arises in the fact that, by some descent upon a worse soil, a second separation of rent has taken place. In the first descent, marked b, there had occurred a separation of 10 quarters for rent ; in the second descent, marked c, a separation (upon the same soil) of 20 quarters has occurred for the same purpose. Here pause : for now comes the screw which moves the whole machine. The produce of the soil under discussion is assumed always to be the same total quantity, — viz. 180 quarters ; for the reader has been told that it is one and the same soil concerned in all the five cases. Conse- quently, when 10 quarters were made disposable for rent, the remainder was 170 ; when 20 are taken, the remainder is 160. Now, as 160 : 180:: £4: £4, 10s. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 147 When the original move had been made, wheat was selling at eighty shillings a quarter : it rose under this first move (b) to eighty-four shillings and eightpence. And why ? because 170 is to 180 as £4 is to £4 4s. 8d. But when another move (c) has abstracted from the total crop of 180 quarters not less than 20 for rent, by a rule-of-three pro- portion we see that the price will rise to ninety shillings. Step the Second. — Next, after this case of price, comes the case of wages. How it is that Ricardo would himself have explained the process of adjustment (as sketched on his own table) between wages and the changes caused by rent, perhaps nobody can say. My explanation is this, which must (I presume) be sound, as it coincides in the arithmetical result with his. Look down the column of prices for wheat, and uniformly the difference between any case, as c and the original case A, must be halved. Thus the half of ten shillings (the difference between c and a) is five. Then, because each laborer's original share had been six quarters, multiply six by five shillings, and the product is thirty shillings. This, for ten laborers, will make, collectively, £ 15 ; and so much additional money wages, — viz. £15, — must be paid to the aggregate share of wages under case c, compared with case A. Accord- ingly, in the column of " wages in money," you see that, having had £240 in case A, the ten laborers will have £255 in case c. Again, for a similar reason, 41 in case d, the price of wheat per quarter is sixteen shillings more than in case A. Half sixteen shillings is eight shillings ; and multiplying the original quarters of each laborer, viz. six, by eight, you have forty-eight shillings as the addi- tional sum for each laborer, £ 24 therefore as the aggregate addition for ten laborers. Accordingly, by the same col- umn of " wages in money," you see that the share of wages on case d, as compared with case A, has risen from £240 to £264. 148 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. Step the Third, — Remains to ask, what will be the share left for profits ? When abstracting Ricardo's law of profits, I said, — by way of condensing the truth in a brief formula, — " Profits are the leavings of wages : " meaning, that whatever addition is assigned to wages by the law con- trolling them, must be taken from profits ; for, if not, whence can it come ? What other source is available ? Here (as you see) the initial movement, by abstracting 20 quarters from the land produce for rent, has determinately forced on another movement, — viz. a change in wages. This has given £ 15 extra to the ten workmen : but where was that £15 obtained? If you say it was obtained from the hew price of wheat, now much enhanced, I reply, — No : that is quite impossible. First, from the fact, — the price of wheat is now 10s. a quarter more than it was under case a. This extra sum upon 180 quarters makes exactly £90. But £90 is the very sum now paid for rent; the 20 quarters for rent, at £4 10s., amount to £90. Consequently, all that is gained in the new money price of wheat goes away upon rent. Secondly, the same thing may be shown a priori. For what is it that has raised the price of wheat ? The cause of that new price is the inferiority of some new soil not particularly noticed in Ri- cardo's table, except in its effects. This worse soil, which for that reason regulates the price upon all soils, could not furnish the same produce of 180 quarters, except at a higher cost. That higher cost appears to be £ 90. So far only, and by this process, has the price of wheat been raised; but not through any rise of wages, which rise, besides, is consequential and posterior to the rise in wheat, and cannot therefore have been causative to the new price of wheat. Not to insist again, at this point, on the doctrine of Ricardo, so fully demonstrated, that no change in price can ever be effected by a change in wages. In the in- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 149 stance now before us, the £ 15 extra must be paid from some quarter ; but it is doubly demonstrated that it cannot have been paid by the new price, — i. e. by consumers. It remains, therefore, that it must be paid out of profits ; for no other fund exists. And accordingly, by looking into the column of money profits, you see that, in case c, these profits have sunk from £480 to £465. In other words, the 30s. per man paid extra to the laborer, making £ 15 for the ten laborers, has been obtained entirely at the cost of profits. The laborers obtain £15 more; but the capi- talist is left with £15 less. Thus, finally, we read off the table of Ricardo into its true interpretation. We are able to construct it into a sci- entific sense for the understanding. The last column to the right hand, I must observe, simply adds to the invari- able sum of £720, always disposable for profit and wages, the new sum obtained by a new price of wheat for rent. For example, in case c, where 20 quarters become dispos- able for rent, and therefore, in money, £90 under the new price of wheat, add this £90 to the old £720, and the total money produce of the land under c is £810. So again, under e, where the price of wheat has risen to £5 2s. lOd. per quarter, the total money value of rent, now claiming 40 quarters of the 180, will be £205 13s. 4d. ; and this sum, added to the old £720, makes (as we see) £925 13s. 4d. But now, if we strike out this final column on the right hand, which is simply an arithmetical register or sum- mation of values travelling along with the expansions of rent, we shall have seven columns remaining,' — viz. one for the prices of wheat, two for rent, two for profits, and two for wages. And the Ariadne's thread for passing along the labyrinth is briefly this : that the second column is a pure assumption, and justly so, where you are entitled to take any quantities you please for a basis. From this sec- 13* 150 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. ond column you take your start; and, by a comparison derived from this assumption of wheat rent, in a way already explained, (viz. by stating the remainder of wheat produce, suppose 150 quarters after paying rent, against the invariable total of wheat produce, — viz. 180 quarters,) you determine to a fraction the new price per quarter of wheat. This known, next, by a rule which seems arbitrary, you learn precisely the new amount (as in column seventh) that will now be required for money wages. -But, because the new price of wheat is also known, out of that (combined with the money addition to the laborer's wages) you are able to determine the question of column sixth, — viz. how much the laborer has lost in corn wages ; and then, as the money gained to the laborer measures the money lost to the capitalist, easily you settle the question of column fifth (money profits) out of column seventh, (money wages.) Next, through the price of wheat, (known in column first and by column second) you ascertain readily the question of column fourth ; i. e. of wheat profits. There remains only column third, (the money value of rent.) But this is obviously nothing more than a multiplication of column second, as to any given item, by the corresponding item in column first. As to the objections against the rule for deriving the new rate of money wages, — that it seems to be arbitrary, — I fancy that Hicardo referred to a basis assumed in the chapter on wages, which represents the laborer as originally requiring one half of his wages for food or for wheat ; so that the increase in money wages acts only on that half. To the latter part of that chapter, in my own account of it, I therefore refer the reader. THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 151 CHAPTER V. PROFITS. This chapter will occupy us for a longer space than the rest ; first, because (as a dependency upon rent and wages) it furnishes a sort of commentary on those doctrines ; sec- ondly, because, more than any other doctrine, it is liable, on its own account, to popular fallacies. Price, rent, and wages, having now been developed, we may say, with respect to the law of profits, not so properly that it is deduced from these three principles by Eicardo, as that it deduces itself. Let me not be thought, in saying that, to mean any disparagement of Eicardo's services. Greater cannot be imagined. He it was who first made it possible to deduce wages from rent, — and therefore to deduce profits from wages. He had so disembarrassed the ground of all perplexities by the time he reached this ques- tion of profits, that the true theory rather flowed spontane- ously from the conditions, as they had been now explained, than called for any effort of inference. But then the very necessity and inevitableness of this inference, the very pos- sibility of dispensing with further discoveries, were due exclusively to Eicardo's previous simplifications. Only by having merited so much in former stages,, could he have made it possible, even for himself, to merit so little in this. In one brief formula, it might be said of profits, — that 152 THE LOGIC 01? POLITICAL ECONOMY. they are the leavings of wages : so much will the profit be upon any act of production, whether agricultural or manu- facturing, as the wages upon that act permit to be left behind. But left behind from what? From the price. The price, even of landed produce, splits always into wages and profits ; and what the price is, — predetermines the joint amount for wages and profits. If the price is ten shillings, then by this principle it is asserted, —that wages and profits, taken as a whole, cannot exceed ten shillings. (No rise in wages could increase this sum of ten shillings.) But do not the wages and profits as a whole, themselves, on the contrary, predetermine the price ? No ; that is the old superannuated doctrine. But the new economy has shown that all price is governed by proportional quantity of the producing labor, and by that only. Being itself once settled, then, ipso facto, price settles the fund out of which both wages and profits must draw their separate dividends. Call the price x : that sum, that x, makes up the joint values of wages and profits. Taken together, the two functions of wages and profits will always compose x ; cannot be less, cannot be more. But, if that is true, then it follows that wages and profits vary inversely : whatever the one loses the other gains ; and the gain of either can only be through the loss of the other. Neither of the two can gain absolutely or irrespec- tively of the other ; wages being eight shillings, and profits two, then it is possible that profits might rise to three, but only by wages previously falling to seven. Any other rise in profits, such as should leave wages virtually undimin- ished, could be only an apparent rise through some depre- ciation in the currency ; and that depreciation, changing any one thing nominally, must change all other things : affecting all apparently, really it would affect none. THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 153 This being settled, viz. that any motion or change between wages and profits will always be reciprocal, next comes the question, — in which of the two will such a change commence ? Is it possible, for instance, that an original change should take place in profits, and that wages should be affected only in a secondary way ? No ; this is not possible. Any change that can disturb the existing relations between wages and profits, must originate in wages : whatever change may silently take place in profits, always we must view as recording and measuring a previ- ous change in wages. Hence we are brought to the conclusion, — that to wages, and to wages only, we must look for an explanation of all principles which govern either themselves or profits. Ricardo's chapter upon profits is substantially no more than a reiteration of his two chapters upon wages and rent. It is known already from those chapters, that in all national communities alike, there is the same constant tendency (through the increase of population) to descend upon worse soils. There is a counter-tendency which holds this primal tendency in check ; viz. the gradual elevation of bad soils to the rank of better, by means of improving science. But this antagonist principle acts very unequally in different communities, and in the same community at different periods. Consequently, the tendency to increased cost of food, by continual descent upon worse wheat land, worse barley land, and worse grazing land, is sometimes for a century together proceeding with activity; whilst the counter-tendency, which depends much upon previous improvements in roads, markets, &c, and upon general progress in science, may be altogether torpid. "We see, therefore, a natural reason why wages upon the land should, through such a century, continually grow heavier, and the profits, therefore, continually decline. It is only 154 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. when the antagonist tendency gets into powerful play, or whilst the population happens to be stagnant, that this downward movement is checked. But says the student, by a most natural objection, what has that to do with manufactures ? Industry, applied to land, grows dearer, because the declining qualities of the soil oblige the culti- vator to employ eleven or twelve men on the worst soil used in the last year of a century; whereas, upon the worst soil used in the first year of that century there were employed only ten. It is the quantity of labor which has increased (viz. as must always be remembered, on the lowest or regulating soil) ; and that explains why the manufacturer of wheat or oxen must have more wages to pay ; he has twelve men to pay instead of ten. But why should the manufacturer of shoes be affected by such a change ? Because more men are required upon a score of acres, it will not follow that more will be required upon a score of boots or shoes. Why, therefore, should not the effect upon profits confine itself to capitals employed upon land ? The answer is this, — even upon shoes there will be a small increase of labor, because the raw material will grow a little dearer as hides grow dearer ; and hides will grow dearer as cattle grow dearer, by descending upon worse pasture lands. But this is not the channel through which profits are affected, either upon one sort of industry or another. It is not because the quantity of labor in- creases, that corn profits will diminish. That change will merely affect prices. A farmer, indeed, who has to pay an eleventh laborer, will certainly have more wages to pay. Where he paid two hundred pounds formerly, now he must pay two hundred and twenty. But the shoemaker will need no eleventh man. True : yet he must pay his ten men at a higher rate. The payment fastened upon the farmer for an extra man, for an extra quantity of labor, is THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 155 not that payment which will diminish his profits. For that he will be indemnified in the altered price of his produce. Sect. 3. of Chap. I. (on value) has sufficiently established, — that all changes in the quantity of producing labor, whether up or down, settle by corresponding changes upon the price : if the labor required is more, the price of the product is more : if less, less. And the new price indem- nifies the employer — whether farmer or shoemaker — for the new quantity of labor. So far, therefore, the cost of the eleventh man is nothing to him .- yet the eleventh man must be paid for ; and that is something to the public, for, in order to pay him, ten per cent will now be added to the price of their wheat. But thus far the farmer is no further affected by the change than as he also, in the persons of his household, is a consumer of wheat. To that extent he must be a sufferer, in common with everybody else, but not as a producer. Next, however, comes another change : in consequence of this rise in wheat, caused by the neces- sity of an eleventh man, all the ten men and the eleventh besides will need extra wages. Some addition must be made to their wages, or else at the new price of wheat a class of men, to whom wheat forms so large an item upon so small a total expenditure, would sink suddenly in the scale. Now, here it is that the shoemaker will be caught. His shoes, it is true, will not cost more labor in making, because wheat costs more labor, except indeed by the trifle additional on hides ; and that trifle will be repaid in the price of shoes. But how will that indemnify the shoemaker for the new rate of wages paid to the old quantity of labor? Suppose him to keep ten journeymen, he (you allege) is not in the situation of the farmer : he is under no call to employ an eleventh, as a conditio sine qua non for obtain- ing the old amount of produce. Ten men will produce as many shoes now as they did before. True : but will these 156 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. ten men be contented with the same rate of wages ? They cannot ; upon them, as much as upon the farmer's men, rests a necessity for reimbursement with respect to the new ten per cent charged upon wheat. Suppose wheat to form one half of their household expenditure, then five per cent upon their total wages will be requisite to meet the ten per cent upon grain. Suppose (which is more probable) that wheat forms one third of their total expenditure, then £3 6s. 8d. upon every hundred pounds paid in wages will be the requisite increase. But, considering the concurrent increase which will affect all articles (such as wool) de- pending equally with wheat upon the home soil, and con- sidering the increased costs upon advances of capital, it is not too much to say, — that a ten per cent rise in grain will raise wages universally by five per cent. And in that word " universally " we are reminded of the nexus between agricultural and manufacturing industry, which effects the translation of changes from the one to the other. The original " move " in the game, viz. the descent upon a soil of lower capacities, is undeniably nothing to the shoe- maker. His shoemaking does not therefore descend upon less productive journeymen or more intractable hides : wheat is less in quantity, but shoes are not less in quantity. No ; but soon the reagency of the first change travels back upon the shoemaker by a second. Wheat forms a con- spicuous part in the household system of diet for all labor- ers alike. A man does not grow fat because he drives fat oxen : nor does a ploughman's family consume more wheat, because the head of it produces wheat. The shoemaker's family consumes as much. And although the primary change, viz. the increased labor upon growing wheat, is a matter of very great interest to the landowners, and of very little interest to the owners of shoemaking industry ; yet eventually that primary change which throws new THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 157 labor on the land, has the secondary effect of raising price upon its produce : and then the change becomes quite as interesting to shoemakers as to ploughmen. The shoe- maker escapes at first : true ; and there is no wonder in that ; for even the farmer escapes. He hires a new man ; but he knows that the new price to be anticipated for grain will pay for the new man. Yet, no sooner is this prospect realized, than the farmer finds himself suddenly reached by the new price in his character of consumer ; and unfor- tunately every workman in his service, both ten old ones and an eleventh superadded, is also a consumer. So here comes a sudden call for a bonus to twelve families, those of the farmer and his eleven men, notwithstanding the pay- ment of the eleventh man (as to the old rate of wages) is undertaken by the public in the new price of wheat. But precisely these secondary changes reach the shoemaker and all his workmen through the very same agency at the same time. Here, therefore, in this complex process, always exist- ing by way of tendency in improving countries, we read the whole law of profits. A change commences upon the land, which is nothing at the first to any interest but the landed. Originally, it is a change which has its beginning and its end upon the land. But unfortunately that inevit- able " end " is an augmentation of price upon the produce of land. And then in one hour all the world is overtaken by the change, — every man in his consumption, capitalists in wages. In every department of industry, unless so far as it is conducted by non-wheat-consuming machines, wages rise so as to indemnify the animal laborer (man, horse, or bul- lock) for the increased cost of his consumption. And yet this rise of wages, this rise in the price of labor (as opposed to a rise in the quantity of labor) cannot be fetched back in the price of the products : that has been shown at length in 14 158 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Chapter I. : nevertheless, it must be paid ; and what fund is there available for the payment, except profits ? Clearly there is no other ; and, therefore, profits must eternally pay by diminution for these increases in the rate of wages. Consequently, by the natural nisus in every country, profits are always descending. But, on the other hand, there is a nisus, directly antithetic to this, which is always tending to raise profits, viz. the continual improvement of soils, (either a as to the cost of working them, or /3 as to the amount of their produce under the same cost,) which in effect, upon any period of two centuries, acts for us precisely as an orig- inal endowment of the land with much higher capacities. Land which ranked as No. 20 at the Crusades, may now, perhaps, stand at the same rating on the scale, it is still No. 20 ; but the No. 20 land of these days is equal in ab- solute produce to the No. 4 land of the Crusades. Hence it is, viz. by this counter-msus in the land, that profits have not long ago fallen to nothing. There is a continual tendency towards nothing, which would soon become effect- ual, through the expansion of population forcing land upon worse soils, were it not continually retarded and fought back through this opposite expansion in the everlasting im- provement of science, practical skill, social arrangements, or capital. But whether profits, under the one tendency, are hurrying downwards for half a century, or, under the antagonist tendency, are abruptly ascending, or, under the two acting in combination, are held stationary — alike in all cases we see that it is the land which gives the original impulse to profits ; and, alike in all cases, by and through the same agency of wages. Always there can be no rise or fall for profits which will not presuppose a correspond- ing fall and rise for wages ; always the initial movement must take place in the wages. One sole evasion of this doctrine I can imagine as pos- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 159 sible even to a thoughtful man, since I have been acquaint- ed with Mr. Malthus's " Economy." * He might argue thus : " You talk of an eleventh man, as required by the descent of tillage upon a worse soil. And probably you make way for your arguments by that assumption ; but there is no such necessity. Tillage descends upon the in- ferior soil by means of the ten men." "Well, be it so ; but mark what follows. The produce under these men must be less, or else the very case in discussion is abandoned ; the soil would not be inferior, if ten men (the same number as work the penultimate land) could obtain the same produce. The produce is less by the very terms of the hypothesis. Now, it signifies not a straw for the principle concerned how much less. But say that each man raises, by one- tenth part, less than he did upon the next superior land. Each in short raises from the new land nine tenths of his former product upon superior land : so that, had the total product of the ten been 100 quarters of wheat before the change, it will be 90 after the change. But who does not see that, by mere conversion of the terms, if the whole pro- duce of 100 has been reduced to 90, then each individual quarter of wheat has cost one ninth of a man, whereas be- fore it cost only one tenth of a man ? Yet this most obvi- ous truth Mr. Malthus failed to see ; and he has repeatedly argued, in a case where the produce had sunk whilst the labor employed was the same, as though the return had varied, but not by any variation in the producing labor. It is, indeed, the common paralogism, and too natural to excite much wonder for itself, that if upon the same farm you have always kept five men, and in 1800 their product was 25 quarters, but in 1840 was 50 quarters, you are apt to view the produce only as variable, and the labor as con- # " Principles of Political Economy " — first published in 1820. 160 THE LOCUC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. stant: whereas virtually both have varied. In 1800, each quarter must have cost one fifth part of a man, in 1840, each has cost no more than one tenth part of a man. If the wheat harvest of 1844, by some unprecedented blight or locust attacking the plant in England, should fall sud- denly to one tenth part of what it was .in 1843, you could not say with any accuracy that the labor had been the same, but the result different. On the contrary, for the very reason that the number of laborers had been the same, the producing labor must have been by ten times greater. For surely it has cost, by the supposition, ten times as much labor to raise any given portion of produce, (one bushel, a thousand bushels, &c.,) as it did in 1843. It is, therefore, a matter of no consequence at all whether we assume an eleventh man in order to sustain the same pro- duce, or assume a diminished produce from the ten men. This is but an inversion of the same formula. 42 Nor would it have deserved this notice, were not the blunder so common, and especially so in the " Principles " of Mr. Malthus. In this instance, therefore, the objector is silenced ; be- cause his own case, supposing a less produce with the same labor, does in so many words confess — that, with the same number of men to pay, (viz. ten, upon his way of stating the case,) there will in the first place be a diminished fund for paying them. Undoubtedly, in the second place, this diminished corn fund will be compensated in a higher money price. But then, in the third place, this higher price, which merely restores to the farmer the lost powers of labor, (that is, makes the ten less effective men equally valuable to him in the money result as the ten men on the old standard,) will not also pay the difference between the old and new wages ; for the same cause which makes the total produce smaller, makes each bushel of that produce THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 161 dearer : in this it is alleged the farmer finds his indemnifi- cation. True, he does so: but that cuts both ways; for precisely in this higher and indemnifying price, when it comes to affect the consumption of himself and his men, he finds also his own damage. But there is still a final evasion likely to move subcon- sciously in the thoughts of a student, which it is better to deepen and strengthen until it becomes generally visible — than to leave it behind as a rankling perplexity. He has a confused idea that, in the distributions of landed produce, the shares which grow less in quantity sometimes grow larger in value. If a laborer, who got 6 quarters last year, gets only 5 this year, undeniably his corn wages have fallen, and yet his money wages may have risen ; for 5 quarters, when wheat is selling for five guineas, will be worth twenty-five guineas ; whereas 6 quarters, when wheat sold for four guineas, would be worth only twenty- four guineas. The laborer is therefore poorer in wheat, but he is a little richer in money. Now, the student may fancy that, by an indemnity similar in kind, but perhaps even greater in degree, profits may evade the declension which otherwise accompanies the expansion of agriculture. "Where the value of each assignable part may be less, might not a larger quantity fall to the share of profits ; and where a smaller quantity was allotted to profits, might it not compensate that defect by a much greater value ? No : if the reader pursues the turns of the case through all changes, he will find the following result invariably follow- ing : — As worse land is taken into use, the landlord's share rises both in quantity and value : secondly, the laborer's share lessens in quantity but increases in value ; whilst, thirdly the profitee's (or farmer's) share lessens both in quantity and value. Of two possible advantages, allowed under the circumstances, Rent comes in for both — Wages 14* 162 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. for one — Profits for neither. And the sole resource for profits against a never-ending declension, is that antagon- istic tendency by which from time to time man defeats the original tendency of the land, raising indifferent land in 1840 to the level of what was very good land in 1340 — consequently restoring profits (and often much more than restoring them) to that station which they had lost in the interval. Except by this eternal counter-agency, profits cannot protect themselves by any special remedy against a con- tinual degradation ; that redress, which for rent procures much more than an indemnity, and for wages an imper- fect indemnity, will not operate at all in behalf of profits. And this shall be exemplified in a simple case. Eight men, upon a known farm, have hitherto raised 80 quar- ters of wheat. By a descent upon worse land, under the coercion of rising population, ten men are now required to produce the same 80 quarters. That is, heretofore each man of the eight produced ten ; but now, on the lower soil, each man of the ten produces eight. Conse- quently, on that land which determines the price of wheat, (see Chapter III. on Rent,) eight men now produce 64 quarters. This produce (since the least advantageously grown must rule the price) now becomes the regulating scale for price. Last year, when the produce of 80 quar- ters from eight men had been the lowest round of the ladder, the price had been £4 the quarter. Now, when a produce of 64 quarters from eight men is the lowest, the price will rise to £5. For 64 : 80 :: £4 : £5. But, when the produce was 80 quarters, selling at £4, the total money produced was £320. From which amount deduct the wages of eight men, (receiving, sup- pose each 5 quarters, or £160 in the whole,) and there will remain £160 for the profits. THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 1G3 Now, when the produce is G4 quarters, selling at £5, the total money produce will be still £ 320 ; the higher price having so far compensated the lower produce. From which amount deduct the wages of eight men, — receiving each the value of 5 quarters, (or £200 in the whole,) and there will remain only £ 120 for profits. It is true that the new rate of wages will not proceed on the old scale of quantity; the corn wages will some- what decline ; but this will not help the result : each man may not receive 5 quarters as heretofore, but always he will receive the value of more than 4 quarters at £5 : always the eight men will receive more than £160; or else their wages will not have risen under a rise in the price of corn. Always therefore, from the same fixed sum of £320, the deduction for wages being greater, what remains for profit must be less. This, however, it may be said, is an example drawn from the last round of the ladder, — from the very last land under culture; first from that which was last some time back; secondly, from that which at present is last. Now, upon such land, it has been shown already, (Chap- ter 111. on Rent;) that the entire return always divides between wages and profits ; nothing at all is retained for rent. But you persuade yourself that on superior land, on rent-paying land, possibly the result for profits might turn out otherwise. One sentence will settle that point, and convince you that the logic of the case cannot be disturbed. What is it that determines the amount of rent upon any land whatever ? It is simply the differ- ence of product between the land assigned and the lowest under cultivation. For instance, in the case just now considered, the difference between the produce of the land now lowest, and that of the land lately lowest, is the difference between 80 quarters and 64; that is, a 164 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. difference of 16 quarters. This whole difference would become rent upon the penultimate land. And therefore it will serve no purpose to plead the higher money value upon each one of the 64, compared with the old value upon the 80. For it is evident, that when the 16 are deducted for rent, no matter at what price, the remainder of 64 must follow the same exact division between wages and profits as took effect upon the 64 of the lowest land according to the first exemplification. When the rent is deducted, precisely the same quantity remains for the penultimate land as on the very lowest land — disposable for precisely the same two calls of wages and profits — and disposable under the precisely same law of division. Here, therefore, we see the whole law of profits as it acts upon the largest scale. But at the same time we are made sensible, that under this law there must be exceptions. The law is founded ultimately on the decline of land, and consequently of profits on land; to which sort of profits, speaking generally, all others must con- form. Yet that sometimes they do not, is evident from this, that in that case no rate of profits in any one specu- lation would or could differ from the ordinary rate. The land is always the same, and subject to the same sort of gradual degradation. If, therefore, the land furnished the sole principle of regulation, then in any one country, (as England,) having the same common land-standard, there could be only one rate of profit. But this Ave all know to be false. Whence, therefore, come the anom- alies? Where lie the other principles which modify and disturb that derived from the land? It is generally and rightly pleaded, as a sufficient explanation of the irregularities in profits, that origi- nally they ranged themselves upon a scale, differing ap- parently in order that they might not differ virtually; THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECON03IY. 1C5 in fact, on the same principle as wages. Why do wages differ? Why is it that one workman gets a guinea a day, and another has some difficulty in obtaining a shilling ? Notoriously because, whilst rude labor is open almost to universal competition, some special labor is hazardous, or disgusting, or under a variable demand, or even disreputable from its incidents; but above all, because it happens to be difficult of execution, and pre- supposes an elaborate (generally an expensive) education. The laborer is often to be regarded not in the light of a man receiving merely wages, but of a man receiving wages for his daily work, and a considerable interest on the capital which he had been obliged to sink in his education. And often it happens that, as the modern processes of art or trade become more and more scientific, wages are continually rising. The qualifications of a master or of a mate, even in the commercial navy, are now steadily rising. Possibly the wider range of chemical knowledge, in such employments as dyeing, brewing, calico-printing, may devolve in its growing responsibilities chiefly upon a superior rank of workmen. In coining, or striking medals, where the ambition of nations is now driving their governments into substituting for that base mechanic art prevalent in Christendom, the noble fine art patronized in Pagan ages, it is probable that a higher class of workmen is slowly coming into request. And in the business of forgery applied to bank-notes, a busi- ness which once gave employment to much capital and various talent, simply by a rise in one qualification that whole interest has been suppressed. Besides a peculiar paper, manufactured with difficulty and hazard, the talent of engraving was required in provincial practice. Now, the profits might have paid for skill of that nature ; an accomplice might have been elaborately educated for 166 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. the purpose; but inevitably, as this man attained the requisite point of excellence, he found that his talent was opening to him a safer channel for employing it: he could now keep a conscience. In the service of one vast public agency, that of travelling, so great has been the rise of qualifications, that of late even an academic examination has been talked of for the working engineers, &c, or (as a vicarious measure) a probationary appoint- ment, contingent for its ratification upon the results of a rigorous trial. In medicine again, the improvement, hav- ing kept pace with the expansions of chemistry, botany, and physiology, has spread downwards to the body of druggists: these are the lowest class of medical prac- titioners; and I believe that now they look for higher attainments in their servants, or for a higher fee as the condition of communicating such advantages. The writer of the " Critical Dissertation on Value " offended heavily against logic, when he represented these varieties of level in wages as inconsistent with Ricardo's doctrine upon the relative quantities of labor. Too readily he allowed himself to suppose that Ricardo had " over- loolced" facts or consequences, which, by possibility, ' to have overlooked, would have argued a sheer incompetence in one whom elsewhere he does not deny to have been vigilant as well as able. Prices, says Ricardo, are directly as the producing quantities of labor ; and the objection is, — that an article which costs three days' labor at half a crown, bears a price, suppose of ten shillings ; whilst another article, costing the very same quantity of labor, but of labor paid at the rate of one guinea a day, may bear a price, possibly, of five guineas. How, then, does mere quantity of labor express itself exactly in the price ? Answer, — the gamut, the scale of differences as to the quality of labor is postulated from the first ; no man could THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 167 be so slothful in his intellect as to have overlooked that : it forms the starting-point of the whole calculation. In this objection there is nothing which affects Ricardo. He is not called upon to reply. What would be an objection, is the case in which it should be shown that, doubling or trebling the quantities of labor, you would not, therefore, double or treble the prices of the product. Show that, on the rise of labor, in each case, from three days to six days, the price would not rise from ten shillings to twenty, or that it would not rise from five guineas to ten, (after mak- ing the allowances for machinery, &c, which it is super- fluous to repeat,) and then you have destroyed Ricardo, but not else. To profits the very same considerations apply. Profits are a mode of wages upon capital; and, naturally, men must be tempted by higher gains, contingent upon success, in order to compensate greater disadvantages arising to themselves from a particular employment. For instance, amongst modern Christian nations, what between a few sincere and many insincere prohibitions, at length the com- merce in slaves has been denounced and made punishable. But that which at any period sustained and alimented this extensive trade, was the institution of slavery. Now this, considered as a bribe on the trade in slaves, flourishes more than ever. So long as a vast machinery of servile labor ex- ists, diffused through the continent and islands of America, so long there will be a silent bounty always proclaiming itself upon the supplies needed for keeping up that machinery ; for African slaves, under whatsoever causes, rarely keep up their own race. Talk, therefore, in what delusive or self-deluding language they may, our home politicians have yet devised no effectual means for suppressing a trade con- tinually more lucrative, or for defeating a commercial interest which thrives by its own ruins. The losses by 168 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. interception are very great. Doubtless ; but these losses furnish a sound plea for extra profits. The higher profit, up to a certain point, is indeed no more than insurance upon the general adventure ; but the great advance on the personal share of the risk, which cannot be shifted from the captain, or chief authority on board, entitles- him to look separately for an advance on his own individual divi- dend. This rate of advance, concurrent between the two interests of the captain and the owner, must grow with the growing embarassments of the trade. At length, indeed, these excesses of risk might reach a point at which they would no longer be supported by a corresponding develop- ment in the affirmative values of slave labor. A cost or negative value cannot transcend the affirmative value. A slave is but a working machine. So much work may be extracted from him ; and the value of this work will mount for a time, as the cost of the slave mounts. But at length the work itself, the product of the slave, will have reached its maximum of price. After that, if the cost should still go on increasing, the slave passes into a source of loss. This tendency, according to the variety of circumstances, local or personal, ranges through a large scale of degrees : not until it becomes absolute can we look for an extinction of the commerce. Such and many other causes for variation in profits are always at work. And this variation is real, and propor- tional to its known causes. But, finally, we are crossed by a new consideration, which sometimes seems to concern the mere ratio cognoscendi, and sometimes the ratio essendi. Often, to this day, it continues to be difficult, and in ruder times it must have been impossible, to approximate, even by conjecture, towards the true rate of profits in very many employments of capital. The dispute is not on the realities of the case, (here the profits are twenty, — there, THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 169 for no adequate cause, fifty,) but on the constructions of the case (this man rates the profits at twenty, — that man at fifty) : or, again, the differences are reversed. Alter- nately, in short, we are puzzled by the principium essendi, and again, by the principium cognoscendi. Now r then, with respect to both of these principles, the principle which makes profits what they are, and the principle which appreciates profits, I will call the reader's attention to four important mistakes. I. It has been a blunder long current in books, and yet so momentous in its consequences, that no epithet of blame can be too strong for it, practically to confound the mere replacement of capital with the profits upon that capital. When a man distributes the cost of all articles into rent, profit, and wages ; or when, upon a sounder economy, he distributes this cost into profits and wages, evidently he commits that mistake : much of the cost is frequently neither rent, profit, nor wages. It is simply a restitution of capital, which leaves the whole positive returns unaf- fected. II. Adam Smith has sharpened our attention to the common case, where that, which really is no more than wages for services performed, ranks in popular apprecia- tion as profit. A surgeon, for instance, receives as the reward or honorarium of his science, what is falsely classed as profit on his capital. Under the former case, that which is alike foreign to profit and wages was classed as profit ; under this, the confusion takes place internally be- tween the two. III. When the question arises: How are profits kept down to the average level, or, in other words, suppose that, ]5 170 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. by any combination amongst capitalists, it were determined arbitrarily to raise profits, where lies the true natural coun- teraction to such an attempt? — the common answer is, in competition. It is rashly assumed that all such injurious attempts are defeated by the instantaneous introduction of more capital, under rival interests, into the trade or manu- facture. But this is not always possible. Capitalists do not so easily enter a trade or withdraw from it. In a coun- try so exquisitely organized as England, it is true that cap- ital moves with velocity where the capitalist cannot move ; and of this we have a luminous explanation in Eicardo. Eicardo, who, as a stockbroker, stood in the very centre of the vast money machinery accumulated in London, had peculiar advantages for observing and for investigating the play of this machinery. If our human vision were fitted for detecting agencies so impalpable, and if a station of view could be had, we might sometimes behold vast arches of electric matter continually passing and repassing be- tween either pole and the equatorial regions. Accordingly as the equilibrium were disturbed suddenly or redressed, would be the phenomena of tropical hurricanes, or of auroral fights. Somewhat in the same silent arches of continual transition, ebbing and flowing like tides, do the reagencies of the capital accumulated in London modify, without sound or echo, much commerce in all parts of the kingdom. Faithful to the monetary symptoms, and the fluctuations this way or that, eternally perceptible in the condition of every trade, the great moneyed capitalist stand- ing at the centre of this enormous web, throws over his arch of capital or withdraws it, with the precision of a fire- man directing columns of water from an engine upon the remotest quarter of a conflagration. It is not, as Eicardo almost professionally explains to us, by looking out for new men qualified to enter an aspiring trade, or by with- THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 171 drawing some of the old men from a decaying trade, that the equilibrium is recovered. Such operations are difficult, dilatory, often personally ruinous, and disproportionately noisy to the public ear in the process of execution. But the true operation goes on as silently as the growth of light. The moneyed man stands equidistantly related to many different staple interests, — the silk trade, the cotton trade, the iron trade, the timber and grain trade. Barely does he act upon any one of them by direct interpolation of new firms, or direct withdrawals of old ones. An effect of this extent is generally as much beyond his power as beyond his interest. Not a man has been shifted from his station ; possibly not a man has been intruded, yet power and virtue have been thrown into vast laboratories of trade, like shells into a city. But all has been accomplished in one night by the inaudible agency of the post-office, co-operating with the equally inaudible agencies of capital moving through banks and through national debts, funded or unfunded. Such is the perfection of our civilization. By the simple pressure of a finger upon the centre of so vast an organization, a breath of life is hurried along the tubes, — a pulse is en- livened or depressed, — a circulation is precipitated or checked, without those ponderous processes of change in- dispensable on the Continent, and which so injuriously disturb the smooth working of general business. Acknowl- edging, therefore, as a fact first exposed clearly by Ricardo, that enormous changes may be effected, and continually are effected, without noise or tumult, through the exquisite resources of artificial action, first made possible by the great social development of England ; acknowledging by consequence that, for the purposes of competition, capital to any amount may be discharged with a velocity inappre- ciable to the Continent, upon a considerable variety of 172 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. creative industry, there is yet good reason to deny the possibility of that competition -which is so generally relied on for the practical limitation of profits seeming to be in excess. Upon serious reflection, how can any rational man imag- ine that, as a matter of course, by increasing the manufac- ture of razors or of scissors, he could increase their sale ? That sale is predetermined by the need ; and though un- doubtedly a very slight need may come to operate as a great need when the price is suddenly or much lowered, yet that is merely a transitional effect ; the lower price is probably binomial price, and binomial price cannot last ; by its very nature it is a force tending to a particular effect, viz. to equilibrate the supply with the demand, and, as soon as that tendency is accomplished, there it ceases. The expression, however, of such a case may be design- edly made equivocal. Let us, therefore, force the lurking notions in this sophistry to " show out" and expose them- selves ; by which means we shall know how to shape the reply. Case a. — The insinuation is sometimes this, — That the rate of profits will be diminished ; that there will be a dif- ference of so much per cent on the manufacture of the given article ; and that, by giving to the buyer the benefit of this difference, free competition will reduce profits through an extended sale. But in a large mass of cases no such agency is possible. A man buys an article of in- stant applicability to his own purposes the more readily and the more largely as it happens to be cheaper : silk handkerchiefs having fallen to half price, he will buy, per- haps, in threefold quantity; but he does not buy more steam-engines because the price is lowered. His demand for steam-engines is almost always predetermined by the circumstances of his situation. So far as he considers the THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 173 cost at all, it is much more the cost of working this engine than the cost upon its purchase. But there are many arti- cles for which the market is absolutely and merely limited by a pre-existing system, to which those articles are attached as subordinate parts or members. How could we force the dials or faces of timepieces by artificial cheapness to sell more plentifully than the inner works or movements of such timepieces? Could the sale of wine-vaults be increased without increasing the sale of wine ? Or the tools of ship- wrights find an enlarged market whilst shipbuilding was stationary? The articles and the manufacturing interests are past counting which conform to the case here stated ; viz. which are so interorganized with other articles or other interests, that apart from that relation, — standing upon their own separate footing, — they cannot be diminished in price through any means or any motive depending upon the extension of sale. Offer to a town of 3000 inhabitants a stock of hearses, no cheapness will tempt that town into buying more than one. Offer a stock of yachts, the chief cost lies in manning, victualling, repairing ; no diminution upon the mere price to a purchaser will tempt into the market any man whose rank, habits, and propensities had not already disposed him to such a purchase. So of pro- fessional costume for bishops, lawyers, students at Oxford, or the separate costume for Cantabs. From cases of the same class, absolutely past counting, we must be sure that the conceit of competition, having any unconditional power answerably to contract or expand the market for commodities, is fitted only for a childish or inactive understanding. Universally all things which are sold maybe thrown into three classes, — first, a small class, in which the very least bias given favorably to the price will increase the sale ; secondly, a much larger class, in which nothing short of a very strong bias will avail for 15* 174 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. such an increase ; thirdly, a class the largest, in which no bias whatever, from the very strongest impulse communi- cated to the price, can overcome the obstacles to an ex- tended sale. Case /3. — But under this delusive form of words lurks often quite another meaning : not the rate of profit is to be diminished by competition, but the separate dividends of each individual. It is not that profits are to fall from 16 to 12 per cent ; no, the 16 per cent is to continue ; but the ten thousand pounds annually disposable on such a 16 per cent will be otherwise distributed ; forty capitalists will have crowded in, to average a gain of £ 250 for each, where previously twenty had averaged £500. This, however, is a change in many cases quite impracticable ; in others, far from beneficial 43 to the public interests ; and in any case, having no tendency at all to the diminution of price, con- sequently no possible tendency to an extension of the market. What puzzles the student is this : from Ricardo he has learned — that a change in profits will not produce any change in price. Such a change settles upon wages ; in fact it has settled already upon wages. Any change in profits argues " a foregone conclusion," presupposes a cor- responding change already made in wages, before the change in profits could arise. And if, therefore, a violent or conventional reduction should take place originally in profits, he is at a loss to trace the consequences of what he has been taught to view as impossible. For Ricardo has taught him that a change cannot commence in profits ; that function of industry is not liable to any original affection of change ; any change must be derivative, must be second- ary, which reaches profits. Tet how, if a sudden and vio- lent reduction were made primarily upon individual profits as a desperate resource of competition ? Conventionally and arbitrarily such a change might be made by a little faction THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 175 of sellers for the sake of underselling others, without any power on their part to meddle with wages. Out of a profit nominally 30 per cent, the piratical minority might agree to sacrifice a third ; and sometimes the more easily, be- cause on large establishments a considerable percentage is often made into a mere fund for replacement of costs that do not exist for petty establishments. For instance, the virtual obligation resting upon a great inn, to keep rooms, with fires burning and other accommodations, baths, ser- vants, &c, always in readiness for summary calls, forms one of the titles under which such an inn charges a higher price for a dinner substantially the same in quality, than a petty inn exonerated from a similar obligation. As much as 10 per cent calculated on a mean proportional between the little inn and the great inn, may perhaps be seques- tered for such extra replacements, before the great inn and little one could start fairly in competition. So that un- doubtedly, there is room, there is an opening, for such a violent reduction of profits ; and, a fortiori, there is room when there happen to be two funds for meeting that reduc- tion — viz. the fund of replacement, (falsely called profits,) pressing exclusively on the one of two competitors ; the fund of true profits, accidentally high for both. Yet, sup- posing such a case actually to occur, eventually it will not disturb any reasonings of Ricardo. After all it is no more than that case of competition so common in England before the era of railways, where two rival coach proprietors ran. down the ladder of prices until at length the strife lay on the other side the equation — which of the two competitors should have the honor of giving the more costly dinner gratuitously to their passengers. I have myself travelled by coaches who were rapidly nearing the point at which their contest would be — not for payment to be received, but for payment to be given. How did all such struggles end? 176 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. By the defeat and retirement of the one party when ex- hausted of his resources, by the final establishment of the other in a virtual monopoly. Yet on behalf of our English social condition it speaks well, that this monopoly, out of which the victor naturally paid himself for his sacrifices, was never pushed to any blamable excess. "True,'' it will be said ; " but that was because he feared to provoke another competition.'' Very possibly ; and often undoubt- edly it was so. Yet that result of itself shows how excel- lent is the training of a sound and healthy economic state for moderation, equity, reasonable enterprise, and all the moral qualities incident to the position of capitalists in that rank. This is a separate theme hitherto untouched ; but, undoubtedly, it will furnish a subject hereafter for special speculation — that as a good police, a good system of national education, a good legislation, a good executive jurisprudence, so also a good basis of political economy re- commends itself, inter alia, by showing a far greater natural adaptation to the virtues which need encourage- ment in the productive classes. The case, as a difficulty in political economy, or as any demur to Ricardo, does not merit consideration ; nor should I have considered it, ex- cept that naturally it arises in the series of phenomena for some notice, and that M. Baptiste Say (who, with as little logical power as Malthus, has even more of ingenuity) chooses, under another form, to consider it weighty. Meantime, it i3 sufficient to reply as to any conceivable disturbance in price accomplished by a sudden conven- tional renunciation in profits • — that it falls to the ground through one simple explanation. Political Economy un- dertakes to explain the natural and mechanic effects from the inter-agencies of certain elements ; but wherever these effects are disturbed by voluntary human interferences) there ceases the duty of economy. As well might you THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 177 demonstrate the 47th of 1st "Euclid" by sabring a man who should deny it ; or insist that the cost of wheat at forty shillings a quarter would not govern its price, because a Turkish pacha, under those circumstances, had fixed, the maximum at thirty shillings ; or that gravitation would not cause a guinea to tend downwards, because you had nailed it to the wall. Once for all, the tendencies or natural effects in political economy, any more than in physics, are not overruled as principles, because an external coercion hinders them from operating as facts. Silent inter arma leges; and the same thing is true of natural and immanent laws, such as those which silently govern the agencies and re-agencies of the several forces at work in Political Economy. External coercion suspends those laws; and for the time of suspension Political Economy has no exist- IV. Upon this subject of profits, it becomes plain as we advance, — that the esse is closely connected with the scire. To make even a plausible guess at the possi- bility of diminishing profits, it is essential to know what regularly they are. Now, when it is considered how often mere wages pass for profits, (as noticed at page 169 under No. II.) — how often the simple replacement of costs will pass for profits, ( as explained at page 169 under No. I.) — how often an excess of profits will be fancied when there is merely a remuneration for extra skill, extra risk, extra trouble, extra uncertainty, (as noticed at page 175) — everybody must see that it is a very elaborate problem to ascertain even for one year, still more for a fair average of years, what has been the true rate of profits upon the capital employed in any one trade. Nobody but the individual tradesman has the means of ascertaining his own profits ; even he very un- 178 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. certainly ; and, as regards the profits of his own occupa- tion generally, he can do no more than guess at them. How, then, is anything at all known to economists on this subject, or even to practical enterprisers ? I answer that, as a general case, very little is known. In ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, no man knows even the gross nominal profit, far less the true and net profit which re- mains after all the allowances and distinctions explained. Confidential servants, it is true, and banking-houses, cause the revelation of many secrets ; for a manufacturer, eager to obtain aid, will volunteer to his banker that unreserved communication of his affairs which he would scornfully refuse to the demand of curiosity. But no man can reveal more than he knows; and it is certain that, unless in those simple trades which rest on a pri- mary necessity of life, (as, for instance, the trade of a miller or of a baker,) few managers of an extensive business could safely declare any rate of profit upon less than a seven years' average. "When an outward- bound vessel from England arrives at Madras or Cal- cutta, she can declare a daily rate of sailing ; but it would be impossible for her to do so (not being a steamer) in any serviceable sense, after a single fortnight's absence from the Thames. Now, when to this difficulty of ap- proximating towards any representative rate of profit, is added the impossibility already explained, in a majority of cases, for any competitor to act upon such a declara- tion of profits, unless he could also and simultaneously extend the sale of the article, — enough has been said to show the puerility of that little receipt current amongst economists, viz. unlimited competition for keeping down profits to one uniform level. The sole principle under which profits can rudely be known, is the principle under which, in any age, profits can at all exist. Arid what THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 179 is that 1 } As already explained, it is the rate of profit allowed upon land. For, through one natural link, viz. the equal necessity of landed produce to all workmen alike, this rate becomes the operative rate, in a gross sense, for all productive industry whatsoever. The pas- ture land and the corn land of every nation constitute, in effect, the vis regvlatrix for appraising the rate of profit upon all capital, in whatever direction employed. But, because cultivation is always travelling downwards towards land worse and worse, does not this general law of profit authorize us to say, that profits must be continually de- scending as society advances ? No. The student knows, but he cannot too often be reminded of a truth every- where forgotten by Bicardo, that always the land is travelling downwards, but that always the productive management of land is travelling upwards. The two tendencies are eternally moving upon opposite tacks ; and the result is, — that now, in 1844, under the great lady of the isles, profits are undoubtedly higher than in 1344, a period of corresponding splendor under Edward HI. Not in an absolute sense merely they are higher, as if total England in one age were balanced against total England in another — that they are by an excess too enormous to measure, — but in the ratio they are higher, in the returns relatively to the capital em- ployed. Is there no other mode, simpler and shorter, for as- certaining the rate of profits? Can we no otherwise learn what profits are than by reading a priori in the agriculture what the possibilities will allow them to be? Yes, notoriously there is an index, far simpler and readi- er of application, had it always been kept true to itself. This index is intekest. Much will be given for money, when much can be made of it. But unfortunately in 180 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. semi-barbarous ages the converse does not hold; the inference is not good, that much can be then made of money, simply because much is given for it. Until insurance-offices, a regular post-office, mercantile law, international intercourse, and other securities to commerce had arisen with rising civilization, a very large propor- tion of all usury exhausted itself upon the mere insecu- rity of capital: the losses were then enormous through social imperfections ; and, after ten years, run in such a lottery, the real profits would oftentimes be less than" under the very moderate usury now exacted. Trading upon borrowed capital was then undoubtedly a rare case. This is to be lamented : because else, interest would be a common measure for profits as between all ages alike. "We might then say universally, that the rate of interest was the principium cognoscendi in relation to mean profits ; and reciprocally, that the rate of profits was the principium essendi in relation to ordinary interest. Prof- its would cause interest to be thus or thus : interest would ascertain profits to be thus or thus. But, between ages in which the proportions allowed on every loan for its mere insurance vary so widely, the ratio of the two is no safe criterion. Even at present there is a form of speech current amongst public men, silently corrected by the knowledge of all who have any experience, and yet in the last degree misleading to the recluse economist and to the public. It is said daily in every morning paper, it is said in the House of Commons, that money is not at this time worth two per cent. Why, surely it is not pretended, that as yet there has been any difficulty found in buying into the funds. Now the funds will give a trifle more than three per cent ; whilst upon a small part of these funds, for the foolish reason that the dividends upon them are paid at the THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 181 South Sea house and not at the Bank, (which leads people into fancying that they are less solidly engrafted on the national faith,) a trifle more can be had. " Ay, but this was money, you are to understand, which I wished to em- ploy during an odd interval between two other employ- ments of it." Yes, now the truth comes out ; the brief explanation is, that the money could be lent only under the condition of recalling it on a summary notice, or on none at all ; and for this condition, which constitutes a special privilege in favor of the lender, naturally (as for any other privilege) he is obliged to pay. A peculiar case has entitled the borrower to a peculiar discount : how does that establish any general or prevailing rate of interest ? The very case of Exchequer bills may show that it does not. Ricardo, as a man daily witnessing the traffic hi such bills, and himself largely partaking in it, reasonably had his attention drawn to the fact, that they bore an interest far from corresponding to that on the funded debt. The interest was not so high as it ought to be. Yet why? Could it be denied that the security was equal upon the Exchequer bills ? Nay, was it not the very same ? For that man deceives himself who fancies that the wicked anti-social enemies of our public prosperity — " Socialist," " Jacobins," " Chartists," — would make any distinction between a debt resting upon the assignment of special funds, and another debt resting only upon pledges of Par- liamentary faith. If that fatal day should ever dawn upon England, when villains of this quality will be able " to lay their hands upon the ark of our magnificent and awful cause," of the two debts, they would treat with more con- sideration this latter, as being rarely more than one to forty when compared with the other. But what they might choose to do in an event abominated by all upright men, luckily has never yet seemed near enough to be worth 16 182 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. estimating on the tariff of evil contingencies. No fraction of interest has yet been paid extra on the chance of being spared by public robbers ; no fraction has been deducted from interest on the notion of standing first in the lists of confiscation. It could not be here, it could not be in this remote contingency, that the lower interest yielded by an Exchequer bill found its justification. No, it lay in the instant convertibility of this security into money. Had you lodged a thousand pounds with a London banker, doubtless you could draw it out by a check within the next ten minutes ; but then for that very reason, by way of bal- ancing so summary a liability, this London banker will allow you no interest, not if you left it in his hands for five years. On the other hand, had you lodged it with an Edinburgh or Glasgow banker, he would have allowed you a fair interest on the sum, whilst the security would be equal ; but then for that very reason, by way of balancing that liability to interest, the Scotch banker will not allow you to draw it out unless after a long notice. But throw your thousand pounds into the shape of an Exchequer bill, and without further anxiety you may place ^it in your writing-desk, certain of realizing both advantages ; viz. the London advantage of instant availability, the Scotch (or English provincial) advantage of current interest during the interval of non-employment. So far the Exchequer bill has a conspicuous advantage, which, under a limitation to the amount of such bills, is very considerable. As com- pared again with ^stock in the three per cent consols, the Exchequer bill has other advantages, which for a banker become very important. In reality, so great were the advantages when Eicardo wrote, (1817,) that he estimates the interest per cent on an Exchequer bill at £4£ ; whilst on a hundred pounds of a stock then existing at five per cent, (which could be bought at that moment for £ 95,) THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 183 the interest was about £5^. The advantage must evidently have been inversely as the interest ; and that advantage lay partly in the instant convertibility, partly in other accidents of convenience valuable to bankers. But in many other cases of advantage, which upon a gross view seems equalized, there is often an excess upon one side from causes not instantly perceptible. Why should a three per cent stock have been more valuable than a five per cent stock, both debts having been con- tracted on the same virtual basis of interest ? It is not so where circumstances forbid any expectation that either will be paid off. But when the fall of interest in the gen- eral market has made it certain that a prudent government will use the opportunity for reducing their debt, it becomes evident that in England they will commence the operation upon the five per cents. If money should really sink to two per cent, it will then answer to pay off the three per cents. But we are safe until that happens ; and we are safe even after it happens, so long as any higher stock of sufficient magnitude interposes to receive the first assault. A 3 J per cent, or a four per cent stock becomes an out- work, exhausting for some years the efforts of government, and in the mean time giving security to the inner citadel of the three per cents. That sacred fund enjoys the privi- lege of Outis in the den of the Cyclops, viz. of being swal- lowed last of all. Consequently, it must pay for that privilege. And thus, but not until times in which the downward tendency of interest " should raise a growing presumption of extensive operations for diminishing the public debt, might a three per cent fund bear a higher relative price in the market than a 3J per cent, (both being supposed to stand on our present English footing in their origin.) Eicardo mentions another case, with which I will close 184 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. this sub-section, — as furnishing in fact the direct converse to the case so mendaciously paraded, where money yields only two per cent, and as furnishing therefore the appro- priate answer. " To pay the interest of the national debt, large sums of money are withdrawn from circulation four times in the year for a few days." Four times, and not twice, because the half-yearly dividends fall at one period for certain stocks, at a different period for other stocks ; by which means the disturbance, though reiterated more fre- quently, is lightened for each operation. Such is the fact, — what is the consequence ? " These demands for money, being only temporary, seldom affect prices ; they are gen- erally surmounted by the payment of a large rate of inter- est." — (P. 415.) Now, would it not be monstrous to urge that casual tilt upwards in the rate of interest as a repre- sentative change in the current and prevailing rate ? Equally dishonest it is, ex analogo, to urge, under the notion of being any representative rate, that occasional two per cent which is caught at by elaborate artists in the use of money, not as in itself the highest interest, but as the highest compatible with a much higher rate lying in the rear, though suspended for a few weeks. ' V. From all these details of the 4th section, I argue — that although the to esse and the to percipi, with respect to profits, stand in some practical relation to each other, espe- cially under the guidance which exists in the mean rate of interest — still, even this guidance, as regards any given mode of industry, is doubtful, and not at all certain as the index to the average ; whilst to act upon it, to apply fresh capital simply because there seems to be an opening adver- tised for such an application in the reputed rate profits, would often be found impossible — often ruinous. It would be saying in effect — " Because the Grand Junction Canal is reputed to pay a higher return on its shares than is cus- THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 185 ternary since the depression of canals by railroads, there- fore we will make two Grand Junction canals." The pro- fits, perhaps, after all, are not accurately known under all the quinquennial or decennial deductions for repairs, for fluctuations of traffic, for injurious taxes, &c. ; but, if they were, so far from justifying a second canal, that second canal would probably ruin both. Meantime there is one cause of difference in the very esse of profits, as alleged by M. Jean Baptiste Say, 45 which is too momentous if true, and too extravagant if false, to permit me to pass it over in silence. There is a special reason why no English writer should overlook M. Baptiste Say, since he, (accord- ing to the remark at p. 365, vol. i. of his translator and very able annotator, Mr. Prinsep,) beyond other French econo- mists, " has profited so largely by his observation of English affairs, and his acquaintance with English writers." M. Say did not altogether understand Ricardo ; but he first, among all Frenchmen, read him, adopted him, and at times fancied that he opposed him. In the present ques- tion of profits, he had properly and thoughtfully distin- guished between profit as " derivable from the employment of capital " on the one hand, and profit on the other hand as '' derivable from the industry which turns it to account." (P. 153, vol. ii.) So far he is right, if I understand him; and it is difficult to explain the sudden perverseness of his annotator, Mr. Prinsep, who chooses to reject the distinction in toto as a " useless refinement." But, in the course of an attempt (which immediately fol- lows) to illustrate the distinction, he puts forward this case : " Suppose two houses, in the fur trade, for example, to work each upon a capital of 1 00,000 francs ; and to make on the average an annual profit — the one of 24,000 francs — the other of 6000 francs only ; a difference of 18,000 francs." Very well ; what is the inference, what is the 16* 186 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. " moral," which M. Say deduces from such an astonishing disparity in the profits ? Upon a capital of little more than four thousand pounds sterling, the one furrier raises annu- ally for himself a net return of not less than a thousand pounds; whilst his rival pockets only two hundred and forty pounds upon the very same capital, invested at the same time in the very same trade. Now, if this were the result of some single year, it would express no more than one of those casualties, (through bad debts, property unin- sured, losses by embezzlements, &c.,) to which all commer- cial houses are liable in turn. But this, by the supposition, is the regular relation between the parties from year to year. How then is it explained by M. Say ? How does he wish us to understand it ? Why, as " fairly referable to the different degrees of skill and labor " : — the thousand pound man is active and intelligent ; the two hundred and forty pound man is stupid and lazy. Personal qualities, in short, make the difference. Yet is that possible ? Not, undoubtedly, for the logical purpose to which it is applied by M. Say. Differences there may be, and differences there are, and differences even to that extent, between man and man — between house and house ; but not founded on that open and pro- fessed negligence. For this under the action of our social machinery, hardly any opening exists. " Nobis lion licet esse tam disertis Qui musas eolimus sevcriores. 1 ' Excesses of negligence, amounting to such a result an- nually, would in the case where they are possible, offer no instruction ; in the case where they could offer instruction, they would not be possible. For, if M. Say is exposing a mere lachete of youthful luxury, then it is a case rather for a moralist than for an economist. But, if he means it as a THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 187 representative case, involving some principle as yet undis- cussed, then it is insufficiently explained. But it is impos- sible ; and precisely on the following argument : — If, by employing four thousand pounds in his trade, the man could annually clear only two hundred and forty, (or very little more than the interest at 5 per cent,) which, without risk or trouble, he could have obtained at the date of M. Say's book, and this at the very time when others were realizing four times as much ; in that case, the true differ- ence must arise from his turning over his capital only once, whilst his rivals turned over theirs four and five times. But every prudent tradesman would accept this as a warn- ing to withdraw three fourths of his capital, when a second year's experience had taught him that he could obtain only one fourth of the profits reaped by others trading on the same terms as himself; and, a fortiori, this policy will be adopted by M. Say's furrier, who is supposed to act in mere laziness. His profits will be the same upon one fourth of the capital employed unintermittingly, as upon the four fourths employed in succession : his risk will be reduced ; and there will be a clear gain by the interest upon the three fourths of capital now transferred to other hands. Consequently, as cases to be argued in political economy, as exemplary cases, these extreme ratios of profit, low and high, stated hypothetically by M. Say, could not exist. As individual accidents, ceasing to operate from the moment when they are ascertained, they fall into that general fund of known counter-agencies, which, upon all modes of pro- ductive industry, compel us to compute by averages and by prevailing tendencies. No man could persist in so perverse a conflict with the manifest current and set of the tide run- ning against him. Or, in the case of actually persisting, his folly would indicate a mere individual anomaly ; and such irregularities having no scientific influence on any 188 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. general principles of economy, it could be no purpose of M. Say to deal with. Yet, generally, that many openings exist for a licentious latitude of profits, under circumstances the very same to the public eye, had been long apparent. It was impossible to be otherwise than incredulous as to the current asser- tions on this subject, which were equally discredited, a priori, by the known difficulty of ascertaining anything, and, a posteriori, by the frequent inconsistency of their own particular results. That the current rate of profits, as a thing settled and defined, must be a chimera — this was certain ; and for the simple reason — that, in each separate walk of commerce, this rate of profits was a thing imper- fectly known to the tradesman concerned. If he — if the men exercising the trade, cannot tell you the general rate of profits even in this one trade, or even his own rate after allowing for all the numerous deductions to be made upon an average of ten years, how much less can a non-commer- cial economist pretend to draw such a representative esti- mate for all trades ? The pretence is monstrous under any machinery which as yet we command for such a purpose. In harmony with these views, let the reader take the following case of judicial exposure upon this subject, re- membering that similar exposures are almost of weekly recurrence : — A bankrupt (described as a mercer) was under examination before a commissioner of bankruptcy, or of insolvency. The commissioner asked him — "What, to the best of his belief and knowledge, had been his custom- ary rate of profit ? The bankrupt replied firmly, " six per cent." How, thought every man of consideration, did you indeed face for years this risk, laborious attendance, and, (worst of all) this anxiety, for so miserable an addition (two and a half per cent) upon that income which, without either labor, or risk, or anxiety, you might at any rate have THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 189 obtained from the national funds of your country ? In less than a quarter of an hour, by some turn in the exami- nation, it was extracted from him — that he turned over his capital every two months. The commodity in which he had chiefly dealt appeared to have been Parisian silks, &c. ; and in this trade, upon every thousand pounds, the sum gained was not sixty pounds annually, as he had led the court previously to suppose, but six times sixty, or three hun- dred and sixty. It is true, on the other hand — that not improbably the bankrupt had taken no pains to distinguish the mere replacements from the profits, strictly so called. But still it could not be doubted that, in the very strictest sense, his profits were far beyond the low standard under- stood by the court at first — if not thirty-six per cent, prob- ably twenty-five to twenty-eight per cent ; whilst, from the language of the court, as it fell under each impression suc- cessively, no inference could be drawn that either had been viewed as startling. 46 Now, what is it that I infer from this case ? I infer, 1st, that no definite rate of profit can be notorious to the world of commerce, where a court, which may be consid- ered one of its organs, can so quietly adopt by turns a statement so entirely different. I infer, 2dly, that M. Baptiste Say has, in a partial sense, grounds for his doc- trine ; it cannot be denied him, that a possible tradesman may turn over his large capital, three, four, or six times, whilst an obscure tradesman in the same line may barely turn over his own small capital once. The very fact of a large capital is by itself a sort of invitation to such a re- sult ; for gods and men alike disapprove of the wretch who cannot offer credit. Now, the annual rate upon each hun- dred pounds must be four times greater to him who four times raises a profit upon that hundred, than to him who raises such a profit but once. This is undeniable ; and it 190 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. is therefore undeniable that, upon the two extremes in respect of advantages for selling, the annual profits may be in any degree different. But, in answer to M. Say, it must be argued, — 1st, that from all such extreme cases the practice is and must be to abstract; and that, probably, such extremes compensate each the other ; the average, the prevailing tendency, is what we look at : — idly, that such a case does not prove any different rate of profits ; for any- thing that appears to the contrary, the little tradesman has realized the same rate of profit upon each hundred pounds as the big tradesman, only his absolute profits have been less, both in the ratio of his less capital, and of his less power to employ it with effect. Power to turn over a hun- dred pounds four times instead of once, is in fact no more than the power to command four hundred pounds instead of one. The same consequences will take place. And, reciprocally, where a man really has the four hundred, with a virtual power only of profitably employing one hundred, (which case is the very case propounded by M. Say,) he will think himself obliged to withdraw three of the hun- dreds ; for he will look upon it as the locking up of so much useless capital. Or, if M. Say should retort, < — "No: just the contrary ; because this man can turn over his hundred pounds only once against the four turns of the big man ; a fortiori, he must work his . four hundred where else he might be content to work one hundred : that is the only resource towards balancing matters, — so far, at least, as his power extends ; " yet, on the other hand, this is not the case put by M. Say. He supposed a man to make less profit, through industry in that proportion less ; but, in this possible answer of M. Say, we have a disadvantage of mere position balancing itself, or tending to do so, by indus- try in that proportion greater. And in the last result we find the true moral of the case to be, simply, that one man THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 191 in the same trade can employ a greater capital than another; sometimes directly, by employing twenty hun- dreds of pounds where the other can employ only five ; sometimes indirectly, by turning over several times (i. e. by using for several distinct operations) each separate portion of capital, whilst the other man turns it over only once. But of all such differences between man and man, we may say either that they do not affect the rate of profits by the least disturbance ; or if in any case they do, in a world of practice where the principle of average must be applied to wages, to rent, and to every mode of return, the inference will simply be, that we must apply that principle also to profits. I have already stated my own incredulity as to the notoriety (not as to the existence) of any definite rate upon profits at any period. Such a rate may be approxi- mated conjecturally ; it cannot be known. But if it could, that result must be obtained by abstracting from all ex- tremes, whether one way or the other ; and therefore to have proved an extreme would not have disproved a mean rate. Finally, I will answer two important questions likely to rise up in the end before every student : — Is there, he will ask, any known objection or demur to the law of profits, as stated by Ricardo ? That is, any demur to this particular doctrine as distinct from objection to the entire system of Ricardo ? I answer that there is none, except the following of Mr. Malthus. He in his Principles, at p. 301, (1st edit.) insists upon it, that there is " a main cause which influences profits," quite overlooked by Ricardo. What may that cause be ? " The proportion which capital bears to labor." Ricardo had laid it down, that the rate of profit upon the land last brought under tillage, — upon that land. which is presumably the worst in use, — must be the regulating rate for all profits whatso- 192 THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. ever. No, replies Mr. Malthus ; not necessarily. That is one regulating cause, no doubt; but there is another. " When capital is abundant compared with labor, nothing can prevent low profits " ; and inversely, no fertility in the land as yet taken up can separately maintain high profits, "unless capital is scarce compared with labor." But to this, however tortuous the objection becomes by Mr. Mal- thus's clouded logic, the answer is short. The action is supposed to lie through wages. Mr. Malthus means that the laborers will receive higher wages when capital is redundant, so that the part of the produce left for profits will be smaller ; and versa vice. But without entering into the changes incident to the price of labor, (for labor does not depend for its value upon any one element as capital, but upon several, which may be all acting in one direction, or all in opposite directions,) thus much is evident, that only the binomial (or market) price of the labor could be affected in the circumstances supposed, consequently only the binomial value of profits. A disturbed relation be- tween capital and labor, would no otherwise affect labor in its price than as the rate of population would affect it. When population advances too rapidly, the tendency of wages must pro tanto be downwards ; and so of other ele- ments concurring to the complex value of labor. But none of these potential modifications escaped the eye of Ricardo : again and again he has pointed them out as fit subjects for allowance when they occur, though he has designedly and avowedly neglected them where they would have interfered with the simplicity of the principal law. What Mr. Mal- thus brings forward as a second law, such as ought there- fore to be capable of defeating and intercepting the first, is nothing more than a tendency to modify the first. In the same spirit of high promise and trivial performance, Mr. Malthus had menaced the whole of Ricardo's doctrine upon THE LOGIC OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 193 value. The quantity of labor, he would show us, did not always constitute the cost of an article ; nor the cost of an article always constitute its price. Why, then, what did ? With loud laughter Ricardo heard, as if this were some new and strange proposition, that by possibility the too much or too little of the article might also affect the price, — a price of twenty might by a scarcity of five be raised to twenty-five ; or by a redundancy of five be lowered to fifteen. But who doubted, or had ever doubted, this ? That is binomial price. All the points which Malthus ex- posed as weak and assailable points, had always been exposed by Ricardo as points liable to a separate caution. But this is not to answer Ricardo's doctrine of profits : this is simply to exhibit Ricardo's doctrine with those modifica- tions broadly expanded, which for good reasons Ricardo had left indicated in a briefer shape. The other question remains a practical question, and carrying along with it a sting of anxiety to whole genera- tions. It is this. Amongst all men (even those who pre- tend to no scientific economy) there is a misgiving that profits, and by consequence interest, must be under a fatal necessity of gradually sinking, until at length they touch the point of extinction. Even Ricardo has too much authorized this false idea. There is no essential tendency downwards in profits, more than upwards. True, there is a constant motion downwards upon the land scale from good to bad, from bad to worse : and as that happens to be chiefly concerned in the doctrine of rent, which again reap- pears in the doctrines of profits and wages, Ricardo had a disproportionate necessity for continually dwelling on that particular movement. But to this, which acts from year to year, there is a tendency strictly antagonist, which acts much more slowly at times, and is felt most from century to century. The principle has been repeatedly brought 17 194 THE LOGIC OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. forward and explained; so that there is no reason for dwelling on it here. But, by way of a single illustration from our modern experience in this particular, it may be well to mention these facts. Go back to a period two cen- turies from 1844, and the current rate of interest will be found nearer to 8 than 7 per cent. Go back to a period only one century from 1844, and interest is found to have fallen so low as 3 per cent. This was the prevailing rate through that part of Sir Eobert "Walpole's public life which lay in the reign of George II., or, in general terms, from 1727 to about 1739,-43. In the course of this latter period, interest again began to advance ; and in forty or forty-five years more it had risen beyond 5 per cent. During the great revolutionary war, although limited at that time by law, interest rose in the market much beyond that legal maximum. It was more than double what it had been in the reign of George II. In our present era of peace, uninterrupted for twenty-eight years, it has again receded. But this brief abstract of experience through two centuries, unites with the a priori theory in showing, that the rate of interest is under no, immutable law of declension. During these two centuries it has not uni- formly declined, — on the contrary, it has oscillated in all directions ; and by that one fact, so abundantly established, we are released from all apprehensions of a downward destiny. Our fate in that respect is not sealed; it rests very much in our own hands. NOTES, Note 1. Page 10. Meaning — no credit at all, but ready money. One incompre- hensible old commentator pretends that Plautus, in this phrase, de- signed a compliment to Greek integrity ! He is obliged, however, to confess, as the true ground of the saying, that "Pluxce fuerunt olim admodum fidei Graci : idcirco Graecus Grseco non fidebat, nisi prse- senti ct numerate peeunia." Meantime, though the fluxa fides of the unprincipled Greek was quite undeniable, and, in fact, ruinous to the fiscal servico, yet, doubtless, the general want of capital amongst sellers contributed to this absence of credit almost as much as the universal want of probity in the buyers. Note 2. Page 12. " A striking instance of such a use.'' — It occurs in a very useful letter (under date of Dantzic, January 21, 1843) on the Baltic corn- trade, from a writer evidently familiar with the subject, and authenti- cating his statements by a real signature. The object of the writer, Mr. J. L. Stoddart, is to expose the true and ultimate operation of all fixed duties considered as protections to the home-grower, under those dreadful fluctuations in price which not man but nature causes, and which " cannot be avoided, in spite of the philosophers, who dream they have discovered the philosopher's stone for steadying prices." The purpose and the execution of this gentleman's letter are equally excellent ; but the use which he makes of the word value, was so perplexing to me in its particular position and connection, that at first I apprehended some gross misprint. After one introduc- tory sentence, in which he describes himself as a neutral observer un- der the advantage of being " removed from the excitement of the struggle between manufacturer and agriculturist," Mr. Stoddart goes 196 NOTES. onto say, that " the value of Dantzic wheat, on an average of export, varies from 5s. to 8s. per quarter above the value of British average wheat " ; and after this astounding statement he adds another not at all less so, — viz. that Baltic wheat collectively [by which is not meant wheat opposed to the Dantzic wheat, but so understood as to include the Dantzic wheat] may with safety "be estimated on an average to be 5s. above the value of the growth of the British Islands.'' Could I trust my own eyes ? Undoubtedly I was aware, and had repeatedly used that conviction in print, that the extreme difference between English wheat and foreign would never turn out such experimentally as to justify the monstrous delusions of the Corn- Law agitators. Well I knew that the working poor man would find the ultimate bonus upon his bread to be next to nothing under what- soever changes of the Corn-Law; assuming even the stationariness of wages, and assuming also that no such reaction of evil should arise from the injury to our domestic agriculture as unavoidably would arise. All this I know. But still, though pretty doubtful, and in the issue liable to be dangerously disturbed, any difference which did ex- ist between the prices of Baltic and English wheat was undeniably in favor of the first. That was notoriously the cheaper ; if not, how should importation need any legal restraint ■? Here was the perplex- ity ; but one moment cleared it up. It was a verbal equivoque. Mr. Stoddart had pronounced the Baltic wheat by 5s. on a quarter above the English wheat in value. Ay, but in what value 1 Did he mean value in exchange, value as expressed by the market price 1 On the contrary, he meant value in use. From the tenor of what follows, it is evident that he does not dispute the usual intervaluations of Baltic and English grain. lie assumes that, in Poland, before it is loaded with a long list of expenses, the wheat would be very considerably cheaper than English wheat. Why, then, had he said that already in Poland it was above the English in value by 5s. ? He meant that Intrinsically, as a thing to be used, it was above the English ; supe- rior ( 1 . ) in its capacity of being baked ; or (2.) in its capacity of being kept ; or (3.) in its capacity of yielding nutriment ; or (4.) in its flavor to the palate : in some one, or some two, or some three, or in all four of these advantages, he claims for it a superiority to the English ; and, what must add to the reader's perplexity, he measures this supe- riority by money, — meaning the 5s. (as one eighth of 40s.) simply to indicate that the quality of Baltic wheat was superior in that precise ratio ; better by a, proportion answering to one eighth part on any given quantity. NOTES. 197 One single exemplification, drawn from a case of actual occurrence, is worth twenty which are artificially framed. And this decisive pas- sage, from an excellent essay in a journal of high character, falling into my hands without search, at the very moment of writing the passage which it illustrates, seems effectual for the proof of what Mr. Malthus thought next to impossible ; viz. that men can aud do, without any system to serve, naturally fall into this " value " as representing the mere serviceableness of an article quite apart from its exchange- rating in the market. Let the extreme importance of the subject, and the necessity of weighing every turn in the dispute, for one who comes after a world of failures with the promise of setting them all to rights, apologize for the length of this note. Note 3. Page 14. " Special admiration." — For example, Mr. Prinsep (in his transla- tion of " Say's Political Economy"), a man of great acuteness and information, has noticed this eighteenth chapter of Eicardo as pecul- iarly profound ; whilst, on the other hand, to the able author of " A Critical Dissertation on Value," to Mr. Malthus, and to others, it is a mere scandal and rock of offence. Note 4. Page 15. " No longer regulative but constitutive." — This is a great distinction heretofore applied to great purposes by Kant ; and a general reader might fancy reason for complaint in finding thus presupposed the knowledge of philosophy, which, in England, is but slightly extended. To presume anything of the kind would indeed be eminently offen- sive, and an instance of affectation quite inconsistent with the sim- plicities of good sense. But, in this case, the two terms opposed almost explain themselves. As an example of a regulative idea, one might allege any idea of pure abstract geometry : for instance, the want of parts or partibility in a geometrical point ; the absolute equal- ity of all the radii drawn from a common centre ; or, in philosophy, the assumption of an ideal man as a normal type, towards which we may conceive a perpetual tendency in the actual man of our experi- ence, — all these are regulative ideas. Nobody pretends, for a moment, that a .true and actual equality of the semi-diameters ever was, or could be, realized ; the hand docs not exist that could draw such lines, nor the eye that could judge of them, if drawn. But what then ? 17* 198 notes. They are most useful, — nay, they are indispensable as initial postu- lates for the guidance of the mind in developing other ideas ; without them, although in themselves often fugitive, and never to be over- taken in practice, we could not advance at all. And such is the pre- cise benefit from Bicardo's idea of " wealth," technically so called ; it is an artificial idea, which, though inert, keeps in their proper places other ideas more tangible and constitutive. On the other hand, the counterpole of this idea — viz. Value in Exchange — enters largely, and as a constituent element, into all the cardinal ideas of political economy. Note 5. Page 18. " By such a cavil as is stated below." — When hay, for instance, is cited as an article uniting the two conditions laid down, and for that reason as obtaining exchangeable value, it might be alleged that hay meets no human desire, but only a bestial desire. True ; and with a view inter alia to this particular form of cavil, I have enlarged the definition by saying, " human desire or purpose." A man has no di- rect gratification from hay, but indirectly he may have a good deal. The hay may be nothing to the man who buys it ; but his horse, who is a connoisseur in hay, may be indispensable to his daily happiness, or even to his safety ; and that, which in some proportion is essential to the desires of his horse, becomes secondarily a purpose to the man. Note 6. Page 19. "■Inter-repellent." — The late Mr. Coleridge suggested, and by his own example sanctioned, the use of the preposition inter for express- ing cases of reciprocal action, or, in his language, of interaction. Thus, the verb interpenetrate, when predicated of the substances A and B, implied that, by an equal action and reaction, each penetrated the other ; to interaid (though strictly a Latin preposition should not coalesce with a word not Latin), would express the case where aid in different modes is lent by each of two parties interchangeably. The same complex function is sustained by the French prefix s'entre. But, even as a, justifiable English usage, it may be found occasionally in Shakespeare ; and much more frequently in Daniel, a writer of the same age, unusually meditative and philosophic, both in his prose and in his verse. The word interview, though now tamed into a lower cast of idea, originally arose upon this application of inter- changeable or reciprocating actions. NOTES. 199 Note 7. Page 23. " As realty is the paradox." — Somo readers will here admonish mo to say, — not "is" the paradox, but "seems" the paradox; or rather, they will require me to omit the word paradox altogether, under the prevailing notion that a, paradox implies something really extrava- gant, and something eventually hostile to the truth. In these circum- stances it will scarcely be sufficient for me to remind them of the original Grecian meaning attached to this word, which implied no more than what was off-lying from the high-road of popular opinion, or what contradicted the tenor of popular expectation, — all which might surely be found in some great truth as well as in some notori- ous falsehood. The objector will retort upon me, that the original Grecian use may have been effectually disturbed and defeated by a long and steady English abuse. Meantime, the fact is, that the orig- inal sense of the paradoxical has maintained itself not less in our lan- guage than in the ancient Greek. I remember once to have placed this under a clear light by the following antithetic form of words": " Not that is paradoxical, or not that chiefly, which, being false, puts on the semblance of truth; but, on the contrary, that which, being true, puts on the semblance of falsehood." Therefore it was that Boyle most accurately entitled some striking cases in statical physics, Hjidrostatical Paradoxes. Did he mean to advertise these startling facts of science as splendid falsehoods ? No, but as great truths, which counterfeited the extravagant. Note 8. Page 24. " Six guineas." — It is not a matter of much importance in a caso which concerns us only by its principle, and where the principle would remain unaffected by any variation in the factual circumstances, what might be the price of a hypothetic snuff-box, in the hands of a hypo- thetic Jew, on the deck of a hypothetic steamboat. However, as a case within my own experience, it may be interesting to state the lenoum extremes of price upon this class of trinkets. At present (1843) such boxes, coarsely mounted (in horn or mock tortoise- shell), are offered in London for one guinea apiece. Each box con- tains only two airs, which condition applies often indeed to boxes of seven, eight, or nine times the price; and a more important feature of inferiority lies in the slender volume of sound which the cheap ones emit. In a small room the music is sweet and sonorous, with 200 NOTES. the mimicry of an orchostric fulness ; but, unless confined and con- centrated, its power is too much on a miniature scale. On the other hand, in the opposite extreme, about twenty-seven years ago, I had an opportunity of seeing (or more appropriately of hearing) a mu- sical snuff-box, which had cost a thousand guineas. Inclosing a much profoundcr compass of harmonies, unavoidably it was incon- veniently large ; that was its fault : and perhaps fifty guineas of the price might have been spent on the mounting, which was of gold, or- namented. The interest of this toy lay in its history. Like a famous sword in the older days of paganism, which gave occasion to the Greek proverb, to. Sopa rav TroXcfuav dSapa, bootless are the gifts of enemies, — or like u, more famous horse in days a little later, both of which carried death and ruin through a long series of owners, this trinket was supposed to hare caught in a fatal net of calamity all those whom it reached as proprietors. The box was a. twin box (same time of making, same maker, same price) with one presented as a bribe to Napoleon. Amongst those who had once possessed it was a Jew, — not our Jew on Lake Superior, — but another of Lon- don and Amsterdam, vulgarly reputed of immense wealth, who died unhappily. Him slightly I knew, and valued his acquaintance, for he had known intimately, and admired, as " the foremost man of all this earth," Lord Nelson ; and it illustrates the fervor of his ven- eration, that always on reaching a certain point in Parliament Street he used to raise his hat, and bowed as to some shadowy presence, in memory that there for the last time he had met the great admiral on the day next but one before he left London forever; viz. in the brief interspace between his return to Portsmouth from chasing the French fleet to the West Indies, and his sailing to take the command off Cadiz. To Lord Nelson this perilous snuff-box had been offered repeatedly as an expression of idolatrous affection ; but as the fatal legend connected with it had not been concealed, Lord Nelson laugh- ingly declined the gift. To laugh was inevitable in our ago of weak faith for such superstitions ; but as a sailor, who is generally credu- lous in such matters, and, if at all a man of feeling, must be so, considering the many invitations to superstition connected with that world of solitary wildernesses through which he roams forever, Lord Nelson was almost confessedly afraid of the box. Indeed, at that stage of its history, the owner would have found as much difficulty in transferring what he called his " pocket consoler," as the man who owned the bottle imp, in ridding himself of that little pestilent perse- cutor. Here, however, so far as my own knowledge has extended, NOTES. 201 lay the higher extreme of costliness for such an article, — one thou- sand guineas ; whilst the lower extreme, in a, tin or hom case ia offered, as I have said, for one guinea. But in the East Indies, amongst the native princes, such trinkets are found in abundance, and some perhaps even of higher value, — musical clocks by the score, all chiming at once ; and musical snuff-boxes by the hundred. They are naturally of European workmanship, as is perceived at once by the choice of the music. Note 9. Page 27. "By no consideration of the present d." — i. e. in the appreciation which is thrown entirely upon u; but otherwise, in submitting to have the price thrown upon u, — in submitting to purchase at all at a price so vastly exalted, doubtless he is governed by the existing d as a negative condition. Note 10. Page 33. This remark, made by myself in a spirit of youthful scorn for shal- low thinkers, I shall not complain on finding imputed to others. Some years after, I met with it in one of the smaller philosophic essays, varying so much in merit, of Immanuel Kant. Fortunately, it is of little consequence who first uttered a weighty truth ; it is of the greatest, that every truth be received for what it really is. The very feeblest amongst the " sons of the feeble " must be roused to the sense that they are canting, when they find themselves challenged to the proof that ever any dispute, that so much as one, which in any generation could be said properly to have existed by any test of books produced, or passions excited, has turned at all upon words. And the daily experience in society, that all distinctions difficult to manage or to appraise, are pronounced to be " more verbal than real," should open our eyes to the true origin of such pretences ; they are the desperate resource of conscious weakness, — the readiest evasion of a conflict for which the disputant feels that he has no strength and no preparation. Note 11. Page 33. Every man knows to what quarter the apologist for the cry of verbal disputes will address himself, viz. the schoolmen; and, if we were to believe Locke, or many another of the same unsubtilizing 202 notes. understanding, whose propensities to the tangible and the ponderable were a guaranty that they had never looked into such books, natu- rally we must suppose the whole vast product from those looms to be one tissue of moonshine and verbalism. Now, it is no part of my intention in this place to undertake a defence of the scholastic philos- ophy. But one error, I must remark, as tending to sustain that delu- sive judgment on the schoolmen. It is popularly imagined that the scholastic philosophy was proved to be false in the decisive collision with another philosophy, more sound and practical ; a regular con- flict (it is imagined) came on between the two, and the issue was, that the one triumphed, while the other retired into obscurity. This is not true. The scholastic philosophy decayed simply because the scholastic divinity, to which it had been applied, and for which it had been originally created, was a Popish divinity. Thence came the first shock ; and, after the Reformation, even the Papal Church was thrown upon such tactics and arms, — not as might be the best in a court of philosophy, but which could meet and parry the new practi- cal and popular warfare of their opponents. Losing its professional use, scholasticism lost its main functions and occupation. The case was precisely as if special pleading were suddenly abolished in Eng- land by law. In one day the whole subtilties of that science would perish ; but it would not therefore have been undermined in its pre- tensions, nor shown to be less than an exquisite system of casuistry, and a most elaborate machinery for keeping law up to the level of civilization. Note 12. Page 38. "Except in one instance." — Whether I remembered to make this ex- ception, it is out of my power to say positively, having no copy of the little sketch in question ; but certainly I ought to have made it. At this moment there are men of great ability who believe that the whole relief from the war taxation of 1814 and 1815 now accumulated, (say in round numbers the difference annually between eighty and fifty millions sterling, ) is made nugatory by an alleged rise in the value of money, as contrasted with the supposed depreciation (so eternally asserted) upon the national currency during the last seven years of the great war. What the tax-payer has gained by the relief, he has lost in the higher value of what he continues to pay. Such is the allega- tion. NOTES. 203 Note 13. Page 39. Both of these principia (the esse and the scire) meet and are con- founded in our word " determine." This was a former remark of my own in the " Templar's Dialogues," which I am enabled to quote indirectly though a quotation from that little sketch, made at page 171, by the Dissertator on Value: "The worcf determine may bo taken subjectively for what determines x in relation to our knowledge, or objectively for what determines x in relation to itself. Thus, if I were to ask, what determined the length of the race-course ? and the answer were, ' the convenience of the spectators,' or ' the choice of the subscribers,' then it is plain that by the word determined I was understood to mean determined objectively, in relation to the existence of the object ; in other words, what caused the race-course to be this length rather than another length. But, if the answer were, an actual admeasurement, it would then be plain that by the word determined I had teen understood to mean determined subjective!]/ — i. e. in relation to our knowledge — what ascertained it." Thus, again, it may be said, in one sense, that men determined the exact length of a degree in latitude, that is, of the interspace divided by ninety between cither polo of our earth and its equator. But this is merely the ratio cognoscendi. Men determined it in the sense of rigorously measuring it. But the length of a degree could be deter- mined causatively (in the sense of first establishing such a quantity) by no power less than that which could first form a planet having the shape of an oblate spheroid, combined with such and such dimensions, arising out of an axis about seven thousand miles long. This is the ratio essendi. How necessary it is that this great distinction should be recalled, might be exemplified by a large volume of cases where the failure of philosophic attempts has been due exclusively to its neglect. A greater failure, for example, there cannot be than in Paley's Moral Philosophy as to its grounds, and in Lord Shaftesbury's Doctrine of Ridicule as a Criterion of Truth. But, in both cases, the true vice of the theories lay in this common confusion between the two rationes — the ratio essendi, (accounting causatively for the existence) — the ratio cognoscendi (accounting in the way of proof for the certainty of the knowledge). As regards the doctrine of value, such a distinction was at this point indispensable. 204 NOTES. Note 14. Page 44. In the text of this section it did not seem requisite to pause for any distinction between monopoly and scarcity. But it may be right to add a few lines in a note for the sake of novices, who will naturally feel perplexed by the confused relations between two ideas approach- ing to each other, yet not identical ; and still more perplexed by a case growing out of the two, viz. this : — They have heard the policy of creating an artificial scarcity by a partial destruction, sometimes ridiculed as an extravagance too monstrous to be entertained, except by the most credulous of starving mobs, and sometimes solemnly attested by historical records. Where lies the truth ? Is such a policy conceivable, or is it an absurd romance ? There are scarcities which imply no monopoly, as the occasional scarcity in England (every ten years less possible) of corn or hay ; and inversely there are monopolies which imply no original scarcity, as that of spices in the hands of the old Dutch East India Company. A monopoly does not necessarily act through any factitious or counterfeit scarcity. The English East India Company, that wisest and most princely of commercial institutions, long held a monopoly of tea ; but there was no more of artificial scarcity ever created for the sake of giving effect to this monopoly during its long existence, than we have experienced since the period of its abolition. On the other hand, the Dutch did confessedly destroy, at times, one ship-load of spices out of three, in order to sustain the prices of the other two in the markets of Europe. This fact is, I believe, historically certain ; and might oftentimes become a very prudent policy. Yet, in opposi- tion to this known precedent, what seems a parallel case of destruc- tion on the part of English farmers, has been loudly rejected as ridiculous; and certainly with justice. "But why?" the novice will ask, " in what lies the difference ?" It lies in this : — Eor any party under any circumstances to create a beneficial scarcity, what he has to do is this : — 1st, To destroy so largely as materially to raise the price on all which remains ; 2d, To leave so large a remainder as may much more than compensate (by the higher price upon a reduced quantity) that original price which might have been received upon the whole quantity whilst unreduced. But to take the first step with any effect demands a conspiracy amongst all the sellers. Now the Dutch East India Company were always in a, conspiracy ; they, from their common interest, and unity of federation, stood constantly " in pro- cinctu " for such a measure. But to the English farmers, dispersed so NOTES. 205 •widely, and thinking so variously, the initial steps towards a conspir- acy, of whatever nature it might be, are impossible. No man can count upon any sacrifice but his own ; yet even a conspiracy along a •whole district or country side, (all impossible as it is,) would not affect the national price of grain more than by a quantity equal to the consumption of one regiment or one line-of-battle ship fully manned; and we all know how trivial in its effects on the national markets is the sailing on foreign service of many regiments and of many ships. Such a removal of troops or seamen is, however, the case realized (as to its uttermost effect) of a conspiracy far beyond any that ever will be practicable. In the final result, therefore, the Dutchman, who is the person to suffer by the first step, is tho same who will reap the whole indemnity and profit in the second. But the Englishman will find himself unable to create any sueh second stage in the case : his utmost sacrifices will not come near to the effect of raising the price ; and if they could, it will not be himself, with a reduced quantity, who can reap the compensation for his own sacrifices, but others who have made no such sacrifices, and who retain their undiminished stock to benefit by the new prices. Yet how, it may be asked by the novice, can even the Dutchman be sure of receiving a balance of gain upon the case 1 — of not losing more by the quantity destroyed than can always be fetched back by a higher price upon the quantity which remains ? Simply under his experience of the average, annual or triennial, demand for spices in Europe, — under this, taken in combination with that notorious prin- ciple first consciously remarked by Sir Richard Steele in an age almost ignorant of political economy ; viz. that upon any article of primary demand, a deficiency to the extent of one tenth will not en- hance the price simply by a corresponding one tenth, but say, by one fourth ; whilst a deficiency of one fourth will not, in its reaction upon price, confine itself to that proportion, but will frequently go near to double the price. Such are the circumstances of fact and principle which make that experiment ludicrously impossible for the English farmer, which, for the Dutch farmer of Java or the Moluccas, was, in years of redundant produce, a hopeful, and at times even a necessary, measure. Note 15. Page 45. "We Romans required." — Originally, the test applied to a claim of this nature lay in the number of throats cut — a minimum being fixed 18 206 NOTES. for a triumph, and a separate minimum for the " little go " of an ova- tion. But this test was applied only in early times, whilst the basis of difficulty was more nearly identical. In times of higher civiliza- tion, when this basis became more complex and variously modified, the grounds of claim and the test were modified conformably. Note 16. Page 46. Egypt was so capable of feeding vast armies, that for that reason only she was viewed as the potential mother of rebellions, as the eter- nal temptress of the ambitious. Whence grew the Roman rule, that no proconsul, no man of senatorian rank, should ever go into Egypt as a lieutenant of the Republic or the Emperor; such a man's powers would have been too ample, and his rank of too much author- ity. Note 17. Page 47. "Immediate," because, upon a secondary consideration, you become aware that the trouble imposed on the maker is spared to yourself; yet still the ground of value remains what it was, — not a benefit reaped, but an evil evaded. Note 18. Page 50. "Raising that leaguer." — Viz. by John Sobieski in 1683, upon which great event (the final disappearance of Mussulmans from cen- tral Christendom) is that immortal sonnet of Filicaja's, so nobly translated by Wordsworth : " He " ( Sobieski) " conquering through God, and God by him." Note 19. Page 51. " To affirmative value.'' — That is, applied itself to the direct service or pleasure anticipated from the animal, calculated on so many years' purchase, not to any indirect exponent or measure of this service. In the case of the rhinoceros, (and also of the modern race-horse, as compared with the hunter a little further on,) the construction of the affirmative value is somewhat different in form, though substantially the same. There the animal is viewed productively : both rhinoceros and racer sell upon the ground of affirmative value ; they make re- NOTES. 207 turns; but returns in money; and not (as the bashaw's horses) in ornament, sense of beauty, luxurious motion, &c. Note 20. Page 59. British people are not entitled to judge by their experience in Ger- many or Italy. Generally, the physician or the surgeon called in, is some one founding his practice upon British patronage, and trained to British habits of feeling. Note 21. Page 72. " War depreciation." — I do not intend to say one word upon this much-agitated question in so short a work. I will not therefore deny the alleged depreciation of 1811, &c. ; for that would be arrogant in a place which allows no room for assigning reasons. This, however, I may say without blame, that no proof, good in point of logic, has publicly been ever offered in evidence of the depreciation; conse- quently, no previous presumption has been created in favor of the supposed counter-movement of the currency, as a possible movement. But the reason why at all I refer to the case, is for the sake of nega- tiving the pretended countenance of Kicardo to the war depreciation. True, he maintained this opinion nominally. But when it is under- stood that, by Ricardo's definition of. depreciation, any separation of the paper currency from the metallic standard (whether growing out of a higher Brazil cost of gold, or out of a real fall in the paper, ex- pressed in a merely apparent rise of gold) equally satisfied Ms condi- tions of a depreciation, it becomes plain that the whole doctrine vanishes in smoke. Note 22. Page 73. Cavils might be raised against this statement having no reference at all to the real question at issue, — viz. quantity of labor against cost of labor, — by showing that oftentimes the produce on one side might be none at all. But such cavils would be unsubstantial ; they would affect, not the principle, but simply the mode of estimating, or rating, quantities under that principle. The same principle of labor rated by quantity would continue to govern, though the modes of computing that quantity might grow continually more complex. 208 NOTES. Note 23. Page 74. For this change in the habits of the bearer, see the reports of hun- ters, Indians, Canadian half-breeds, &c. Note 24. Page 79. " Of Asia." — The Asiatic princes notoriously put a higher affirma- tive value on this kind of personal ornament, than has in any age been allowed to it in Europe. The queen of Great Britain, so mighty a potentate, has usually (whether queen consort or queen regnant) worn diamonds and rubies on her coronation day, worth about one hundred thousand pounds. The king of Oude, a petty Indian prinee^ raised to that supreme rank by ourselves, has repeatedly, on his own person, or his son's, worn such jewels to the value of two millions sterling. In Christendom, Prince Esterhazy's "best coat" overlaid with diamonds, is the most costly single article known, or not known to pawnbrokers, but it is not valued at more than half a million ster- ling. Note 25. Page 80. It would, however, be much more convenient in an amended polit- ical economy, (that is, an economy in which not only the great doc- trines should be formally harmonized and expanded, but in which also a better terminology should be introduced, wearing the simplic- ity equally with the broad applicability of an algebraic language,) that some such term as teleologic or affirmative should be reserved con- ventionally, in order to meet the following case : — By teleologic value, unless specially restrained to a more technical service, would naturally be understood the case, a very common one, where the sell- ing price of an article (the exchange value) happened at the moment, or was supposed for any purpose of dispute, to found itself on the use value. But we need also a term expressing this use value, — for instance, the value of atmospheric air, in cases where it is not only contemplated apart from any exchange value, but where essentially it repels all exchange value. In such a conventional restriction of its acceptation, the term teleologic value would become tantamount to the term riches, as rightly and sagaciously set up in a separate chapter of Ricardo, by way of a counterpole to all exchange value whatever. Ricardo 'has been liberally assaulted for this antithesis as prima facie absurd and irrelate ; verbally it seems so. But the NOTES. 209 feuyoj, the dualism of these polar ideas, riches and value, is a mere necessity of the understanding, and returns upon the severe thinker after all verbal efforts to evade it. Note 26. Page 87. Salmasius subsequently explained his view of the passage in a short paraphrastic commentary, which agrees exactly with the pres- ent in pointing to the double form of exchange value, except as to the temper of the vender, when Salmasius (doubtless warped by the title of the particular chapter in Theophrastus, viz. Hepi AvdaSeiai) conceives to be acting in the spirit of insolence. This is part of what Salmasius says, " Superbus et contumax venditor designatur his notis u, Theophrasto, — qui" [i. e. venditor] "merces suas quanti vendat indicare dedignatus, emptorem interroget, — quanti valeant, et quo pretio emi dignze sint ? " True : this is the nature of the substitution which he makes, but not the spirit in which he makes it. Not as dis- daining to declare at what price he sells, but fraudulently, as seeing an interest in evading that question, does Scamp transfer the right of question to himself, and the duty of answer, to the other side. He transfers it from negative value to affirmative. Note 27. Page 95. " The actual value." — "Actual," in the sense of present, is one of the most frequent (but also of the most disgusting) Gallicisms. L'e"tat actuel des arme~es Francaises, is good French ; but to say in English, " the actual condition," &c, is a jargon of foreigners. Actual in English can never be opposed to future ; it is with us the antithe- sis, 1 st, and generally to possible , 2d, to contingent ; 3d, to a represen- tation existing only in words, or by way of preten.ee. Note 28. Page 100. "Verbal equivocation." — What equivocation? some readers will say. Eor though a false result is somehow obtained, it does not in- stantly appear how the word market has, or can have, led to this result by two senses. But it has. In one of its uses, and that the commonest by very much, the word market indicates a eact, and nothing more, viz. simply the ubi of the sale. But, in another use, this word indicates a law, viz. the conditions under which the sale 18* 210 NOTES. was made ; which conditions are the three several states of the mar- ket as to me balance existing between the quantity of any article and the public demand for it. Every market, and in all times, must offer of every commodity, either first, too much for the demand, or sec- ondly, too little, or thirdly, neither too much nor too little ; and the term " market value," when pointing to such conditions, points to a coefficient which in part governs the price. But in the popular use, where it expresses only a fact, it points to a mere inert accident hav- ing no tendency to affect the price. Note 29. Page 101. " An old English standard." — Upon this subject there exists a most inveterate prejudice in Scotland, which ought not to be hard of over- throw, being absolutely unfounded; only that to be attacked with success, it must be attacked upon a new principle. It is universally held by the Scotch, or rather postulated as a point confessed and no- torious, that the English, as compared with themselves, are a nation luxurious in diet. Now, as to the Scottish gentry, this notion is a mere romance ; between them and the English gentry there is no difference whatever in that respect. But, on descending below the gentry, through all the numerous classes of society, you will certainly find a lower diet prevailing in Scotland ; and, secondly, a. lower re- gard to diet. As compared with the Scottish, it cannot be denied that the English working classes, and the lower class of shopkeepers, were (I wish it could be said are) considerably more luxurious as to diet. I know not whether this homely diet of Scotland has, upon the whole, proved an advantage for her ; very sure I am that a more generous diet has been a blessing of the first order to England. Even as regards health, there is something to be said for a more genial diet. That diet, which leads people to indifference for eating, may sound more philosophic ; but it is not the healthiest : on that point there are conclusive experiments. On the other hand, considered as a political advantage, a high standard of diet is invaluable. Many are the writ- ers who have properly insisted on the vast benefits, in periods of scarcity, which accrue to nations enjoying a, large latitude of descent; whereas the Swedish or Scottish nation, from habitual poverty of diet (though fortunately a diet improved and improving through the last hundred years), finds itself already on the lowest round of the ladder, whenever the call comes for descending. In a famine what can be their resources'! This, however, is but one of the great national NOTES. 211 benefits arising from a high standard of diet. The others lie in the perpetual elevation which such a standard communicates to wages, and to the expectations generally of the laboring classes. Through this higher tone it is, in part, that the English working order has for a century fought up against the degrading tendencies of population, irregularly stimulated. Their condition has often locally deterio- rated; but, under a lower standard of general domestic comfort, England would, by this time, have approximated to the condition of Ireland. The fact, therefore, of a less luxurious diet for the working classes of Scotland, may be conceded without conceding an unmixed advan- tage. I have no personal interest in defending a more luxurious standard, being myself a mere anchorite as to such enjoyments ; but I cannot overlook the advantage to a nation, that under ordinary cir- cumstances, its whole level of enjoyment should be raised pretty high. Meantime, the main practical question is still unsettled. Because the English working class is luxurious (or was so) by comparison with the same class in Scotland, must it therefore follow that the English working class is luxurious in any positive sense % Relatively to one sole nation it is so : but that one nation is not Europe, — is not the world. This has been quite forgotten by the Scotch. And upon a large inquiry it becomes evident beyond all possibility of dis- pute, that Scotland realizes a noticeable extreme in that respect; France and Germany the opposite extreme ; and that England stands between these two extremes, but much nearer to the Scottish extreme than to the Franco-German. Mere ignorance can shut a man's eyes to this relation of things. Any man having had opportunities of ob- serving the French emigrants in England, or who remembers the tes- timony of Mr. Cobbett, Jun., and other qualified witnesses, to the enormous voracity of the French peasantry, or who reflects on the fact that women universally are untainted in England with the vice of gourmandise, and that any women who have made themselves memorable in England by this vice (as, for instance, the Duchess of Portsmouth, with others that I could add), were French women; that the French only have cultivated cookery as a, science, and have a large gastronomic literature ; or who knows anything of the expe- rience in English inns, when French prisoners of war were quartered upon them, will laugh at the idea that the English lower classes in such neighborhood can need any defence. But the Germans are worse than the French. Let a man make himself acquainted with the uni- versal duration and excess of the dinner throughout Lower Germany, 212 NOTES. and he will begin to rectify his opinions upon this subject. Upper Germany is worse still ; and Austria, in particular, wallows in sensu- ality of all kinds ; but in none so much as that of good eating. Many travellers are beginning to publish the truth on this subject. One in particular, a very clever man, founds upon this one vice (which, too laxly, he calls the continental vice) no small share of the continental poverty. They spend their time (says he), which justly he alleges is their money, on good cooking. This charge, observe, applies to seventy millions of men. Even of the Prussian army, he remarks, that "the lusty roundabout, rather than a, muscular growth," which strikes the eye in that military body, " is no doubt derived from the good living to which " at home they have been " accustomed from in- fancy." Speaking of all France, and all Germany, the same travel- ler says (p. 368), — "It costs at the least twice as much of human time and labor to dine five millions of French or German people as to dine five millions of English ; and time and labor are the basis of all national wealth." Again, "the loss of time in the eating and preparation of food, forms a very important drawback on the pros- perity of families on the Continent." Again, listen to this : " Gour- mandise is found to be a vice as troublesome to deal with among the French soldiery as tippling with ours." The same vice is the cause of the French depredations in the field. The poor, he says, are infected with this vice, and betray it in their looks and teeth Finally, ho clenches the matter thus : " In the total, it is fully a fifth of the time and the labor of a continental population that is daily wasted in cook- ery and eating." And what nation is it that he contrasts so favor- ably for itself with Germans and French ■? It is the English. And who is the traveller that makes this striking record * An English- man, you fancy. By no means. It is a Scotchman, Mr. Samuel Laing, in the year 1842. So perish opinions founded on a narrow and partial range of comparison. Note 30. Page 103. "Encampment." — Which mode of life, however, might be ex- tended greatly, if some Asiatic plans of raising u, circular, dry ter- race for receiving the tent were adopted ; and if, secondly, for canvas were substituted hides, tarpaulins, or other substances resisting heavy rains. The Roman expression for a good substantial encampment was " sub pettibus," — under hides; but this is a point in the science of castramontation which we moderns have too much neglected, and NOTES. 213 perhaps chiefly from the following cause. To what professional art should we naturally look for the encouragement and improvement of tents? Manifestly to the military art. Now, unfortunately for this result, there is a growing indisposition amongst military men to the use of tents. Napoleon, it -will be seen, in Las Cases, pronounced them unwholesome, and greatly preferred the practice of bivouacking — i. e. of sleeping sub dio — as respected salubrity. But this prefer- ence could not apply to tropical climates, or to others where the dews are very heavy. Note 31. Page 107. It struck many as the coolest specimen of audacity on record, that not long since a governor of one amongst our English colonies abso- lutely made it the subject of solemn official congratulation, in writing home, that the emancipated slaves were buying up the estates of their ancient masters. (This language of triumph had been held before, but not before by any official person.) And how'? Did that pro- claim any real advance on the part of the slaves ? The purchase money had been accumulated chiefly in their days of slavery, and formed therefore the emphatic measure and expression of the kind- ness and liberality with which they had been treated. But, after all, the true revolution was in the masters : not the slaves had prospered by the change, but the masters had been ruined. The capital being gone which should have cultured the estates, naturally the estates became often nearly worthless ; and under those circumstances it was, that the wretched negro, by uniting himself with his fellows, became the new proprietor. "Was that any subject of congratulation and self- glorification for a wise man ? It is too late now to be wise for the ends of justice. The proprietor has retired, if he was rich, — has per- ished, if he was poor. The social system has been wrecked ; prop- erty is in ruins ; capital has fled. Beginning, as it has done, in spoli- ation, the edifice of society now stands upon an evil footing in the British West Indies. But this will soon become worse (as we may read in the experience of Hayti), unless some redress, such as is yet possible, shall be applied to the anti-social disorders which threaten those colonies. And the nature of this redress cannot be better learned than in the French policy of the Due de Broglie, or (as to this point) in the still more cautious policy of his partisan oppo- nents. 214 NOTES. Note 32. Page 109. It is perfectly astonishing to hear one mistake current upon this subject. Because the New Poor-law, amongst its many heavy offen- ces against Christian wisdom, sanctions this one measure of natural justice, — that, upon becoming chargeable to an English parish, the Irish pauper (if found to be without a settlement) shall be shipped back to Ireland, — it is therefore assumed that the evils of Irish pauperism quoad ourselves are now corrected. How so? Was that the main evil "> It might have becomesuch under the action of a known trick practised locally in Ireland. Subscriptions were at one time raised in certain districts for shipping off mendicants to English ports : at a present cost of one guinea a-head, the town or district in Ireland got rid permanently of those whom it could bribe into emigration. This policy, which is not surprising when played off by a poor country against a rich one, has certainly been crashed in an early stage by the Poor Bill ; but, however ruinous that policy was by its menace, actu- ally it had not been realized upon any very large scale. The true ruin of Irish pauperism to England and Scotland is far different, and not of a nature to be checked by any possible Poor Bill. This ruin lies, first and chiefly, in the gradual degradation of wages, English and Scotch, under the fierce growth of Irish competition ; secondly, in the chargeableness of Irish pauperism, once settled, (or for any reason not liable to removal,) upon funds English and Scotch. In Scotland the case is even worse at present than in England ; for there the Poor Laws are in so desperate a condition of craziness, by origi- nal insufficiency, that the government will now be violently compelled into an interference with evils too monstrous to be longer tolerated. The Scottish aristocracy have, in this one instance, manifested a big- otry of opposition to the reforms clamorously called for by the expo- sures of Dr. Pulteney Alison, such as could hardly have been antici- pated from a patriotism so sincere as theirs. But the abuses are too crying for any further attempt at disguise. The one great evil of the Scottish Poor-laws lies in the mockery of its own professed purposes, in the mere idle simulation of a relief which too often is no relief at all. Cases are before the public in which half-a-crown, or even one shilling, per annum, is the amount of each pauper's dividend. But when the evil of public distress becomes too gigantic to be trifled with in that way, then it is seen, in mighty cities like Glasgow, to what extent the parasitical pauperism of Ireland has strangled and crushed the native vigor of the land. Paisley, with a sudden development of NOTES. 215 pauperism in 1842, beyond all proportions that had ever been sup- posed possible, was compelled to draw heavily upon alien funds ; and yet, with all this non-local aid, both Scotch and English, the sheer impossibility of feeding adequately the entire body of claimants co- erced the humane distributors of the relief into drawing a, line between Scotch and Irish. Then it was that the total affliction be- came known, — viz. the hideous extent in which Irish intruders upon Scotland had taken the bread out of her own children's mouths. As to England, it has long been accepted as a fair statement, that fifty thousand Irish interlopers annually swell the great tide of our native increase, (say two hundred and twenty or two hundred and forty thou- sand per annum,) already too rapidly advancing. Yet how has this twofold increase met with any final absorption ? In fact, it might be replied, that latterly it has not been absorbed ; and so far as there was any distress at all through the year 1842, (a distress which, on the faith of many public returns, I greatly doubt, — excepting, first, as distress will always exist in so vast a working population forced into a variable sympathy with every part of the globe ; and excepting, secondly, the local distress of Paisley, Glasgow, Stockport, Leicester, &c-,) it is to this partial non-absorption of extra labor, falling in with dreadful American derangements of commerce, that the domestic pressure has been owing. A man might, however, demur to the pos- sibility of so much alien labor crowding into our great labor markets. Where, he might say, is the opening for so much new labor ? And especially since the tendency has been, of late years, not to limit the virtual amount of labor for each person, but (by greatly extending the laboring hours, with the result of at last forcing an interposition from the legislature) materially to augment that individual amount. There has, however, been a change in the channels of labor favorable to the concurrent increase of labor numerically, and of the separate labor for each, and so far favorable to this tide of Irish intrusion. Even where the absolute work to be done has but little increased, the numerical increase of laborers has been great, through the growing substitution of female for male (and above all of childish for adult) labor. Three girls of thirteen, at wages of six shillings to eight shil- lings a week, have by myriads displaced the one man of mature age, at wages varying from- eighteen shillings to forty-five. This revolu- tion has not uniformly been injurious, even to the English working classes ; or, at least, its injurious reaction upon the adult working population has not yet had time for reaching its full display. Bat to the Irish family, starting from so low a standard of domestic comfort, 216 NOTES. the change has acted as a bounty. And in this triple race of the English labor against machinery, — against Irish competition, — against infant competition, — has lain the real opening and possibility for that cruel encroachment upon infant health and happiness, which has at length awakened the thunders of public indignation, never again to be laid asleep. At present there is this one sole barrier of se^protection for English labor ; viz. the high domestic standard of comfort inherited from English ancestors. Left to itself, that barrier, so long assaulted and shaken, would soon give way entirely; and the English labor market would be finally prostrated to a level with any, the very basest human degradation ever witnessed amongst Oriental slaves. This protection, if it survives at all, will survive through the yet energetic spirit of the English working man. But in the acci- dents of his situation there is one collateral encouragement to the English native. Machinery, which has so often stranded him for a time, is at length likely to depress the bounty on Irish intrusion ; the infant-labor revolution probably has reached its maximum; and, in the mean time, Ireland, it may be hoped, by railroads, by good gov- ernment, and by growing capital, will soon be preparing better days for her own children at home. Note 33. Page 118. " The last result." — A remark very nearly approaching to this is made by Edmund Burke in some part of the little " Essay on Taste/' prefixed to his " Essay on the Sublime." Burke, however, a very young man at the date of that work, was not sufficiently cautious. At that time his philosophical reading and meditation could not have been extensive, and he neglected to qualify the resulting definition as the real one, in contradistinction to the nominal. Naturally, and almost inevitably, the nominal definition goes before the discussion ; since, without some jrepiXi;^!?, , or rough circumscribing outline of the subject, a reader cannot be supposed to know the very object or substance of the inquiry. Note 34. Pago 119. "Says Ricardo'' — i. e. says by the tenor of his argument, says im- plicitly, else he does not say so explicitly ; for the case itself of the coal-cellar is not his illustration, but mine. NOTES. 217 Note 35. Page 121. William Jacob, F. R. S., stood in a position of advantage, on a sort of isthmus, for judging of any question in economy relating to agri- culture ; for (on the one side) he was well read in the literature of Economy, and (on the other) he was practically familiar with the whole condition and details of rural industry in this island. His " Considerations on the Protection required by British Agriculture," in 1814, is a valuable work. And the talent, together with the mod- eration and the knowledge displayed in it, recommended him subse- quently to the government as a commissioner for inquiries into Con- tinental agriculture. Note 36. Page 128. "Eternal encroachments of rent," — eternal by an argument ad hom- inem, which neither Sir Edward West, the original discoverer of the doctrine, nor Kicardo, was in any condition to refuse ; as to them, the encroachments are eternal. But I have repeatedly urged elsewhere, that this law is checked by an opposite law, — this tendency is neu- tralized from century to century by a counter tendency. Note 37. Page 137. " Westwards." — It would be mere pedantry to refuse this brief ter- minology, derived from the theory of maps. The diagram is treated as a map, or chart, in which the upper side is by ancient usage the north, &c. The advantage for the diagram is, that a single word does the office of a very operose circumlocution. Note 38. Page 138. "Inaptitude." — The facts overlooked in Kicardo's position are two ; — 1st. That by original conformation of mind, like some other powerful and original minds, he found no genial pleasure in communi- cating knowledge ; 2dly. His mind was in a fermenting state, so that his knowledge was often provisional and tentative. The prodigious events of his era, the vast experiments (even in the relations of com- merce and political economy) forced upon nations by the Titan strug- gle of England with a barbarizing despot, taught him often to suspend, to watch, and to listen, as it were, for something yet to come. Hence it happened, that certain great principles, few, but suf- 19 218 NOTES. ficient, for a total revolution in economy, — these he held with the grasp of Talus, the iron man of Crete. In the outlying parte of his own system, meantime, he was sceptical ; and what was not determi- nate to himself, he could not make so to others. Note 39. Page 140. "Might rejoice." — No, he might not rejoice. In any case he is bound to mourn, says the man of the superannuated economic sys- tems smashed by Eicardo. But why does he say so ? Consistently enough : his doctrine, his creed, is known : wages, for him, constitute the basis of price. Do wages happen to rise under a rise of wheat ? Prices, he holds, must rise commensurately. Ergo, as all men use grain or other landed produce, to him it seems that all prices must rise ; and pro tanto. But we, Ricardian Protestants, know far other- wise. Even the novice is now aware that a rise in wages would leave prices undisturbed. And now, perhaps, by this practical application of his knowledge, the novice begins to suspect that his studies upon value were not quite so aerial. Note 40. Page 146. " The case c." — One, and perhaps the very largest, vice in the sci- ence of teaching is, that the teacher, chained up by his own subjec- tive preoccupations, cannot see with the eyes of the novice ; cannot dismiss his own difficulties, and enter, as into an inheritance, upon those of his pupil. Not until this moment did it strike me, that the reader, having lately heard and read so much of the land-scale, (which means the devolution of culture through all gradations of soil, from optimism down to pessimism, in order to meet the expansions of pop- ulation,) will naturally suppose that Ricardo's table rests upon a basis of that kind ; that the case c, for instance, means land which is one degree worse than that in case b. Not at all. a, b, c, d, and e, all represent one and the same soil, but continually forced, by other soils, into fresh expansions pf rent. Note 41, Page 147. "A similar reason," -r- viz. because 30 quarters out of 180 being now disposable for rent, leaving only 150 for wages and profits, then by the rule of three, — 150 : 180 : : £i : £4 16s. NOTES. 219 Note 42. Page 160. "An inversion of the same formula." — Such an inversion, the reader may fancy, might escape a clever man's eye for itself, but hardly when pursued to its consequences. Mr. Malthus, however, has per- sisted in this blunder, even where it was so pursued, and where it deeply affected the inference ; viz. during his long attempt to over- throw Ricardo's doctrine of value. He refuses to see, nay, he posi- tively denies, that if two men (never more, never less) produce a va- riable result of ten and five, then in one case each unit of the result has cost double the labor which it has cost in the other. On the con- trary, because there are always two men, Mr. M. obstinately insists that the cost in labor is constant. Note 43. Page 174. In reality, the disposition to the engrossment, by large capitalists, of many farms, or of many cotton-mills, which is often complained of injudiciously as a morbid phenomenon in our modern tendencies, is partly to be regarded as an antagonist tendency, meeting and com- bating that other tendency irregularly manifested towards a subdi- vision too minute in the ordinary callings of trade. The efforts con- tinually made to intrude upon the system of a town, or a quarter, by interpolating an extra baker, grocer, or druggist, naturally reacts, by irritating the counter tendency to absorb into one hand many sepa- rate mills, &c, or to blend into one function many separate trades. In Scotland, for instance, grocers are also wine-dealers, spirit-dealers, cheesemongers, oilmen. Note 44. Page 183. "But not until the downward tendency of interest," &c. — And, on the other hand, by parity of reason, if, 1. through draining; 2. guano; 3. bone-dust; 4. spade culture, &c, the agriculturists of "this coun- try should (as probably they will if not disturbed by corn traitors), through the known antagonist movement to that of rent, translate the land of England within the next century to a higher key, so that No. 250 were to become equal in power with the present No. 210, — and so regressively, No. 40 equal with the present No. 1, — in that case all functions of capital (wages, rent, profit) would rise gradually and concurrently, though not equally. Through the known nexus be- tween landed capital and all other capital, it would follow that all manufacturing capital (wages and profit) must rise ; since, after all, 220 NOTES. however far removed by its quality or its habits from agricultural industry, not the less the very ultimate refinements of industry in the arts or manufactures must still come back to the land for its main demand, viz. of beef, mutton, butter, cheese, milk, bread, hides, barks, tallow, flax, &c. ; even for the haughty artist of cities, the coarse rural industry must be the final vis regulatrix. This being so, it follows, that under an advance in our agriculture, such as even the next gen- eration will probably secure (through the growing combination of science and enormous capital), profits must rise in their rate, and therefore interest. Consequently, it will not then answer to the gov- ernment, under the legal par of the English funds, to borrow for the sake of paying off any stock whatever. They will not be able to obtain money on any terms that could offer a temptation for paying off a 3£ per cent stock. Note 45. Page 185. This circumstantiality is requisite, because there is another Mon- sieur Say in the market, of whom (being dead I believe) it may now be said, without offence, in the words of an ancient Joe Millerism, — that if he is a counsellor also, he is not a counsellor likewise. Note 46. Page 189. These courts for insolvencies, as well as for bankruptcies, present many openings for discovery to the political economist. In the course of this very examination, another truth came out which may serve to convince the " knowing '' men upon town, that they are not always so knowing as they think themselves. What notion is more popular amongst the prudential masters of life, than the hollow pre- tensions of cheap shops, and the mere impossibility that they should have any power to offer " bargains ? " Now, few people are more disposed to that opinion, as generally sound, than myself. To see " tickets " or " labels " indicating prices below the standard, is for every man of sense a caution against that establishment. Yet still the possible exceptions are not few. In this instance, it was proved beyond a doubt, that for many months the bankrupt had gone upon the principle of raising money, for his own instant uses, by selling the Parisian goods below the original cost of the manufacturer. Such dishonorable practices certainly soon exhaust their own principle of movement. But, in so vast a community as London, always there must be new cases arising ; consequently, always there must be some limited possibility of real bargains. LIFE OF MILTON. PREFATORY MEMORANDA. 1. This sketch of Milton's life was -written 1 to meet the hasty demand of a powerful association (then in full activity) for organizing a systematic movement towards the improvement of popular reading. The limitations, as regarded space, which this association found itself obliged to impose, put an end to all hopes that any opening could be found in this case for an im- proved life as regarded research into the facts, and the true interpretation of facts. These, though often scandalously false, scandalously misconstructed even where true in the letter of the narrative, and read by generations of biographers in an odious spirit of malignity to Milton, it was nevertheless a mere necessity, silently and acquiescingly, to adopt in a case where any noticeable change would call for a justification, and any adequate justification would call for much ampler space. Under these circumstances, finding myself cut off from one mode of ser- vice 2 to the suffering reputation of this greatest among men, it occurred, naturally, that I might imperfectly compensate that defect by service of the same character applied in a different direction. Facts, falsely stated or maliciously colored, require, too frequently, elaborate details for their exposure : but tran- sient opinions, or solemn judgments, or insinuations dexterously applied to openings made by vagueness of statement or laxity of language, it is possible oftentimes to face and dissipate instan- 19* 222 LIFE OP MILTON. taneously by a single word of seasonable distinction, or by a simple rectification of the logic. Sometimes a solitary whisper suggesting a fact that had been overlooked, or a logical relation that had been wilfully darkened, is found sufficient for the tri- umphant overthrow of a scoff that has corroded Milton's memory for three 3 generations. Accident prevented me from doing much even in this line for the exposure of Milton's injuries: hereafter I hope to do more ; but in the mean time I call the reader's attention to one such rectification applied by myself to the effectual prostration of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the worst enemy that Milton and his great cause have ever been called on to confront; the worst as regards undying malice, — in which qualification for mischief Dr. Johnson was not at all behind the diabolical Lauder or the maniacal Curran ; and the foremost by many degrees in talents and opportunities for giving effect to his malice. I will here expand the several steps in the process of the case, so that the least attentive of readers, or least logical, may understand in what mode and in what degree Dr. Johnson, hunting for a triumph, allowed himself to trespass across the frontiers of calumny and falsehood, and at the same time may understand how far my own exposure smashes the Doctor's attempt in the shell. Dr. Johnson is pursuing the narrative of Milton's travels in Italy ; and he has arrived at that point where Milton, then in the south of that peninsula, and designing to go forward into Greece, Egypt, and Syria, is suddenly arrested by great tidings from England : so great, indeed, that in Milton's ear, who well knew to what issue the public disputes were tending, these ti- dings must have sounded revolutionary. The king was prepar- ing a second military expedition against Scotland; that is against Scotland as the bulwark of an odious anti-episcopal church. It was notorious that the English aristocracy by a very large section, and much of the English nation upon motives variously combined, some on religious grounds, some on political, could not be relied on for any effectual support in a war having such objects, and opening so many occasions for diverting the national arms to popular purposes. It was pretty well known also, that dreadful pecuniary embarrassments would LIFE OP MILTON. 223 at last compel the king to summon, in right earnest, such a Par- liament as would no longer be manageable, but would in the very first week of its meeting find a security against a sudden dissolution. Using its present advantages prudently, any Par- liament would now bring the king virtually upon his knees: and the issue must be — ample concession on the king's part to claimants now become national, or else Revolution and Civil War. At such a time, and with such prospects, what honest patriot could have, endured to absent himself, and under no more substantial excuse than a transient gratification to his classical and archaeological tastes ? — tastes liberal and honor- able beyond a doubt, but not of a rank to interfere with more solemn duties. This change in his prospects, and consequently in his duties, was painful enough, we may be sure, to Milton : but with his principles, and his deep self-denying sense of duty, there seems no room for question or hesitation : and already at this point, before they go a step further, all readers capable of measuring the disappointment, or of appreciating the temper in which such a self-conquest must have been achieved, will sym- pathize heroically with Milton's victorious resistance to a tempta- tion so specially framed as a snare for him, and at the same time will sympathize fraternally with Milton's bitter suffering of self- sacrifice as to all that formed the sting of that temptation. Such is the spirit in which many a noble heart, that may be far from approving Milton's politics, will read this secret Miltonic struggle more than two hundred years after all is over. Such is not the spirit (as we shall now see) in which it has been read by falsehood and malice. 2. But before coming to that, there is a sort of parenthesis of introduction. Dr. Johnson summons us all not to suffer any veneration for Milton to intercept our merriment at what, according to Ms version of the story, Milton is now doing. I therefore, on my part, call on the reader to observe, that in Dr. Johnson's opinion, if a great man, the glory of his race, should happen through human frailty to suffer a momentary eclipse of his grandeur, the proper and becoming utterance of our impres- sions as to such a collapse would not be by silence and sadness, but by vulgar yells of merriment. The Doctor is anxious that 224 LIFE OF MILTON. we should not in any case moderate our laughter under any re- membrance of who it is that we are laughing at. 3. Well, having stated this little item in the Johnson creed, I am not meditating any waste of time in discussing it, especially because the case which the Doctor's maxim contemplates is altogether imaginary. The case in which he recommended unrestrained laughter, was a case of " great promises and small performances." Where then does Dr. Sam show us such a case ? Is it in any part or section of Milton's Italian experi- ence ? Logically it ought to be so ; because else what relation can it bear to any subject which the Doctor has brought before us V But in anything that Milton on this occasion, or on any occasion whatever connected with the sacrifice of his Greek, Egyptian, or Syrian projects, either said or did, there is no promise at all, small or great. And as to any relation between the supposed promise and the subsequent performance, as though the one were incommensurable to the other, doubtless many are the incommensurable quantities known to mathema- ticians ; but 1 conceive that the geometry which measures their relations, where the promise was never made and the perform- ance never contemplated, must be lost and hid away in secret chambers of moonshine beyond the " recuperative " powers (Johnsonically speaking) of Apollonius himself. Milton made no promises at all, consequently could not break any. And to represent him, for a purpose of blame and ridicule, as doing either this or that, is malice at any rate ; too much, I fear, is wilful, conscious, deliberate falsehood. 4. What was it then which Milton did in Italy, as to which I never heard of his glorying, though most fervently he was entitled to glory ? Knowing that in a land which is passing through stages of political renovation, of searching purification, and of all which we now understand by the term revolution, golden occasions offer themselves unexpectedly for suggesting golden enlargements or revisions of abuses else overlooked, but that, when the wax has hardened, the opening is lost, so that great interests may depend upon the actual presence of some individual reformer, and that his absence may operate injuri- ously through long generations, he wisely resolved (though say- LIFE OF MILTON. 225 ing little about the enormous sacrifice which this entailed) to be present as soon as the great crucible was likely to be in active operation. And the sacrifice which he made, for this great series of watching opportunities which so memorably he after- wards improved, was, that he renounced the heavenly specta- cle of the jEgean Sea and its sunny groups of islands, renounced the sight of Attica, of the Theban districts, of the Morea ; next, of that ancient river Nile, the river of Pharaoh and Moses, of the Pyramids, and the hundred-gated Thebes ; finally, he re- nounced the land of Syria, much of which was then doubtless unsafe for a Frank of any religion, and for a Christian of any nation. But he might have travelled in one district of Syria, viz. Palestine, which for him had paramount attractions. All these objects of commanding interest to any profound scholar, Greece, the Grecian Isles, Egypt, and Palestine, he surrendered to his sense of duty ; not by any promise or engagement, but by the apt then and there of turning his face homewards ; well aware at the time that his chance was small indeed, under his peculiar prospects, of ever recovering his lost chance. He did not promise any sacrifice. Who was then in Italy to whom he could rationally have confided such an engagement ? He made the sacrifice without a word of promise. So much for Dr. Johnson's " small performance.'' 5. But supposing that there had been any words uttered by Milton, authorizing great expectations of what he would do in the way of patriotic service, where is the proof that the very largest promises conceivable, interpreted (as they ought to have been) by the known circumstances of Milton's social position, were not realized in vast over-measure ? I contend that even the various polemic'* works, which Milton published through the next twenty years ; for instance, his new views on Education, on Freedom of the Press, to some extent, also, his Apology for Tyrannicide, but above all his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, against the most insolent, and in this particular case, the most ignorant champion that literary Christendom could have se- lected, — that immortal Apology for England, " Whereof all Europe rang from side to side." 226 LIFE or MILTON. Had this been all, he would have redeemed in the noblest man- ner any promises that he could have made, not to repeat that he made none. But there is a deeper knavery in Dr. Johnson than simply what shows itself thus far. One word remains to be said on another aspect of the case. G. Thus far we see the Doctor fastening upon Milton a forged engagement, for the one sole purpose of showing that the responsibility thus contracted was ludicrously betrayed. Now let us understand how. Supposing Milton to have done what the Doctor vaguely asserts, — i. e. to have promised that, during the coming revolutionary struggle in his country, he would him- self do something to make this struggle grand or serviceable, — how was it, where was it, when was it, that he brought his vow to an inglorious solution, to the Horatian solution of Parturiunt monies, &c. ? Dr. Johnson would apparently have thought it a most appropriate and heroic solution, if Milton had made him- self a major in the Lobsters 6 of Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, or among the Ironsides of Cromwell. But, on the contrary, he made him- self (risum teneatis ?) a schoolmaster. Dr. Johnson (himself a schoolmaster at one time), if he had possessed any sense of true dignity, would have recollected and said secretly to himself, de tefabula narratur, and would have abhorred to throw out lures to a mocking audience, when he himself lurked under the mask offered to public banter. On this, however, I do not pause ; neither do I pause upon a question so entirely childish, as whether Milton ever was, in any legal sense, clothed with the character of schoolmaster? I refuse even, out of reverential sympathy with that majestic mind that would have made Milton refuse, to insist upon the fact that, even under this most puerile assault upon his social rank, Milton did really (by making him- self secretary to Cromwell) rise into something very like the official station of Foreign Secretary. All this I blow away to the four winds. I am now investigating the sincerity and hon- esty of Dr. Johnson under a trying temptation from malice that cannot be expressed nor measured. He had bound himself to bring out Samson blind and amongst enemies to make sport for the Philistines at Gaza. And the sport was to lie in the col- lision between a mighty promise and a miserable performance. LIFE OF MILTON. 227 What the Doctor tells us, therefore, in support of this allega- tion, is, that somewhere or other Milton announced a magnifi- cent display of patriotism at some time and in some place, but that when he reached London all this pomp of preparation evanesced in his opening a private boarding-school. Upon this I have one question to propound ; and I will make it more impressive, and perhaps intelligible, by going back into history, and searching about for a great man, as to whom the same question may be put with more effect. Most of us think that Hannibal was a great man; and amongst distinguished people of letters, my own contemporaries, when any accident has suggested a comparison amongst the intellectual leaders of antiquity, I have noted that a very large majority (two thirds I should say against one) gave a most cordial vote for the suprem- acy of this one-eyed Carthaginian. Well, this man was once a boy ; and, when not more than nine years old, he was solemnly led by his father to the blazing altar of some fierce avenging deity (Moloch perhaps) such as his compatriots worshipped, and by all the sanctities that ever he had heard of, the boy was pledged and sacramentally bound to an undying hatred and persecution of the Komans. And most people are of opinion that he, the man who fought with no backer but a travelling" earthquake at Lake Thrasymene, and subsequently at Cannse left 50,000 Romans on the ground, and for seventeen years took his pleasure in Italy, pretty well redeemed his vow. Now let us suppose (and it is no extravagant supposition even for those days) that some secretary, a slave in the house of Amil- car, had kept a Boswellian record of Hannibal's words and acts from childhood upwards. Naturally there would have been a fine illustration (such as the age allowed) of the great vow at the altar. All readers in after times, arrested and impressed by the scene, would inquire for its sequel : did that correspond ? If amongst these readers there were a Samuel Johnson, he would turn over a page or two, so as to advance by a few months, and there he might possibly find a commemoration of some festival or carousing party, in which the too faithful and literal secretary had recorded that the young maleh Hannibal had insisted angrily on having at dinner beefsteaks and oyster-sauce, — a 228 LIFE OP MILTON. dish naturally imported by the Phoenician sailors from the Cas- siterides of Cornwall. Then would rise Sam in his glory, and, turning back to the vow, would insist that this was its fulfilment. Others would seek it on Mount St. Bernard, on the line of the Apennines, on the deadly field of Cannae ; but Sam would read thus : Suffer not your veneration to intercept your just and reasonable mockery. Our great prince vows eternal hatred to the enemies of his country, and he redeems his vow by eat- ing a beefsteak with a British accompaniment of oyster-sauce. The same question arises severally in the Milton and the Hannibal case, — What relation, unless for the false fleeting eye of malice, has the act or the occasion indicated to the sup- posed solemnity of the vow alleged ? Show us the logic which approximates the passages in either life. I fear that at this point any plain man of simple integrity will feel himself disconcerted as in some mystification purposely framed to perplex him. "Let me understand," he will say, " if a man draws a bill payable in twenty years after date, how is he liable to be called upon for payment at a term far within its legal curriculum ? " Precisely so : the very excess of the knavery avails to conceal it. Hannibal confessedly had pledged himself to a certain result, whereas Milton had not ; and to that extent Hannibal's case was the weaker. But assume for the moment that both stand on the same footing. Each is supposed to have guaranteed some great event upon the confidence which he has in his own great powers. But, of course, he under- stands that, until the full development of those powers on which exclusively he relies, he does not come within the peril of his own obligation. And this being a postulate of mere natural justice, I contend that there was no more relation, such as could have duped Dr. Johnson for a moment, between any suppos- able promise of Milton's in Italy and that particular week in which he undertook the training of his youthful nephews (or, if it soothes the rancor of Dr. Johnson to say so, in which he opened a boarding-school), than between Hannibal at the altar and the same Hannibal dining on a beefsteak. From all the days of Milton's life, carefully to pick out that one on which only Milton did what Sam implicitly thinks a mean, " low-lived " LIFE OP MILTON. 229 action, is a knavery that could not have gone undetected had the case been argued at bar by counsel. It was base, it must have been base, to enter on the trade of schoolmaster ; for, as Ancient Pistol, that great moralist, teaches us, " base is the man that pays " ; and Milton probably had no other durable resource for paying. But still, however vile in Milton, this does not at all mend the logic of the Doctor in singling out that day or week from the thousands through which Milton lived. Dr. Johnson wished to go further ; but he was pulled up by an ugly remembrance. In earlier years the desperation of malice had led him into a perilous participation in Lauder's atrocities ; by haste and by leaps as desperate as the offence, on that occasion he escaped ; but hardly : and I believe, much as the oblivions of time aid such escapes by obliterating the traces or the meanings of action, and the coherences of oral evidence, that even yet, by following the guidance of Dr. Douglas (the un- masker of the leading criminal), some discoveries might be made as to Johnson's co-operation. But in writing Tfie Lives of the Poets, one of the Doctor's latest works, he had learned caution. Malice, he found, was not always safe ; and it might sometimes be costly. Still there was plenty of game to be had without too much risk: And the Doctor, prompted by the fiend, resolved to " take a shy," before , parting, at the most consecrated of Milton's creations. It really vexes me to notice this second case at all in a situation where I have left myself so little room for unmasking its hollowness. But a whisper is enough if it reaches a watchful ear. What, then, is the supreme jewel which Milton has bequeathed to us ? Nobody can doubt that it is Paradise Lost? Into this great chef-d'eeuvre of Milton, it was no doubt John- son's secret determination to send a telling shot at parting. He would lodge a little gage oVamitie, a farewell pledge of hatred, a trilling token (trifling, but such things are not estimated in money) of his eternal malice. Milton's admirers might divide it among themselves; and, if it should happen to fester and rankle in their hearts, so much the better ; they were heartily welcome to the poison: not a jot would he deduct for himself if a thousand times greater. O Sam ! kill us not with munifi- ao 230 LIFE OF MILTON. cence. But now, as I must close within a minute or so, what is that pretty souvenir of gracious detestation with which our friend took his leave ? The Paradise Lost, said he, in effect, is a wonderful work; wonderful; grand beyond all estimate; sublime to a fault. But — well, go on; we are all listening. But — I grieve to say it, wearisome. It creates a world of admiration (one world, take notice); but — O that I, senior offshoot from the house of Malagrowthers, should live to say it ! — ten worlds of ennui : one world of astonishment ; ten worlds of taulium vitce. Half and half might be tolerated, — it is often tolerated by the bibulous and others; but one against ten ? No, no ! This, then, was the farewell blessing which Dr. Johnson be- stowed upon the Paradise Lost : what is my reply ? The poem, it seems, is wearisome ; Edmund Waller called it dull. A man, it is alleged by Dr. Johnson, opens the volume ; reads a page or two with feelings allied to awe : next he finds himself rather jaded ; then sleepy : naturally shuts up the book ; and forgets ever to take it down again. Now, when any work of human art is impeached as wearisome, the first reply is — wearisome to whom 1 For it so happens that nothing exists, absolutely noth- ing, which is not at some time, and to some person, wearisome, or even potentially disgusting. There is no exception for the works of God. " Man delights not me, nor woman either," is the sigh which breathes from the morbid misanthropy of the gloomy but philosophic Hamlet. Weariness, moreover, and even sleepiness, is the natural reaction of awe or of feelings too highly strung ; and this reaction in some degree proves the sin- cerity of the previous awe. In cases of that class, where the impressions of sympathetic veneration have been really unaf- fected, but carried too far, the mistake is — to have read too much at a time. But these are exceptional cases : to the great majority of readers the poem is wearisome through mere vulgar- ity and helpless imbecility of mind ; not from overstrained ex- citement, but from pure defect in the capacity for excitement. And a moment's reflection at this point lays bare to us the malignity of Dr. Johnson. The logic of that malignity is simply this : that he applies to Milton, as if separately and specially LIFE or HILTON. 231 true of Mm, a rule abstracted from human experience spread over the total field of civilization. All nations are here on a level. Not a hundredth part of their populations is capable of any unaffected sympathy with what is truly great in sculpture, in painting, in music, and by a transcendent necessity in the supreme of Fine Arts, — Poetry. To be popular in any but a meagre comparative sense as an artist of whatsoever class, is to be confessedly a condescender to human infirmities. And as to the test which Dr. Johnson, by implication, proposes as trying the merits of Milton in his greatest work, viz. the degree in which it was read, the Doctor knew pretty well, and when by accident he did not, was inexcusable for neglecting to inquire; that by the same test all the great classical works of past ages, Pagan or Christian, might be branded with the mark of suspi- cion as works that had failed of their paramount purpose, viz. a deep control over the modes of thinking and feeling in each suc- cessive generation. Were it not for the continued succession of academic students having a contingent mercenary interest in many of the great authors surviving from the wrecks of time, scarcely one edition of fresh copies would be called for in each period of fifty years. And as to the arts of sculpture and paint- ing, were the great monuments in the former art — those, I mean, inherited from Greece, such as the groups, &c, scattered through Italian mansions, the Venus, the Apollo, the Hercules, the Faun, the Gladiator, and the marbles in the British Museum, purchased by the government from the late Lord Elgin — stripped of their metropolitan advantages, and left to their own unaided attraction in some provincial town, they would not avail to keep the requisite officers of any establishment for housing them in salt and tobacco. We may judge of this by the records left behind by Benjamin Haydon, of the difficulty which he found in simply upholding their value as wrecks of the Phidian era. The same law asserts itself everywhere. What is ideally grand lies beyond the region of ordinary 8 human sym- pathies, which must, by a mere instinct of good sense, seek out objects more congenial and upon their own level. One answer to Johnson's killing shot, as he kindly meant it, is, that our brother is not dead but sleeping. Regularly as the coming 232 LIFE OF MILTON. generations unfold their vast processions, regularly as these pro- cessions move forward upon the impulse and summons of a nobler music, regularly as the dormant powers and sensibil- ities of the intellect in the working man are more and more developed, the Paradise Lost will be called for more and more : less and less continually will there be any reason to complain that the immortal book, being once restored to its place, is left to slumber for a generation. So far as regards the Time which is coming ; but Dr. Johnson's insulting farewell was an arrow feathered to meet the Past and Present. AYc may be glad at any rate that the supposed neglect is not a wrong which Milton does, but which Milton suffers. Yet that Dr. Johnson should have pretended to think the case in any special way affecting the reputation or latent powers of Milton, — Dr. Johnson, that knew the fates of books, and had seen by moonlight, in the Bodleian, the ghostly array of innumerable books long since de- parted as regards all human interest or knowledge, — a review like that in Beranger's Dream of the First Napoleon at St. Helena, reviewing the buried forms from Austerlitz or Boro- dino, horses and men, trumpets and eagles, all phantom delu- sions, vanishing as the eternal dawn returned, — might have seemed incredible except to one who knew the immortality of malice, — that for a moment Dr. Johnson supposed himself seated on the tribunal in the character of judge, and that Mil- ton was in fancy placed before him at the bar, — " Quern si uon aliquii nocuisset, mortuus esset." LIFE OP MILTON. 233 MILTON'S LIFE. That sanctity which settles on the memory of a great man ought, upon a double motive, to be vigilantly sus- tained by his countrymen; first, out of gratitude to him as one column of the national grandeur ; secondly, with a practical purpose of transmitting unimpaired to posterity the benefit of ennobling models. High standards of excel- lence are among the happiest distinctions by which the modern ages of the world have an advantage over earlier, and we are all interested, by duty as well as policy, in pre- serving them inviolate. To the benefit of this principle none amongst the great men of England is better entitled tlian Milton, whether as respects his transcendent merit, or the harshness with which his memory has been treated. John Milton was born in London on the 9 th day of December, 1608. His father, in early life, had suffered for conscience' sake, having been disinherited upon his abjuring the Popish faith. He pursued the laborious profession of a scrivener, and having realized an ample fortune retired into the country to enjoy it. Educated at Oxford, he gave his son the best education that the age afforded. At first, young Milton had the benefit of a private tutor : from him he was removed to St. Paul's School ; next he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge ; and finally, after several years' preparation by extensive reading, he pursued a course of Continental travel. It is to be observed, that his 20* 234 LIFE OF MILTON. tutor, Thomas Young, was a Puritan, and there is reason to believe that Puritan politics prevailed among the Fellows of his College. This must not be forgotten in speculating on Milton's public life, and his inexorable hostility to the established government in Church and State; for it will thus appear probable, that he was at no time withdrawn from the influence of Puritan connections. In 1632, having taken the degree of M. A., Milton finally quitted the University, leaving behind him a very brilliant reputation, and a general good-will in his own College. His father had now retired from London, and lived upon his own estate in Horton, in Buckinghamshire. In this rural solitude, Milton passed the next five years, resorting to London only at rare intervak, for the purchase of books or music. His time was chiefly occupied with the study of Greek and Roman, and no doubt also of Italian literature. But that he was not negligent of composition, and that he applied himself with great zeal to the culture of his native literature, we have a splendid record in his " Comus," which, upon the strongest presumptions, is ascribed to -this period of his life. In the same neighborhood, and within the same five years, it is believed that he produced also the " Arcades " and the " Lycidas," together with " L' Allegro " and " II Penseroso." In 1637, Milton's mother died, and in the following year he commenced his travels. The state of Europe confined his choice of ground to France and Italy. The former excited in him but little interest. After a short stay at Paris, he pursued the direct route to Nice, where he em- barked for Genoa, and thence proceeded to Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples. He originally meant to extend his tour to Sicily and Greece ; but the news of the first Scotch war, having now reached him, agitated his mind with too much patriotic sympathy to allow of his embarking on a LIFE OF MILTON. 235 scheme of such uncertain duration. Yet his homeward movements were not remarkable for expedition. He had already spent two months in Florence and as many in Rome, but he devoted the same space of time to each of them on his return. From Florence he proceeded to Lucca, and thence, by Bologna and Ferrara, to Venice, where he remained one month, and then pursued his home- ward route through Verona, Milan, and Geneva. Sir Henry Wotton had recommended as the rule of his conduct a celebrated Italian proverb, inculcating the policy of reserve and dissimulation. And so far did this old fox carry his refinements of cunning, that even the dissimula- tion was to be dissembled. I pensieri stretti, the thoughts being under the closest restraint, nevertheless il viso sciolto, the countenance was to be open as the day. From a prac- tised diplomatist this advice was characteristic ; but it did not suit the frankness of Milton's manners, nor the noble- ness of his mind. He has himself stated to us his own rule of conduct, which was to move no questions of contro- versy, yet not to evade them when pressed upon him by others. Upon this principle he acted, not without some offence to his associates, nor wholly without danger to him- self. But the offence, doubtless, was blended with respect; the danger was passed ; and he returned home with all his purposes fulfilled. He had conversed with Galileo ; he had seen whatever was most interesting in the monuments of Roman grandeur or the triumphs of Italian art ; and he could report with truth, that in spite of his religion, every- where undissembled, he had been honored by the attentions of the great and by the compliments of the learned. After fifteen months of absence, Milton found himself again in London at a crisis of unusual interest. The king was on the eve of his second expedition against the Scotch ; and we may suppose Milton to have been watching the 236 LIFE OF MILTON. course of events with profound anxiety, not without some anticipation of the patriotic labor which awaited him. Meantime he occupied himself with the education of his sister's two sons ; and soon after, by way of obtaining an honorable maintenance, increased the number of his pupils. Dr. Johnson, himself at one period of his life a school- master, on this occasion indulges in a sneer and a false charge too injurious to be neglected. " Let not our venera- tion for Milton," says he, "forbid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small perform- ance : on the man who hastens home because his country- men are contending for their liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapors away his patriotism in a pri- vate boarding-school." It is not true that Milton had made " great promises/' or any promises at all. But if he had made the greatest, his exertions for the next sixteen years nobly redeemed them. In what way did Dr. Johnson expect that his patriotism should be expressed? As a soldier? Milton has himself urged his bodily weakness and intel- lectual strength, as reasons for following a line of duty ten thousand times nobler. "Was he influenced in his choice by fear of military dangers or hardships ? Far from it : " For I did not," he says, " shun those evils without en- gaging to render to my fellow-citizens services much more useful, and attended with no less of danger.'' What ser- vices were those ? We will state them in his own words, anticipated from an after period. " When I observed that there are in all three modes of liberty, — first, ecclesiastical liberty ; secondly, civil liberty ; thirdly, domestic : having myself already treated of.the first, and noticing that the magistrate was taking steps in behalf of the second, I con- cluded that the third, that is to say domestic, or household liberty, remained to me as my peculiar province. And whereas this again is capable of a threefold subdivision, LIFE OF MILTON. 237 accordingly as it regards the interests of conjugal life in the first place, or those of education in the second, or finally the freedom of speech, and the right of giving full publica- tion to sound opinions, — I took it upon myself to defend all three, the first, by my ' Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce ; ' the second, by my Tractate upon Education ; the third, by my ' Areopagitica.' " In 1 641, he conducted his defence of ecclesiastical liberty in a series of attacks upon -Episcopacy. These are written in a spirit of rancorous hostility, for which we find no sufficient apology in Milton's too exclusive converse with a faction of bishop-haters, or even in the alleged low con- dition of the episcopal bench at that particular era. 9 At Whitsuntide, in the year 1645, having reached his thirty-fifth year, Milton married Mary Powel, 10 a young lady of good extraction, in the county of Oxford. One month after, he allowed his wife to visit her family. This permission, in itself somewhat singular, the lady abused ; for when summoned back to her home, she refused to re- turn. Upon this provocation, Milton set himself seriously to consider the extent of the obligations imposed by the nuptial vow ; and soon came to the conclusion, that in point of conscience it was not less dissoluble for hopeless incom- patibility of temper than for positive adultery ; x and that human laws, in so far as they opposed this principle, called for reformation. These views he laid before the public in his " Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." In treating this question he had relied entirely upon the force of argument, not aware that he had the countenance of any great authorities ; but finding soon afterwards that some of the early Reformers, Bucer and P. Martyr, had taken the same view as himself, he drew up an account of their com- ments on this .subject. Hence arose the second of his tracts on Divorce. Meantime, as it was certain that many 238 LIFE OF MILTON. would abide by what they supposed to be the positive lan- guage of Scripture, in opposition to all authority what- soever, he thought it advisable to write a third tract on the proper interpretation of the chief passages in Scripture which refer to this point. A fourth tract, by way of answer to the different writers who had opposed his opinions, terminated the series. Meantime the lady, whose rash conduct had provoked her husband into these speculations, saw reason to repent of her indiscretion ; and finding that Milton held her deser- tion to have cancelled all claims upon his justice, wisely resolved upon making her appeal to his generosity. This appeal was not made in vain : in a single interview at the house of a common friend, where she had contrived to sur- prise him, and suddenly to throw herself at his feet, he granted her a full forgiveness ; and so little did he allow himself to remember her misconduct, or that of her family in having countenanced her desertion, that soon after- wards, when they were involved in the general ruin of the royal cause, he received the whole of them into his house, and exerted his political influence very freely in their behalf. Fully to appreciate this behavior, we must rec- ollect that Milton was not rich, and that no part of his wife's marriage portion (£1,000) was ever paid to him. His thoughts now settled upon the subject of education, which it must not be forgotten that he connected systemat- ically with domestic liberty. In 1644 he published his essay on this great theme, in the form of a letter to his friend Hartlib, himself a person of no slight consideration. In the same year he wrote his " Areopagitica ; a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." This we are to consider in the light of an oral pleading or regular oration, for he tells us expressly (Def. 2) that he wrote it "ad justae orationis modum." It is the finest specimen extant LIFE OP MILTON. 239 of generous scorn. And very remarkable it is that Milton, who broke the ground on this great theme, has exhausted the arguments which bear upon it. He opened the subject; he closed it. And were there no other monu- ment of his patriotism and his genius, for this alone he would deserve to be held in perpetual veneration. In the following year, 1645, was published the first collection of his early poems; with his sanction, undoubtedly, but probably not upon his suggestion. The times were too full of anxiety to allow of «nuch encouragement to polite literature : at no period were there fewer readers of poetry. And for himself in particular, with the excep- tion of a few sonnets, it is probable that he composed as little as others read, for the next ten years ; so great were his political exertions. Early in 1649 the king was put to death. For a full view of the state of parties which led to this memorable event, we must refer the reader to the history of the times. That act was done by the Independent party, to which Milton belonged, and was precipitated by the intrigues of the Presbyterians, who were making common cause with the king, to insure the overthrow of the Independ- ents. The lamentations and outcries of the Presbyterians were long and loud. Under color of a generous sympathy with the unhappy prince, they mourned for their own political extinction and the triumph of their enemies. This Milton well knew ; and to expose the selfishness of their clamors, as well as to disarm their appeals to the popular feeling, he now published his " Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." In the first part of this he addresses himself to the general question of tyrannicide, justifying it, first, by arguments of general reason, and, secondly, by the authority of the Reformers. But in the latter part he argues the case personally, contending that the Pres- 240 LIFE OF MILTON. byterians at least were not entitled to condemn the king's death, who, in levying war and doing battle against the king's person, had done so much that tended to no other result. " If then,'' is his argument, " in these proceedings against their king, they may not finish, by the usual course of justice, what they have begun, they could not lawfully begin at all." The argument seems inconclusive, even as addressed ad hominem ; the struggle bore the char- acter of a war between independent parties, rather than a judicial inquiry, and in war .the life of a prisoner be- comes sacred. At this time the Council of State had resolved no longer to employ the language of a rival people in their international concerns, but to use the Latin tongue as a neutral and indifferent instrument. The office of Latin Secretary, therefore, was created, and bestowed upon Milton. His hours from henceforth must have been pretty well occupied by official labors. Yet at this time he undertook a service to the state, more invidious and perhaps more perilous than any in which his politics ever involved him. On the very day of the king's execution, and even below the scaffold, had been sold the earliest copies of a work admirably fitted to shake the new gov- ernment, and which, for the sensation produced at the time, and the lasting controversy as to its authorship, is one of the most remarkable known in literary history. This was the " Eikon Basilike, or Royal Image," pro- fessing to be a series of meditations drawn up by the late king, on the leading events from the very beginning of the national troubles. Appearing at this critical moment, and co-operating with the strong reaction of the public mind, already effected in the king's favor by his violent death, this book produced an impression absolutely un- paralleled in that century. Fifty thousand copies, it is LIFE OF MILTON. 241 asserted, were sold within one year; and a posthumous power was thus given to the king's name by one little book, which exceeded, in alarm to his enemies, all that his armies could accomplish in his lifetime. No remedy could meet the evil in degree. As the only one that seemed fitted to it in kind, Milton drew up a running commentary upon each separate head of the original ; and as that had been entitled the king's image, he gave to his own the title of " Eikonoclastes, or Image-Breaker," the famous surname of some amongst the Byzantine Cresars, who broke in pieces what they considered super- stitious images. This work was drawn up with the usual polemic abil- ity of Milton ; but by its very plan and purpose, it threw him upon difficulties which no ability could meet. It had that inevitable disadvantage which belongs to all minis- terial and secondary works ; the order and choice of topics being all determined by the Eikon, Milton, for the first time, wore an air of constraint and servility, following a leader and obeying his motions, as an engraver is con- trolled by the designer, or a translator by his original. It is plain, from the pains he took to exonerate himself from such a reproach, that he felt his task to be an invid- ious one. The majesty of grief, expressing itself with Christian meekness, and appealing, as it were, from the grave to the consciences of men, could not be violated without a recoil of angry feeling, ruinous to the effect of any logic, or rhetoric the most persuasive. The afflic- tion of a great prince, his solitude, his rigorous imprison- ment, his constancy to some purposes which were not selfish, his dignity of demeanor in the midst of his heavy trials, and his truly Christian fortitude in his final suffer- incs, — these formed a rhetoric which made its way to all hearts. Against such influences the eloquence of Greece 21 242 LIFE OF MILTON. would have been vain. The nation was spell-bound ; and a majority of its population neither could nor would be disenchanted. Milton was erelong called to plead the same great cause upon an ampler stage, and before an audience less preoccupied with hostile views; to plead, not on behalf of his party against the Presbyterians and Royalists, but on behalf of his country against the insults of a hired Frenchman, and at the bar of the whole Christian world. Charles II. had resolved to state his father's case to all Europe. This was natural, for very few people on the Continent knew what cause had brought his father to the block, or why he himself was a vagrant exile from his throne. For his advocate he selected Claudius Sal- masius, and that was most injudicious. This man, emi- nent among the scholars of the day, had some brilliant accomplishments, which were useless in such a service, while in those which were really indispensable he was singularly deficient. He was ignorant of the world, want- ing in temper and self-command, conspicuously unfur- nished with eloquence, or the accomplishments of a good writer, and not so much as master of a pure Latin style. Even as a scholar he was very unequal ; he had commit- ted more important blunders than any man of his age, and, being generally hated, had been more frequently exposed than others to the harsh chastisements of men inferior to himself in learning. Yet the most remarkable deficiency of all which Salmasius betrayed, was in his entire ignorance, whether historical or constitutional, of everything which belonged to the case. Having such an antagonist, inferior to him in all possi- ble qualifications, whether of nature, of art, of situation, it may be supposed that Milton's triumph was absolute. He was now thoroughly indemnified for the poor success LIFE OF MILTON. 243 of his " Eikonoclastes." In that instance he had the mortification of knowing that all England read and wept over the king's book, whilst his own reply was scarcely heard of. But here the tables were turned; the very friends of Salmasius complained, that, while his defence was rarely inquired after, the answer to it, "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano,'' was the subject of conversation from one end of Europe to the other. It was burnt publicly at Paris and Toulouse; and, by way of special annoyance to Salmasius, who lived in Holland, was trans- lated into Dutch. Salmasius died in 1653, before he could accomplish an answer which satisfied himself; and the fragment which he left behind him was not published, until it was no longer safe for Milton to rejoin. Meantime, others pressed forward against Milton in the same controversy, of whom some were neglected, one was resigned to the pen of his nephew Philips, and one answered diffusely by himself. This was Du Moulin, or, as Milton persisted in believing, Morus, a Reformed minister then resident in Holland, and at one time a friend of Salmasius. Two years after the publication of this man's book, ("Regii Sanguinis Clamor,") Milton received multiplied assurances from Holland that Morus was its true author. This was not wonderful. Morus had corrected the press, had adopted the principles and passions of the book, and perhaps at first had not been displeased to find himself reputed the author. In reply, Milton published his "Defensio Se- cunda pro Populo Anglicano,'' seasoned in every page with some stinging allusions to Morus. All the circum- stances of his early life were recalled, and some were such as the grave divine would willingly have concealed from the public eye. He endeavored to avert too late the storm of wit and satire about to burst on him, by denying 244 LIFE OP MILTON. the work, and even, revealing the author's real name ; but Milton resolutely refused to make the slightest alteration. The true reason of this probably was that the work was written so exclusively against Morus, full of personal scandal, and puns and gibes upon his name, which in Greek signifies a fool, that it would have been useless and irrelevant as an answer to any other person. In Milton's conduct on this occasion, there is a want both of charity and candor. Personally, however, Morus has little ground for complaint ; he had bearded the lion by submitting to be reputed the author of a work not his own. Morus replied, and Milton closed the contro- versy by a defence of himself, in 1655. He had, indeed, about this time some domestic afflictions, which reminded him of the frail tenure on which all human blessings were held, and the necessity that he should now begin to concentrate his mind upon the great works which he meditated. In 1651 his first wife died, after she had given Mm three daughters. In that year he had already lost the use of one eye, and was warned by the physicians, that, if he persisted in his task of replying to Salmasius, he would probably-lose the other. The warning was soon ac- complished; according to the common account, in 1654; but upon collating his letter to Philaras the Athenian with his own pathetic statement in the " Defensio Secunda," we are disposed to date it from 1652. In 1655 he resigned his office of secretary, in which he had latterly been obliged to use an assistant. Some time before this period, he had married his second wife, Catherine "Woodcock, to whom it is supposed that he was very tenderly attached. In 1657 she died in child- birth, together with her child, an event which he has re- corded in a very beautiful sonnet. This loss, added to his blindness, must have made his home, for some years, deso- LIFE OP MILTON. 245 late and comfortless. Distress, indeed, was now gathering rapidly upon him. The death of Cromwell in the follow- ing year, and the unaspiring character of his eldest son, held out an invitation to the ambitious intriguers of the day, which they were not slow to improve. It soon became too evident to Milton's discernment, that all things were hurry- ing forward to restoration of the ejected family. Sensible of the risk, therefore, and without much hope, but obeying the summons of his conscience, he wrote a short tract' On the ready and easy way to establish a free commonwealth, concluding with those noble words, " Thus much I should perhaps have said, though I were sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones, and had none to cry to, but with the prophet, O earth ! earth ! earth ! to tell the very soil itself what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoken should happen [which Thou suffer not, who didst create free, nor Thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants of men] to be the last words of our expiring liberty." A slighter pamphlet on the same subject, " Brief Notes " upon a sermon by one Dr. Griffiths, must be supposed to be written rather with a religious purpose of correcting a false application of sacred texts, than with any great expectation of political benefit to his party. Dr. Johnson, with his customary insolence, says, that he kicked when he could strike no longer: more justly it might be said, that he held up a solitary hand of protestation on behalf of that cause, now in its expiring struggles, which he had maintained when pros- perous ; and that he continued to the^last one uniform lan- guage, though he now believed resistance to be hopeless, and knew it to be full of peril. That peril was soon realized. In the spring of 1660, the Restoration was accomplished, amidst the tumultous re- joicings of the people. It was certain that the vengeance 21* 24:6 LIFE OF MILTON. of government would lose no time in marking its victims ; for some of them, in anticipation, had already fled. Mil- ton wisely withdrew from the first fury of the persecution which now descended on his party. He secreted himself in London, and when he returned into the public eye, in the winter, found himself no further punished than by a gen- eral disqualification for the public service, and the disgrace of a public burning inflicted on his " Eikonoclastes," and his " Defensio pro Populo Anglicano." Apparently it was not long after this time that he mar- ried his third wife, Elizabeth Minshul, a lady of good family in Cheshire. In what year he began the composi- tion of his " Paradise Lost " is not certainly known : some have supposed in 1658. There is better ground for fixing the period of its close. During the plague of 1665, he re- tired to Chalfont, and at that time Elwood the Quaker read the poem in a finished state. The general interruption of business in London, occasioned by the plague, and pro- longed by the great fire in 1666, explains why the publica- tion was delayed for nearly two years. The contract with the publisher is dated April 26, 1667, and in the course of that year the " Paradise Lost " was published. Originally it was printed in ten books : in the second and subsequent editions, the seventh and tenth books were each divided into two. Milton received five pounds in the first instance on the publication of the book. His further profits were regulated by the sale of the first three editions. Each was to consist of 1,500 copies, and on the second and third respectively reaching a sale of 1,300, he was to receive a further sum of five pounds for each; making a total of fifteen pounds. The receipt for the second sum of five pounds is dated April 26, 1669. In 1670, Milton published his "History of Britain," from the fabulous period to the Norman conquest. And in LIFE OP MILTON. 247 the same year he published, in one volume, " Paradise Regained " and " Samson Agonistes." The " Paradise Regained," it has been currently asserted that Milton pre- ferred to " Paradise Lost." This is not true ; but he may have been justly offended by the false principles on which some of his friends maintained a reasonable opinion. The " Paradise Regained " is inferior, but only by the necessity of its subject and design, not by less finished composition. In the " Paradise Lost," Milton had a field properly adapted to a poet's purposes: a few hints in Scripture were expanded. Nothing was altered, nothing absolutely added : but that which was told in the Scriptures in sum, or in its last results, was developed into its whole succes- sion of parts. Thus, for instance, " There was war in heaven," furnished the matter for a whole book. Now for the latter poem, — which part of our Saviour's life was it best to select as that in which Paradise was Regained ? He might have taken the Crucifixion, and here he had a much wider field than in the Temptation ; but then he was subject to this dilemma. If he modified, or in any way altered, the full details of the four Evangelists, he shocked the religious sense of all Christians ; yet the purposes of a poet would often require that he should so modify them. "With a fine sense of this difficulty, he chose the narrow- basis of the Temptation in the Wilderness, because there the whole had been wrapt up by Scripture in a few obscure abstractions. Thus, "He showed him all the kingdoms of the earth," is expanded, without offence to the nicest religious scruple, into that matchless succession of pictures, which bring before us the learned glories of Athens, Rome in her civil grandeur, and the barbaric splendor of Parthia. The actors being only two, the action of " Paradise Re- gained" is unavoidably limited. But in respect of com- position, it is perhaps more elaborately finished than " Paradise Lost." 248 life or MILTON. In 1672, he published in Latin a new scheme of Logic, on the method of Ramus, in which Dr. Johnson suspects him to have meditated the very eccentric crime of rebel- lion against the Universities. Be that as it may, this little book is in one view not without interest ; all scholastic systems of logic confound logic and metaphysics ; and some of Milton's metaphysical doctrines, as the present Bishop of Winchester has noticed, have a reference to the doc- trines brought forward in his posthumous Theology. The history of the last-named work is remarkable. That such a treatise had existed was well known, but it had disap- peared and was supposed to be irrecoverably lost. Mean- time, in the year 1823, a Latin manuscript was discovered in the State-Paper Office, under circumstances which leave little doubt of its being the identical work which Milton was known to have composed. By the king's command, it was edited by Mr. Sumner, the present Bishop of "Win- chester, and separately published in a translation. "What he published after the scheme of logic is not im- portant enough to merit a separate notice. His end was now approaching. In the summer of 1674 he was still cheerful and in the possession of his intellectual faculties. But the vigor of his bodily constitution had been silently giving way, through a long course of years, to the ravages of gout. It was at length thoroughly undermined : and about the 10th of November, 1674, he died with tranquil- lity so profound, that his attendants were unable to deter- mine the exact moment of his decease. He was buried, with unusual marks of honor, in the chancel of St. Giles's, at Cripplegate. 11 [The published lives of Milton are very numerous. Among the best and most copious are those prefixed to the editions of Milton's "Works, by Bishop Newton, secondly LIFE OF MJLTON. 249 by Todd, and thirdly by Symmons. An article of consid- erable length, founded upon the latter, will be found in Rees's Oychpcedia. But the most remarkable is that 'writ- ten by Dr. Johnson in his Lives of the British Poets ; a production grievously disfigured by prejudice, yet well de- serving the student's attention, for its intrinsic merits, as well as for the celebrity which it has attained.] NOTES. Note 1. Page 221. I believe somewhere about twenty-nine years ago : a date which I deduce indirectly from a casual recollection that the composition of this little paper synchronized pretty exactly in its close with the com- mencement of the ever-memorable Bristol riots on occasion of Sir Charles Wetherell's official visit. Note 2. Page 221. Which service, however, I have little doubt, will by this time have been much more adequately performed than I myself could hope to perform it, by Mr. Masson in his recent Life of Milton ; founding my hopes, in this particular case, specially upon the very distinguished Buccess which crowned his labors upon Chatterton ; labors the same in kind, but in degree much more severe, as applied to more slender materials. Note 3. Page 222. I. e. since Dr. Johnson gave utterance to that scoff. Note 4. Page 225. Polemic. — The reader ought to be aware that this word, though commonly restricted through pure ignorance to controversial theology, is not properly subject to any such limitation : what is hostile is un- conditionally polemic. Note 5. Page 226. Lobsters. — A cavalry regiment (so called from their scarlet uniform) raised and commanded by Sir Arthur for the Parliament. NOTES. 251 Note 6. Page 227. A feat, however, which our Sir Robert Sale found it possible to re- peat at Jcllalabad in 1842, and under this important disadvantage, — that our earthquake' made no pretence to equity or neutrality, but most unfairly sided with Akbar Khan and his Affghans; whereas Hannibal's struck out right and left, and scattered its favors slantin- dicularly [to speak after Cousin Jonathan] through both armies. Note 7. Page 229. Not meaning, however, as so many people do, insolently to gain- say the verdict of Milton himself, with whom, for my own part, mak- ing the distinctions that he would make, I have always coincided. The poet himself is often the best critic on his own works ; and in this case Milton expressed with some warmth, and perhaps scom, his preference of the Paradise Regained. Doubtless what disgusted him naturally enough was, that too often he found the disparagers of the one Paradise quite as guiltless of all real acquaintance with it as were the proneurs of the other. Else the distribution of merits is appar- ently this : in the later poem the execution is more highly finished ; or, at least, partially so. In the elder and larger poem, the scenical opportunities are more colossal and more various. Heaven opening to eject her rebellious children ; the unvoyageable depths of ancient Chaos, with its " anarch old " and its eternal war of wrecks ; these traversed by that great leading angel that drew after him the third part of the heavenly host ; earliest paradise dawning upon the war- rior-angel out of this far-distant " sea without shore " of chaos; the dreadful phantoms of sin and death, prompted by secret sympathy, and snuffing the distant scent of "mortal change on earth," chasing the steps of their great progenitor and sultan ; finally, the heart-freez- ing visions, shown and narrated to Adam, of human misery, through vast successions of shadowy generations ; — all these scenical opportu- nities offered in the Paradise Lost become in the hands of the mighty artist elements of undying grandeur not matched on earth. The compass being so much narrower in the Paradise Regained, if no other reason operated, inevitably the splendors are sown more thinly. But the groat vision of the temptation, the banquet in the wilderness, the wilderness itself, the terrific pathos of the ruined archangel's speech, "Tis true I am that spirit unfortunate, &c. (the effect of which, when connected with the stern unpitying answer, is painfully to shock the 252 NOTES. reader), all these proclaim the ancient skill and the ancient power. And, as regards the skill naturally brightened by long practice, that succession of great friezes which the archangel unrolls in the pictures of Athens, Rome, and Parthia, besides their native and intrinsic beauty, have an unrivalled beauty of position through the reflex illustration which reciprocally they give and receive. Note 8. Page 231. In candor I must add, if uncultured. This will suggest a great addition to the one in a hundred whom I have supposed capable of sympathy with tho higher class of models. For the majority of men have had no advantages, no training, no discipline. How extrava- gantly unjust, therefore, in the same Benjamin Haydon.whom I have just cited as a witness on my side, when he furiously denounces the mob of mechanics and day-laborers in London rushing carelessly past the exhibition-room of a great painting by himself, and paying their sixpences by bushels to see Tom Thumb. I have seen Haydon's ignoble and most unjust complaint echoed by multitudes. But this was a mob of pleasure-seekers in Easter-week : poor fellows, with horny hands, in quest most rightfully of something to refresh and ventilate their bodily systems scorched by the eternal fever of unrest- ing days and nights agitated by care. Anything on earth, anything whatever that would unchain the poor galley-slave's wrists from his everlasting oar ! And as to the oil-painting, surely the fields and the Easter flowers would be better than that. Haydon forgot that these poor fellows had never had their natural sensibilities called forth or educated. Amongst them, after all, might lurk a man or two that, having such advantages, would have eclipsed even Haydon. And besides, Haydon forgot that his exhibition not only cost a shilling, but would not allow of any uproarious jollification such as most of us like (none more than Haydon) after a long confinement to labor. Note 9. Page 237. It was bad policy in logic, to urge at that time the intellectual de- ficiencies (true or false) of the individual bishops, because this dilem- ma instantly arose : — These personal deficiencies in the bishops had, or had not, caused the prevailing ecclesiastical grievances. If they had not, then it was confessedly impertinence to notice them at all On the other, hand, if they had, then in whatsoever proportion they notes. 253 were responsible for the alleged grievances connected with the Church, in that proportion they exonerated the institution of Episcopacy from any share in producing those grievances. Such grievances could not be chargeable upon the personal insufficiency of the individual bishop, and yet at the same time separately chargeable upon the original vice of Episcopacy. Note 10. Page 237. " Mary PoweV — We have seen in the hands of young ladies a romance bearing this title, which (whether meant or not to injure Milton) must do so if applied to the real facts of the case. Novels professedly historical may, in some rare instances, have illuminated and vivified history ; much oftener they have perplexed it ; and like the famous Recess of Miss Sophia Lee, some seventy years back, starting from the basis of a marriage between our English Duke of Norfolk and the Scottish Queen Mary, have utterly falsified both the facts and the traditions of the case. But when applied to the facts or the traditions of biography, such romantic fictions have a far more calumnious tendency. Every step which is made towards the white- washing of the frivolous and unprincipled Mary Powel is a step towards the impeachment of Milton ; and impeachment in a case which, if any within the records of human experience, drew forth and emblazoned Milton's benign spirit of forgiveness, and his magnani- mous forbearance when a triumph was offered at once to his partisan- ship as a politician, and to his insulted rights as a husband. Look back, reader, for a few lines, and fix your attention upon the particu- lar date of Milton's marriage. There is something very significant and important in that. It was celebrated, as you see, at Whitsuntide in the year 1645. Now, as Whitsuntide is a movable festival, and dependent upon Easter, it is difficult to guess on what day it would fall in that year. But at the very earliest, Whitsuntide would fall in May, and at the latest, within the month of June. Now in that very June was fought and won by the Parliament forces under Fairfax the decisive battle of Naseby in Northamptonshire. That battle pros- trated the party to which the Powels belonged, and raised to the supreme administration of public affairs the party of Milton, and eventually Milton himself. It is true that a lingering resistance to the Parliament was kept up in garrisoned and fortified towns through- out the nine months succeeding to Naseby. But about Lady-day (March 25) of the following year, 1646, the very last act of hostility 22 254 NOTES. took place, viz. an extensive cavalry action at Stow-in-fhe-Wolds, a town of Gloucestershire. Sir Jacob Astley, who commanded for the king, was totally defeated ; and the prostration of the Royalists was on that day finally sealed. Now it was some months after Naseby that Milton, without reserve, forgave his erring wife, and reinstated her at the head of his family. Some private calamity must have con- curred about this time with their political overthrow to overwhelm the Powels. For a season they were ruined. But Milton, forgetting all injuries, received the entire family into his own house. So much for the real historic Mary Powel as compared with the Mary Powel of romance. Note 11. Page 248. This closing paragraph must (from internal evidence) have been added at the press, I presume in or about the year 1830 or 1831, when the little sketch was written and probably printed. I have no wish or design to charge the unknown writer with any intentional falsi- fication of my very determinate opinions upon the chief biographers of Milton. Bishop Newton and Archdeacon Todd I believe to have been honest men, but brought unavoidably into positions hying to that honesty, and even into inextricable perplexities, by the collision between two most solemn obligations, — viz. on the one hand loyalty to the Church of England, and on the other hand loyalty to the mighty poet whose intellectual interests they had spontaneously engaged to sustain, though well knowing that this great man had ranked as the most undistinguishing, fierce, and sometimes even malicious (though still conscientious) assailant that ever tilted against the splendid Anglican Establishment. Dutiful sons (being at the same time bene- ficed servants) of that Establishment, could not effectually mediate between interests so radically opposed. Would it indeed be fair to expect from one who had simply promised us a biographic sketch of an individual, that amongst the mere collateral issues emerging as questions incidentally connected with his theme, he should, for in- stance, exhaust the great problem of Church Government ? — whether best administered by Prelates arrayed in purple and gold, or by obscure and dust-begrimed Elders, or (in defiance of all alien author- ity) administered Independently, — i. e. by each congregation separately for itself, — in which case each congregation is a perfect church hang- ing by its own hook, and owning no debt, great or small, to any brother congregation, except only that of an exemplary kicking in NOTES. 255 case such brother should presume to interfere with advice not asked for, or with impertinent suggestion. Newton and Todd extricated them- selves with decency from a difficulty which it was impossible to face with absolute success ; and the main impression left upon my mind to their disadvantage is, that their materials were chaotic, difficult to organize without the powers of a demiurgus, and accordingly not organized. As to Symmons, he was a Whig ; and his covert pur- pose was to secure Milton for his own party, before that party was fully secreted by the new tendencies beginning to move amongst the partisanships of the age. Until Dr. Sacheverel came, in Queen Anne's reign, the crystallizations of "Whig and Tory were rudimental and incomplete. Symmons, therefore, was under a bias and a morbid kind of deflexion. He was, besides, tumultuary and precipitate in his modes of composition. Finally, as regards Dr. Johnson, am I the man that would suffer him to escape under the trivial impeachment of " prejudice " ? Dr. Johnson, viewed in relation to Milton, was a mali- cious, mendacious, and dishonest man. He was met by temptations many and strong to falsehood ; and these temptations he had not the virtue to resist. THE SULIOTES [a supplementary paper on the REVOLUTION OP GREECE.] We have thought that we should do an acceptable ser- vice to the reader by presenting him with a sketch of the Suliotes, and the most memorable points in their history. We have derived it (as to the facts) from a little work originally composed by an Albanian, in Modern Greek, and printed at Venice in 1815. This work was immedi- ately translated into Italian, by Gherardini, an Italian officer of Milan ; and shortly afterwards, with some few omissions, it was reproduced in an English version : but in this country it seems never to have attracted public notice, and is probably now forgotten. With respect to the name of Suli, the Suliotes them- selves trace it to an accident. " Some old men," says the Albanian author, reciting his own personal investiga- tions amongst the oldest of the Suliotes, " replied that they did not remember having any information from their an- cestors concerning the first inhabitants of Suli, except this only : — that some goat and swine herds used to lead their flocks to graze on the mountains where Suli and Ghiafa now stand ; that these mountains were not only steep and almost inaccessible, but clothed with thickets of wood and infested by wild boars ; that these herdsmen, being op- THE SULIOTES. 257 pressed by the tyranny of the Turks of a village called to this day Gardichi, took the resolution of flying for a dis- tance of six hours' journey to this sylvan and inaccessible position, of sharing in common the few animals which they had, and of suffering voluntarily every physical privation, rather than submit to the slightest wrong from their for- eign tyrants. This resolution, they added, must be pre- sumed to have been executed with success, because we find that, in the lapse of five or six years, these original occu- pants of the fastness were joined by thirty other families. Somewhere about that time it was that they began to awaken the jealousy of the Turks ; and a certain Turk, named Suli, went in high scorn and defiance, with many other associates, to expel them from this strong position, but our stout forefathers met them with arms in their hands. Suli, the leader and inciter of the Turks, was killed outright upon the ground; and, on the very spot where he fell, at this day stands the centre of our modern Suli, which took its name, therefore, from that same slaughtered Turk, who was the first insolent and malicious enemy with whom our country in its days of infancy had to contend for its existence." Such is the most plausible account which can now be obtained of the incunabula of this most indomitable little community, and of the circumstances under which it ac- quired its since illustrious name. It was, perhaps, natural that a little town, in the centre of insolent and bitter ene- mies, should assume a name which would long convey to their whole neighborhood a stinging lesson of mortifica- tion, and of prudential warning against similar molesta- tions. As to the chronology of this little state, the Alba- nian author assures us, upon the testimony of the same old Suliotes, that " seventy years before " there were barely one hundred men fit for the active duties of war, which, in 22* 258 THE SULIOTES. ordinary states of society, would imply a total population of four hundred souls. That may be taken, therefore, as the extreme limit of the Suliote population at a period of seventy years antecedently to the date of the conversation on which he founds his information. But, as he has un- fortunately omitted to fix the exact era of these conversa- tions, the whole value of his accuracy is neutralized by his own carelessness. However, it is probable, from the inter- nal evidence of his book, which brings down affairs below the year 1812, that his information was collected some- where about 1810. We must carry back the epoch, there- fore, at which Suli had risen to a population of four hundred, pretty nearly to the year 1740 ; and since, by the same traditionary evidence, Suli had then accomplished an independent existence through a space of eighty years, we have reason to conclude that the very first gatherings of poor Christian herdsmen to this sylvan sanctuary, when stung to madness by Turkish insolence and persecution, would take place about the era of the Restoration (of our Charles II.), that is, in 1660. In more modern times, the Suliotes had expanded into four separate little towns, peopled by 560 families, from which they were able to draw 1,000 first-rate soldiers. But, by a very politic arrangement, they had colonized with sixty-six other families seven neighboring towns, over which, from situation, they had long been able to exercise a military preponderance. The benefits were incalculable which they obtained by this connection. At the first alarm of war, the fighting-men retreated, with no encumbrances but their arms, ammunition, and a few days' provision, into the four towns of Suli proper, which all lay within that ring fence of impregnable position from which no armies could ever dislodge them ; meantime, they secretly drew supplies from the seven associate towns, THE SULIOTES. 259 which were better situated than themselves for agriculture, and which (apparently taking no part in the war) pursued their ordinary labors unmolested. Their tactics were sim- ple, but judicious ; if they saw a body of 5,000 or 6,000 advancing against their position, knowing that it was idle for them to meet such a force in the open field, they con- tented themselves with detaching 150 or 200 men to skir- mish on their flanks, and to harass them according to the advantages of the ground ; but if they saw no more than 500 or 1,000 in the hostile column, they then issued in equal or superior numbers, in the certainty of beating them, striking an effectual panic into their hearts, and also of profiting largely by plunder and by ransom. In so small and select a community, where so much must continually depend upon individual qualities and per- sonal heroism, it may readily be supposed that the women would play an important part ; in fact, " the women carry arms and fight bravely. "When the men go to war, the women bring them food and provisions ; when they see their strength declining in combat, they run to their assist-, ance, and fight along with them ; but, if by any chance their husbands behave with cowardice, they snatch their arms from them and abuse them, calling them mean and unworthy of having a wife." Upon these feelings there has even been built a law in Suli, which must deeply inter- est the pride of women in the martial honor of their hus- bands : agreeably to this law, any woman whose husband has distinguished himself in battle, upon going to a foun- tain to draw water, has the liberty to drive away another woman whose husband is tainted with the reproach of cowardice ; and all who succeed her, " from dawn to dewy eve," unless under the ban of the same withering stigma, have the same privilege of taunting her with her husband's baseness, and of stepping between her or her cattle until their own wants are fully supplied. 260 THE SULIOTES. This social consideration of the female sex, in right of their husbands' military honors, is made available for no trifling purposes ; on one occasion it proved the absolute salvation of the tribe. In one of the most desperate as- saults made by Ali Pacha upon Suli, when that tyrant was himself present at the head of 8,000 picked men, animated with the promise of 500 piastres a man to as many as should enter Suli, after ten hours' fighting under an en- feebling sun, and many of the Suliote muskets being ren- dered useless by continual discharges, a large body of the enemy had actually succeeded in occupying the sacred interior of Suli itself. At that critical moment, when Ali was in the very paroxysms of frantic exultation, the Suli- ote women, seeing that the general fate hinged upon the next five minutes, turned upon the Turks en masse, and with such a rapture of sudden fury that the conquering army was instantly broken, thrown into panic, pursued, and in that state of ruinous disorder was met and flanked by the men, who were now recovering from their defeat. The consequences, from the nature of the ground, were fatal to the Turkish army and enterprise ; the whole camp equipage was captured; none saved their lives but by throwing away their .arms ; one third of the Turks (one half by some accounts) perished on the retreat ; the rest returned at intervals as an unarmed mob ; and the bloody, perfidious Pacha himself saved his life only by killing two horses in his haste. So total was the rout, and so bitter the mortification of Ali, who had seen a small band of heroic women snatch the long-sought prize out of his very grasp, that for some weeks he shut himself up in his palace at Yannina, would receive no visits, and issued a procla- mation imposing instant death upon any man detected in looking out at a window or other aperture, — as being presumably engaged in- noticing the various expressions THE SULIOTES. 261 of his defeat which were continually returning to Yan- nina. The wars in which the adventurous courage of the Suli- otes (together with their menacing position) could not fail to involve them, were in all eleven. The first eight of these occurred in times before the French Revolution, and with Pachas who have left no memorials behind them of the terrific energy or hellish perfidy which marked the character of Ali Pacha. These Pachas, who brought armies at the lowest of 5,000, and at the most of 12,000 men, were uniformly beaten ; and apparently were content to be beaten. Sometimes a Pacha was even made pris- oner ; * but, as the simple Suliotes little understood the art of improving advantages, the ransom was sure to be pro- portioned to the value of the said Pacha's sword-arm in battle, rather than to his rank and ability to pay ; so that the terms of liberation were made ludicrously easy to the Turkish chiefs. • • These eight wars naturally had no other ultimate effect than to extend the military power, experience, and renown of the Suliotes. But their ninth war placed them in collis- ion with a new and far more perilous enemy than any they had yet tried ; above all, he was so obstinate and unrelent- ing an enemy, that, excepting the all-conquering mace of death, it was certain that no obstacles born of man ever availed to turn him aside from an object once resolved on. The reader will understand, of course, that this enemy was All Pacha. Their ninth war was with him ; and he, like all before him, was beaten ; but not like all before him did Ali sit down in resignation under his defeat. His hatred had now become fiendish; no other prosperity or success had any grace in his eyes so long as Suli stood, by which he had been overthrown, trampled on, and signally humbled. Life itself was odious to him, if he must con- 262 THE SULIOTES. tinue to witness the triumphant existence of the abhorred little mountain village which had wrung laughter at his ex- pense from every nook of Epirus. Delenda est Carthago ! Suli must be exterminated! became, therefore, from this time, the master watchword of his secret policy. , And on the 1st of June, in the year 1792, he commenced his second war against the Suliotes, at the head of 22,000 men. This was the second war of Suli with Ali Pacha ; but it was the tenth war on their annals ; and as far as their own exertions were concerned, it had the same result as all the rest. But about the sixth year of the war, in an indirect way Ali made one step towards his final pur- pose, which first manifested its disastrous tendency in the new circumstances which succeeding years- brought for- ward. In 1797 the French made a lodgement in Corfu ; and agreeably to their general spirit of intrigue they had made advances to Ali Pacha and to all other independent powers in or about Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa ; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence which he had long courted in vain, for attack- ing the place with his overwhelming cavalry before they could agree upon the mode of defence, and long before any mode could have been tolerably matured. The result was one universal massacre, which raged for three days, and involved every living Prevesan, excepting some few who had wisely made their escape in time, and excepting those who were reserved to be tortured for Ali's special gratifi- cation, or to be sold for slaves in the shambles. This dreadful catastrophe, which in a few hours rooted from the earth an old and flourishing community, was due in about equal degrees to the fatal intriguing of the interloping French, and to the rankest treachery in a quarter where it THE SULIOTES. 263 could least have been held possible, namely in a Suliote, and a very distinguished Suliote, Captain George Botzari ; but the miserable man yielded up his honor and his patriot- ism to Ali's bribe of one hundred purses (perhaps at that time equal to £2,500 sterling). The way in which this catastrophe operated upon Ali's final views was obvious to everybody in that neighborhood. Parga on the sea-coast was an indispensable ally to Suli ; now Prevesa stood in the same relation to Parga, as an almost indispensable ally, that Parga occupied towards Suli. This shocking tragedy had been perpetrated in the October of 1798 ; and in less than two years from that date, namely, on the 2d of June, 1800, commenced the eleventh war of the Suliotes, being their third with Ali, and the last which, from their own guileless simplicity, meeting with the craft of the most perfidious amongst princes, they were ever destined to wage. For two years, that is until the middle of 1802, the war, as managed by the Suliotes, rather resembles a romance, or some legend of Paladins, than any grave chapter in modern history. Amongst the earliest victims it is satisfactory to mention the traitor George Botzari, who, being in the power of the Pacha, was absolutely compelled to march with about 200 of his kinsmen, whom he had seduced from Suli, against his own countrymen, under whose avenging swords the majority of them fell, whilst the arch-traitor himself soon died of grief and mortification. After this Ali himself led a great and well-appointed army in various lines of assault against Suli. But so furious was the reception given to the Turks, so deadly and so uniform their defeat, that panic seized on the whole army, who declared unanimously to Ali that they would no more attempt to contend with the Suliotes, " who," said they, " neither sit nor sleep, but are born only for the destruction of men." Ali was actually 264 THE SULIOTES. obliged to submit to this strange resolution of his army ; but, by way of compromise, he built a chain of forts pretty nearly encircling Suli, and simply exacted of his troops that, being for ever released from the dangers of the open field, they should henceforward shut themselves up in these forts, and constitute themselves a permanent block- ading force, for the purpose of bridling the marauding excursions of the Suliotes. It was hoped that, from the close succession of these forts, the Suliotes would find it impossible to slip between the cross fires of the Turkish musketry ; and that, being thus absolutely cut off from their common resources of plunder, they must at length be reduced by mere starvation. That termination of the con- test was in fact repeatedly within a trifle of being accom- plished ; the poor Suliotes were reduced to a diet of acorns ; and even of this food had so slender a quantity, that many died, and the rest wore the appearance of blackened skel- etons. All this misery, however, had no effect to abate one jot of their zeal and their undying hatred to the per- fidious enemy who was bending every sinew to their de- struction. It is melancholy to record that such perfect heroes, from whom force the most disproportioned, nor misery the most absolute, had ever wrung the slightest concession or advantage, were at length entrapped by the craft of their enemy, and by their own foolish confidence in the oaths of one who had never been known to keep any engagement which he had a momentary interest in break- ing. Ali contrived first of all to trepan the matchless leader of the Suliotes, Captain Foto Giavella, who was a hero after the most exquisite model of ancient Greece, Epaminondas, or Timoleon, and whose counsels were uni- formly wise and honest. After that loss, all harmony of plan went to wreck amongst the Suliotes ; and at length, about the middle of December, 1803, this immortal little THE SULIOTES. 265 independent state of Suli solemnly renounced by treaty to Ali Pacha its sacred territory, its thrice famous little towns, and those unconquerable positions among the crests of wooded inaccessible mountains which had baffled all the armies of the crescent, led by the most eminent of the Ottoman Pachas, and not seldom amounting to 20,000, 25,000, and in one instance even to more than 30,000 men. The articles of a treaty, which on one side there never was an intention of executing, are scarcely worth repeat- ing ; the amount was, that the Suliotes had perfect liberty to go whither they chose, retaining the whole of their arms and property, and with a title to payment in cash for every sort of warlike store which could not be carried off. In excuse for the poor Suliotes in trusting to treaties of any kind with an enemy whom no oaths could bind for an hour, it is but fair to mention that they were now absolutely without supplies either of ammunition or .provisions, and that for seven days they had suffered under a total depriva- tion of water, the sources of which were now in the hands of the enemy and turned into new channels. The winding up of the memorable tale is soon told. The main body of the fighting Suliotes, agreeably to the treaty, immediately took the route to Parga, where they were sure of a hospi- table reception, that city having all along made common cause with Suli against their common enemy Ali. The son of Ali, who had concluded the treaty, and who inherit- ed all his father's treachery, as fast as possible despatched 4,000 Turks in pursuit, with orders to massacre the whole. But in this instance, through the gallant assistance of the Parghiotes, and the energetic haste of tlie Suliotes, the accursed wretch was disappointed of his prey. As to all the other detachments of the Suliotes, who were scattered at different points, and were necessarily thrown everywhere upon their own resources without warning or preparation 23 266 THE SULIOTES. of any kind, they, by the terms of the treaty, had liberty to go away or to reside peaceably in any part of Ali's dominions. But as these were mere windy words, it being well understood that Ali's fixed intention was to cut every throat among the Suliotes, whether of man, woman, or child; nay, as he thought himself dismally ill-used by every hour's delay which interfered with the execution of that purpose, — what rational plan awaited the choice of the poor Suliotes, finding themselves in the centre of a whole hostile nation, and their own slender divisions cut off from communication with each other? "What could people so circumstanced propose to themselves as a suitable resolu- tion for their situation? Hope there was none; sublime despair was all that their case allowed; and considering the unrivalled splendors of their past history for more than one hundred and sixty years, perhaps most readers would reply, in tke«famous words of Corneille, Qu'ils mourussent. That was their own reply to the question now so impera- tively forced upon them ; and die they all did. It is an argument of some great original nobility in the minds of these poor people, that none disgraced themselves by use- less submissions, and that all alike, women as well as men, devoted themselves in the " high Roman fashion " to the now expiring cause of their country. The first case which occurred exhibits the very perfection of nonchalance in circumstances the most appalling. Samuel, a Suliote monk of somewhat mixed and capricious character, and at times even liable to much suspicion amongst his countrymen, but of great name and. of unquestionable merit in his mihtary character, was in the act of delivering over to authorized Turkish agents a small outpost which had greatly annoyed the forces of Ali, together with such mihtary stores as it still contained. By the treaty, Samuel was perfectly free, and under the solemn protection of Ali ; but the Turks, THE SULIOTES. 267 with the utter shamelessness to which they had been brought by daily familiarity with treachery the most bare- faced, were openly descanting to Samuel upon the unheard- of tortures which must be looked for at the hands of Ali, by a soldier who had given so much trouble to that Pacha as himself. Samuel listened coolly ; he was then seated on a chest of gunpowder, and powder was scattered about in all directions. He watched in a careless way until he observed that all the Turks, exulting in their own damna- ble perfidies, were assembled under the roof of the build- ing. He then coolly took the burning snuff of a candle, and threw it into a heap of combustibles, still keeping his seat upon the chest of powder. It is unnecessary to add, that the little fort, and all whom it contained, were blown to atoms. And with respect to Samuel in particular, no fragment of his skeleton could ever be discovered. 2 After this followed as many separate tragedies as there were separate parties of Suliotes ; when all hope and all retreat were clearly cut off, then the women led the great scene of self-immolation, by throwing their children headlong from the summit of precipices, which done, they and their husbands, their fathers and their sons, hand in hand, ran up to the brink of the declivity, and followed those whom they had sent before. In other situations, where there was a possibility of fighting with effect, they made a long and bloody resistance, until the Turkish cavalry, finding an opening for their operations, made all further union im- possible, upon which they all plunged into the nearest river, without distinction of age or sex, and were swallowed up by the merciful waters. Thus, in a few days from the signing of that treaty which nominally secured to them peaceable possession of their property, and paternal treat- ment from the perfidious Pacha, none remained to claim his promises or to experience his abominable cruelties. In 2G8 the suliotes. their native mountains of Epirus, the name of Suliote was now blotted from the books of life, and was heard no more in those wild sylvan haunts, where once it had filled every echo with the breath of panic to the quailing hearts of the Moslems. In the most "palmy" days of Suli, she had never counted more than 2,500 fighting-men ; and of these no considerable body escaped, excepting the corps who hastily fought their way to Parga. From that city they gradually transported themselves to Corfu, then occupied by the Russians. Into the service of the Russian Czar, as the sole means left to a perishing corps of soldiers for earning daily bread, they naturally entered ; and when Corfu afterwards passed from Russian to English masters, it was equally inevitable that for the same urgent purposes they should enter the military service of England. In that service they received the usual honorable treatment,, and such attention as circumstances would allow to their national habits and prejudices. They were placed also, we believe, under the popular command of Sir R. Church, who, though unfortunate as a supreme leader, made himself beloved in a lower station by all the foreigners under his authority. These Suliotes have since then returned to Epirus and to Greece, the peace of 1815 having, perhaps, dissolved their connection with England, and they were even persuaded to enter the service of their arch-enemy, Ali Pacha. Since his death their diminished numbers, and the altered circumstances of their situation, should naturally have led to the extinction of their political im- portance. Yet we find them, in 1832, still attracting (or rather concentrating) the wrath of the Turkish Sultan, made the object of a separate war, and valued (as in all former cases) on the footing of a distinct and independent nation. On the winding up of this war, we find part of them at least an object of indulgent solicitude to the Brit- THE SULIOTES. 269 ish government, and under their protection transferred to Cephalonia. Yet again others of their scanty clan meet us at different points of the war in Greece, especially at the first decisive action with Ibrahim, when, in the rescue of Costa Botzaris, every Suliote of his blood perished on the spot ; and again, in the fatal battle of Athens (May 6, 1827), Mr. Gordon assures us that " almost all the Suli- otes were exterminated." "We understand him to speak, not generally of the Suliotes, as of the total clan who bear that name, but of those only who happened to be present at that dire catastrophe. Still, even with this limitation, such a long succession of heavy losses descending upon a people who never numbered above 2,500 fighting-men, and who had passed through the furnace seven times heated of Ah Pacha's wrath, and suffered those many and dismal tragedies which we have just recorded, cannot but have brought them latterly to the brink of utter extinc- tion. 23* NOTES. Note 1. Page 261. On the same occasion the Pacha's son, and sixty officers of the rank of Aga, were also made prisoners by a truly rustic mode of assault. The Turks had shut themselves up in a church ; into this, by night, the Suliotes threw a number of hives full of bees, whose insufferable stings soon brought the haughty Moslems into the proper surrendering mood. The whole body were afterwards ransomed for so trifling a sum as 1,000 sequins. Note 2. Page 267. The deposition of two Suliote sentinels at the door, and of a third person who escaped with a dreadful scorching, sufficiently established the facts ; otherwise the whole would have been ascribed to the treach- ery of Ali or his son. THE FATAL MARKSMAN. " Listen, dame," said Bertram, the old forester of Lin- den, to his wife; "once for all, listen. It's not many- things, thou well know'st, that I would deny to thy asking : but as for this notion, AnnB, drive it clean out of thy head ; root and branch lay the axe to it ; the sooner the better ; and never encourage the lass to think more about it. When she knows the worst, she '11 settle herself down to her crying ; and when that 's over, all 's over ; she sub- mits, and all goes right. I see no good that comes of standing shilly-shally, and letting the girl nurse herself with hopes of what must not be." " But Bertram, dear Bertram," replied old Anne, " why not ? could not our Kate live as happily with the bailiff's clerk as with the hunter Bobert? Ah, you don't know what a fine lad William is ; so good, so kind-hearted — " "May be, like enough," interrupted Bertram; "kind- hearted, I dare say, but no hunter for all that. Now, look here, Anne : for better than two hundred years has this farm in the forest of Linden come down from father to child in my familyi Hadst thou brought me a son, well and good: the farm would have gone to him; and the lass might have married whom she would. But, as the 272 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. case stands, — no, I say. "What the devil ! have I had all this trouble and vexation of mind to get the duke's allow- ance for my son-in-law to stand his examination as soon as he is master of the huntsman's business ; and just when all 's settled, must I go and throw the girl away ? A likely thing, indeed ! No, no, mistress Anne, it 's no use talking. It 's not altogether Robert that I care about. I don't stand upon trifles ; and, if the man is not to your taste or the girl's, why, look out any other active huntsman that may take my office betimes, and give us a comfortable fireside in our old age. Robert or not Robert, so that it be a lad of the forest, I '11 never stand upon trifles : but for the clerk — dost hear, Anne ? — this hero of a crow-quill, never hang about my neck or think to wheedle me again." For the clerk's sake old Anne would have ventured to wheedle her husband a little longer : but the forester, who knew by experience the pernicious efficacy of female elo- quence, was resolved not to expose his own firmness of purpose to any further assaults or trials ; and, taking down his gun from the wall, he walked out into the forest. Scarcely had he turned the corner of the house, when a rosy, light-haired face looked in at the door. It was Kath- arine : smiling and blushing, she stopped for a moment in agitation, and said : " Is all right, mother ? was it yes, dear mother ? " Then, bounding into the room, she fell on her mother's neck for an answer. " Ah, Kate, be not too confident when thou shouldst be prepared for the worst : thy father is a good man, as good as ever stepped, but he has his fancies ; and he is resolved to give thee to none but a hunter : he has set his heart upon it ; and he '11 not go from his word ; I know him too well." Katharine wept, and avowed her determination to die sooner than to part from her William. Her mother com- THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 273 forted and scolded her by turns, and at length ended by joining her tears to her daughter's. She was promising to make one more assault of a most vigorous kind upon the old forester's heart, when a knock was heard at the door — and in stepped "William. "Ah, "William!" — exclaimed Katharine, going up to him with streaming eyes, — " we must part: seek some other sweetheart: me you must never marry ; father is resolved to give me to Robert, because he is a huntsman ; and my mother can do nothing for us. But if I am to part from you, never think that I will belong to anybody else : to my dying hour, dear "Wil- liam, I will remain faithful to you." These bursts of wounded feeling were softened in the report of the mother : she explained to the bewildered clerk, who knew not what to make of Katharine's ejacula- tions, that Bertram had no objections to him personally ; but that, simply with a view to the reversionary interest in his place as forester, he insisted on having a son-in-law who understood hunting. " Is that all ? " said William, recovering his composure, and at the same time he caught the sobbing girl to his bosom, — " Is that all ? Then be of good cheer, dearest Kate. I am not unskilled in hunting : for, at one time, I was apprenticed to my uncle Finstersbusch, the forester-general ; and it was only to gratify my god-father the bailiff that I exchanged the gun for the writing-desk. What care I for the reversion of the bailiff's place, unless I may take my Kate into the bailiff's house as mistress ? If you can be content to look no higher than your mother did, and "Will the forester is not less dear to you than Will the bailiff, then let me die if I won't quit my clerkship this in- stant ; for, in point of pleasure, there 's no comparison between the jolly huntsman's life and the formal life of the town." 274 THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. " O thou dear, kind lad ! " said Katharine, whilst all the clouds dispersed from her forehead, and her eyes swam in a shower of glittering tears. "If thou wilt do this for my sake then do so, and speak to my father without delay, — before he can possibly make any promise to Eobert." " Stay, Kate : I '11 go after him this moment into the forest. He's gone in search of the venison, I dare say, that is to be delivered to-morrow into the office. Give me a gun and a pouch ; I '11 find him out, — meet him with a jolly hunter's salutation, — and offer my services to him as his hunting-boy." Both mother and daughter fell upon his neck ; helped to equip the new huntsman to the best of their skill ; and looked after him, as he disappeared in the forest, with hope, but yet with some anxiety. n. " Upon my soul, but this "William 's a fine fellow ! " ex- claimed the forester as he returned home with his comrade from the chase. " Who the deuce would ever have looked for such a good shot in the flourisher of a crow-quill? Well; to-morrow I shall speak with the bailiff myself ; for it would be a sad pity if he were not to pursue the noble profession of hunting. Why, he '11 make a second Kuno. You know who Kuno was, I suppose ? " said he, turning to William. William acknowledged that he did not. " Not know who Kuno was? ? bless my soul ! to think that I should never have told you that. Why, Kuno, you 're to understand, was my great-grandfather's father ; and was the very first man that ever occupied and culti- vated this farm. He began the world no better, I '11 assure you, than a poor riding-boy ; and lived servant with the THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 275 young knight of Wippach. Ah! the knight liked him well, and took him to all places, battles, tournaments, hunts, and what not. Well, once upon a time it happened that this young gentleman of "Wippach was present with many other knights and nobles at a great hunt held by the duke. And in this hunt the dogs turned up a stag, upon which a man was seated wringing his hands and crying piteously ; for, in those days, there was a tyrannical custom among the great lords, that, when a poor man had committed any slight matter of trespass against the forest laws, they would take and bind him on the back of the stag, so that he was bruised and gored to death by the herd, — : or if he escaped dying that way, he perished of hunger and thirst. "Well, when the duke saw this — O lord ! but he was angry ; and gave command to stop the hunting; and there and then he prom- ised a high reward to any man that would undertake to hit the stag, but threatened him with his severest displeasure in case he wounded the man ; for he was resolved, if possi- ble, to take him alive, that he might learn who it was that had been bold enough to break his law, which forbade all such murderous deeds. Now, amongst all the nobility, not a man could be found that would undertake the job on these terms. They liked the reward, mind you, but not the risk. So, at last, who should step forward but Kuno, my own great-grandfather's father, — the very man that you see painted in that picture. He spoke up boldly be? fore the duke, and said: 'My noble liege, if it is your pleasure, with God's blessing, I will run the hazard ; if I miss, my life is at your Grace's disposal, and must pay the forfeit ; for riches and worldly goods I have none to ran-? som it ; but I pity the poor man ; and without fee or re- ward, I would have exposed my life to the same hazard if I had seen him in the hands of enemies or robbers.' This speech pleased the duke : it pleased him right well : and 276 THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. he bade Kuno try his luck ; and again he promised him the reward in case he hit ; but he did not repeat his threat in case he missed ; that was, mind you, lest he should frighten him and make his hand unsteady. Well, Kuno took his gun, cocked it in God's name, and, commending the ball with a pious prayer to the guidance of good angels, he spent no time in taking aim, but fired with a cheerful faith right into the midst of a thicket : in the same moment out rushed the hart, staggered, and fell ; but the man was unwounded, except that his hands and face were somewhat scratched by the bushes. "The noble duke kept his word, and gave Kuno, for his reward, the farm of the forest to himself and his heirs for ever. But, lord bless us ! good fortune never wanted envy ; and the favor of Providence, as Kuno soon learned, is followed by the jealousy of man. Many a man there was, in those days, who would gladly have had Kuno's reward ; one man for himself, perhaps ; another for some poor cousin or so, or maybe something nearer of kin, but come of the wrong side the blanket : and what did they do but they persuaded the duke that Kuno's shot had hit the mark through witchcraft and black arts: ' For why ? ' said they, ' Kuno never took any aim at all, but fired at random "a devil's shot;" and a devil's shot, you 're to understand, never fails of hitting the mark ; for needs must that the devil drives.' So hereupon a regulation was made, and from this the custom came, that every descendant of Kuno must undergo a trial, and fire what they call his probationary shot before he is ad- mitted tenant. However, the master of the hounds, be- fore whom the trial takes place, can make it easy or diffi- cult at his own pleasure. When I was admitted, guess what the master required of me : why, from the bill of a wooden bird to shoot out a ring that fastened the bird to THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 277 a pole. Well, well : up to this time not one of all Kuno's descendants has failed in his trial : and he that would be my son-in-law and a worthy successor to me — let me telL you, William, that man had need to make himself a thorough huntsman." William, who had listened to this story with lively in- terest (as the old forester had not failed to remark with much satisfaction), rose from his seat when it was ended, pressed the old man's hand, and promised, under his tuition, to make himself a huntsman such as even old father Kuno should have had no cause to blush for. III. William had scarcely lived one whole fortnight at the forest house in his capacity of huntsman, when old Ber- tram, who liked him better every day, gave a formal consent to his marriage with Katharine. This promise, however, was to be kept secret until the day of the proba- tionary shot, when the presence of the ducal master of the hounds would confer a splendor on the ceremony of the betrothing which was flattering to the old man's pride. Meantime the bridegroom elect passed his time in rap- turous elevation of spirits, and forgot himself and all the world in the paradise of youthful love ; so that father Bertram often said to him tauntingly, that from the day when he had hit his prime . aim in obtaining Katharine's heart he had hit nothing else. The fact, however, was, that from that very day William had met with an un- accountable run of ill-luck in hunting. Sometimes his gun would miss fire ; at other times, instead of a deer, he would hit the trunk of a tree. Was his hunting-bag emptied on his return home ? Instead of partridges, out came daws and crows, and, instead of a hare, perhaps a 24 278 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. dead cat. At last the forester began to reproach him in good earnest for his heedlessness ; and Kate herself be- came anxious for the event of his examination before the duke's commissioner. William redoubled his attention and diligence ; but the nearer the day of trial advanced, so much the more was he persecuted by bad luck. Nearly every shot missed; and at length he grew almost afraid of pulling a trigger for fear of doing some mischief; for he had already shot a cow at pasture, and narrowly escaped wounding the herdsman. "Nay, I stick to my own opinion," said huntsman Ru- dolph one night, "somebody has cast a spell over Wil- liam ; for in the regular course of nature such things could never happen ; and this spell he must undo before ever he '11 have any luck." " Pooh ! pooh ! man, what stuff you talk ! " replied Bertram. " This is nothing but superstitious foolery, such as no Christian hunter should ever so much as name. Canst tell me now, my fine fellow, what three articles be those which make an able sportsman's stock in trade ? " "Ay, my old cock of the woods, I can tell you that" said Rudolph clearing his throat, "or else it were a pity: — ' A dog, a gun, and a skilful hand, In the forest are better than house or land.' " " Good," said Bertram, " and these three together are an overmatch for all the spells in Germany." " With your leave, father Bertram," replied William, somewhat chagrined, " here is my gun ; and I should be glad to see the man that has any fault to find with that : as to my skill, I will not boast of it ; yet I think it can't be denied that I do as well as others : nevertheless, so it is, THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. 279 that my balls seem to fly askance, as if the wind turned them out of their course. Do but tell me what it is that I should do, and there is nothing I will not try." " Strange, indeed ! " murmured the forester, who knew not what to say. " Take my word for it, William," repeated Rudolph, " it is just what I tell you. Go some Friday at midnight to a cross-road and make a circle round about you with a ram- rod or a bloody sword ; bless it three times in the same words as the priest uses, but in the name of Samiel — " " Hush ! hush ! " interrupted the forester angrily : " dost know what that name is ? why, he 's one of Satan's host. God keep thee and all Christians out of his power ! " William crossed himself and would hear no more, how- ever obstinately Kudolph persisted in his opinion. All night long he continued to clean his gun, to examine the screws, the spring, and every part of the lock and barrel ; and at break of day he sallied forth to try his luck once more. IV. But all in vain ; his pains were all thrown away ; the deer flocked round him almost as it seemed in mockery of his skill. At ten paces' distance he levelled at a roebuck ; twice his gun flasked in the pan ; the third time it went off", but the deer darted off unhurt through the bushes. Cursing his fate, the unhappy hunter threw himself de- spondingly beneath a tree ; at that moment a rustling was heard in the bushes, and out limped an old soldier with a wooden leg. " Good morning to you, comrade," said the soldier. " Why so gloomy, why so gloomy ? Is it body or purse that's ailing, health or wealth is it that you 're sighing for ? Or has somebody put a charm upon your gun? Come, 280 THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. give us a bit of tobacco, and let's have a little chat to- gether." With a surly air William gave him what he asked for, and the soldier threw himself by his side on the grass. After some desultory discussion, the conversation fell upon hunting, and William related his own bad luck. " Let me see your gun," said the soldier. " Ah, I thought so. This gun has been charmed, and you will never get a true aim with it again ; and more than that, let me tell you, if the charm was laid according to the rules of art, you '11 have no better luck with any other gun you take in hand." William shuddered, and would have urged some objec- tion against the credibility of witchcraft ; but the stranger offered to bring the question to a simple test. " To old soldiers, the like of me," said he, " there 's nothing at all surprising in it. Bless your soul, I could tell you stories stranger by half from this time to midnight. How do you think the sharp-shooters would come on, that must venture here, there, and everywhere, and must pick off their man from the very heart of the thickest smoke, where it 's clean impossible to see him — how must they come on, I would be glad to know, if they understood no other trick than just aim and fire ? Now here, for instance, is a ball that cannot fail to go true, because it's a gifted ball, and is proof against all the arts of darkness. «Just try it now ; give it a single trial : I '11 answer for it, you '11 not find it deceive you, I '11 go bail for it." William loaded his piece, and looked about for an aim. At a great height above the forest, like a moving speck, was hovering a large bird of prey. " There ! " said wooden- leg, " that old devil up there, shoot Mm." William laughed, for the bird was floating in a region so elevated as to be scarcely discernible to the naked eye. " Nay, never doubt ; shoot away,'' repeated the old soldier ; " I '11 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 281 wager my wooden leg you '11 bring him down." William fired, the black speck was seen rapidly enlarging, and a great vulture fell bleeding to the ground. " O bless your heart ! that 's nothing at all," said the soldier, observing the speechless astonishment of his com- panion ; " not worth speaking of. Indeed it 's no such great matter to learn how to cast balls as good as these ; little more is wanted than some slight matter of skill, and, to be sure, a stout heart ; for why ? the work must be done in the night. I'll teach you, and welcome, if we should chance to meet again; at present, however, I must be moving, for I 've a d d long march before me to-day, and I hear it just striking seven. Meantime, here 's a few braces of my balls for you," and so saying he limped off. Filled with astonishment, "William tried a second of the balls, and again he hit an object at an inaccessible dis- tance ; he then charged with his ordinary balls, and missed the broadest and most obvious mark. On the second trial, he determined to go after the old soldier ; but the soldier had disappeared in the depths of the forest, and William was obliged to console himself with the prospect of meet- ing him again. V. In the forest house all was joy and triumph when "Wil- liam returned, as formerly, with a load of venison, and gave practical evidence to old Bertram that he was still the same marksman he had first shown himself in his noviciate. He should now have told the reason of his late ill-luck, and what course he had taken to remove it ; but, without exactly knowing why, he shrank from telling of the inevitable balls, and laid the blame upon a flaw in his gun, which had escaped his notice until the preceding night. " Now, dame, dost a' see ? " said the forester laughing ; 24* 282 THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. " who 's wrong now, dame, I wonder ? The witchcraft lay in the gun that wanted trimming; and the little devil, that by your account should have thrown down old father Kuno's picture so early this morning, I 'm partly of opinion lies in a cankered nail." "What's that you're saying about a devil?" asked William. "Nay, nothing at all but nonsense," replied the old man ; " this morning, just as the clock was striking seven, the picture fell down of itself, and so my wife will have it that all 's not right about the house." " Just as it was striking seven, eh ? Ha ! " And across William's thoughts flashed like a fiery arrow the old soldier, who had taken his leave at that identical time. " Ay, sure enough, as it was striking seven : not a very likely time for devils to be stirring ; eh, my old dame ? eh, Anne ? " at the same time chucking her under the chin with a good-natured laugh. But old Anne shook her head thoughtfully, saying, " God grant all may turn out natu- ral ! " and William changed color a little. He resolved to put by his balls, and, at the most, only to use one upon his day of trial, lest he might be unconsciously trifling away his future happiness at the wily suggestions of a fiend. But the forester summoned him to attendance upon the chase ; and, unless he were prepared to provoke the old man, and to rouse afresh all the late suspicions in regard to his skill, he found himself obliged to throw away some of his charmed balls upon such occasions. VI. In a few days William had so familiarized himself to the use of his enchanted balls, that he no longer regarded it with any misgiving. Every day he roamed about in the THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 283 forest, hoping to meet the wooden-leg again ; for his stock of balls had sunk to a single pair, and the most rigorous parsimony became needful, if he would not put to hazard his final success on the day of trial. One day, therefore, he positively declined attending the old forester a hunting, for, on the next, the duke's commissioner was expected, and it might so happen that, before the regular probation, he would call for some exhibition of his skill. At night, however, instead of the commissioner, came a messenger from him to bespeak a very large delivery of game for court, and to countermand the preparations for his own reception until that day se'nnight. On the receipt of this news William was ready to sink to the ground ; and his alarm would certainly have raised suspicions had it not been ascribed to the delay of his marriage. He was now under/the necessity of going out to hunt, and of sacrificing at least one of his balls ; with the other he vowed to himself that he would not part for any purpose on earth, except for the final shot before the commissioner which was to decide his fate for life. Bertram scolded when "William came back from the forest with only a single buck : for the quantity of venison ordered was very considerable. Next day he was still more provoked on seeing Rudolph return loaded with game and William with an empty bag. At night he threatened to dismiss him from his house, and to revoke the consent he had given to his marriage with Katharine, unless he brought home at least two roe-deer on the fol- lowing morning. Katharine herself was in the greatest distress, and conjured him for love of her to apply his utmost zeal, and not to think so much about her whilst engaging in hunting. In a despairing mood William set off to the forest. Kate, in any case, he looked upon as lost; and all that 284 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. remained for him was a sad alternative between the two modes of losing her, whether by the result of this day's hunting, or of the trial before the commissioner. This was an alternative on which he felt himself incapable of deciding ; and he was standing lost in gloomy contempla- tion of his wretched fate, when all at once a troop of deer advanced close upon him. Mechanically he felt for his last ball ; it seemed to weigh a hundredweight in his hands. Already he had resolved to reserve this treasure at any price, when suddenly he saw the old wooden-leg at a distance, and apparently directing his steps towards himself. Joyfully he dropped his ball into the barrel, fired, and two roebucks fell to the ground. William left them lying, and hurried after the wooden-leg ; but he must have struck into some other path, for he had wholly disappeared. VII. Father Bertram was well satisfied with William ; but not so was William with himself. The whole day long he went about in gloomy despondency ; and even the tenderness and caresses of Kate had no power to restore him to se- renity. At nightfall he was still buried in abstraction ; and, seated in a chair, he hardly noticed the lively conversation between the forester and- Rudolph, till at length the former woke him out of his reverie. " What, William, I say," cried Bertram, " sure you '11 never sit by and hearken quietly whilst such scandalous things are said as Rudolph has just been saying of our forefather, Kuno? I'm sure, I won't. If good angels stood by, and gave help to him and to the poor innocent man on the stag's back, why nothing but right : we read of such cases in the Old Testament ; and let us 'thank God for that and all his mercies and marvels : but as to black THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 285 arts and devil's' shots, I '11 not sit and hear such things said of our Kuno. What, man ? Kuno died in his bed quietly, and with a Christian's peace, amongst his children and children's children ; but the man that tampers with the powers of darkness never makes a good end. I know that by what I saw myself at Prague in Bohemia, when I was an apprentice lad." " Ay ! what was that ? " cried Rudolph and the rest : " tell us, dear father." " What was it ? why, bad enough," said Bertram ; " it makes me shudder when I think of it. There was at that time a young man in Prague, one George Smith by name, a wild, daring sort of a fellow, — not but he was a fine, active lad in his way, — that was terribly fond of hunt- ing, and would often come and join us ; indeed, I may say, whenever he could. And a very fair hunter he might have proved ; but he was too hasty by far, and flung his shots away in a manner. One day, when we had been joking him on this, his pride mounted so high, that nothing would serve him but he must defy all the hunters in a bodja: he would beat any of them at shooting; and no game should escape him, whether in the air or in the forest. This was his boast; but ill he kept his word. Two days after comes a strange huntsman bolt upon us out of a thicket, and tells us that a little way off", on the main road, a man was lying half dead, and with nobody to look after him. We lads made up to the spot, and there, sure enough, lay poor George, torn and clawed all to pieces, just as if he had fallen amongst wild-cats: not a word could he speak ; for he was quite senseless, and hardly showed any signs of life. We carried him to a house : one of us set off with the news to Prague ; and thither he was soon fetched. Well, this George Smith, before he died, made confession that he had set about casting devil's 286 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. balls with an old upland hunter. Devil's balls, you under- stand, never miss ; and because he failed in something that he should have done, the devil had handled him so roughly, that what must pay for it but his precious life ? " " What was it, then, that he failed in ? " asked William falteringly. " Is it always the devil that is at work in such dealings ? " " Why, who should it be ? " rejoined the forester : " the devil, to be sure, who else ? Some people I 've heard talk of hidden powers of nature, and of the virtue of the stars. I know not : every man 's free to think what he likes ; but it 's my opinion, and I stick to it, that it 's all the devil's handicraft." William drew his breath more freely. " But did George not relate what it was that brought such rough treatment upon him ? " " Ay, sure enough, before the magistrates he confessed all. As it drew towards midnight, it seems, he had gone with the old hunter to a cross-road : there they made a circle with a bloody sword ; and in this circle they laid a skull and bones crossways. Then the old man told George what he was to do. On the stroke of eleven, he was to begin casting the balls, in number sixty-and-three, neither more nor less : one over or one under, as soon as twelve o'clock struck, he was a lost man. And during all this work he was not to speak a word, nor to step out of the circle, let what would happen. Sixty of the balls were to carry true, and only three were to miss. Well, sure enough, Smith began casting the balls ; but such shocking and hideous apparitions flocked about him, that at last he shrieked out, and jumped right out of the circle. Instantly he fell down senseless to the ground ; and never recovered his recollection till he found himself at Prague, as if wak- ing out of a dream, in the hands of the surgeon, and with a clergyman by his side." THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. 287 " God preserve all Christian people from such snares of Satan ! " said the forester's wife, crossing herself. " Had George, then," asked Rudolph, " made a regular contract with the devil ? " " Why, that 's more than I '11 undertake to say," replied Bertram ; for it is written, ' Judge not.' But let that be as it will, it can be no slight matter of a sin for a man to meddle with things that bring the Evil One about him ; and may, for aught he knows, give him power over body and soul. Satan is ready enough to come of himself, with- out any man's needing to summon him, or to make bar- gains with him. Besides, what need of any such help for a good Christian hunter ? You know that, William, by your own experience : with a good gun and a skilful hand, the hunter wants no devil's balls, but hits just where he should hit. For my part, if I had such balls, I would n't fire them for any money ; for the fiend is a wily devil, and might upon occasion give the ball a sly twist in its course, to serve his purpose instead of mine." vin. The forester went to bed, and left William in the most wretched state of agitation. In vain he threw himself on his bed ; sound sleep fled from his eyes. The delirium of a heated fancy presented to his eyes, by turns, in confused groups, the old wooden-legged soldier, George, Katharine, and the ducal commissioner. Now the unfortunate boy of Prague held up his hand before him, as a bloody memento of warning: then in a moment his threatening aspect would change into the face of Kate, fainting and pale as death ; and near her stood the wooden-leg, his countenance overspread with a fiendish laugh of mockery. At another time he was standing before the commissioner in the act of 288 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. firing his probationary shot ; he levelled, took aim, fired, and — missed. Katharine fainted away, her father re- jected him for ever ; then came the wooden-leg, and pre- sented him with fresh balls ; but too late, — no second trial was allowed him. So passed the night with William. At the earliest dawn he went into the forest, and bent his steps, not alto- gether without design, to the spot where he had met the old soldier. The fresh breezy air of the morning had chased away from his mind the gloomy phantoms of the night. " Fool ! " said he to himself, " because a mystery is above thy comprehension, must it therefore be from hell ? And what is there so much out of the course of nature in that which I am seeking, that supernatural powers need come to help me ? Man controls the mighty powers of the brute into obedience to his will ; why should he not, by the same natural arts, impress motion and direc- tion upon the course of a bit of lifeless, inert metal ? Na- ture teems with operations which we do not comprehend : and am I to trifle away my happiness for a superannuated prejudice ? I will call up no spiritual beings, but I will summon and make use of the occult powers of nature, never troubling myself whether I can decipher her mys- teries or not. I will go in quest of the old soldier ; and, if I should not find him, I will take care to keep up my cour- age better than that same George of Prague : he was urged on by pride ; but I by the voice of love and honor." In this manner did William discuss his own intentions : but the old soldier was nowhere to be found. Nobody of whom he inquired had seen any such man as he described. The next day was spent in the same search, and with no better success. " So be it, then ! " said William internally : " the days that remain for my purpose are numbered. This very THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 289 night I will go to the cross-road in the forest. It is a lonely spot ; nobody will be there to witness my nocturnal labors ; and I '11 take care not to quit the circle till my work is done." IX. Twilight had set in ; and William had provided himself with lead, bullet-mould, coals, and all other requisites, that he might be ready to slip out of the house unobserved immediately after supper. He was just on the point of departing, and had already wished the forester a good night, when the latter stopped him and took his hand. " William," said he, " I know not what is come to me, but so it is, that this evening I have an awe upon my mind, as if from some danger, God knows what, hanging over me. Oblige me by staying this night with me. Do n't look so cast down, my lad ; it 's only to guard against pos- sibilities." Katharine immediately offered her services to sit up with her father, and was unwilling to intrust the care of him to anybody else, even to her own William ; but father Bertram declined her offer. " Another time," said he, " another time : to-night I feel as if I should be easier if I had William with me." William was disposed at first to excuse himself: but Kate commended her father so earnestly to his care, that her requests were not to be resisted ; and he stayed with a good grace, and put off the execution of his plan until the succeeding night. After midnight the old forester became tranquil, and slept soundly, so that, on the following morning, he laughed at his own fears. He would have gone with William into the forest ; but William still clung to the hope of meeting his mysterious acquaintance with the wooden leg, and 25 290 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. therefore opposed his wishes with a plausible pretext about his health. The wooden-leg, however, never appeared ; and William, a second time, resolved on the nocturnal expedition to the cross-road. At night, when he came back from the forest, Katha- rine ran out joyfully to meet him. " Guess, William, only guess," she cried, " who it is that is come. There is a visitor for you, a right dear visitor ; but I will not say who, for you must guess." William had no mind for guessing, and still less for seeing visitors. On this day, the dearest in the world would have seemed in his eyes a troublesome intruder. He shrank gloomily from Katharine's welcome, and thought of turning back upon some pretence ; but at that moment the house door opened, and the light of the moon discovered a venerable old man in a hunter's dress, who stepped forwards and stretched out his arms to William. " William ! " exclaimed a well-known voice, and Wil- liam found himself in the arms of his uncle. A world of affecting remembrances, from the days of childhood, — re- membrances of love, of joy, and of gratitude, — pressed with the weight of magic upon William's heart: amidst these his midnight purpose slipped away from his thoughts ; and it was in the middle of the gayest conversation, upon the clock striking twelve, that William was first reminded with horror of the business he had neglected. "Just one night more," thought he, "one single night remains : to-morrow, or never ! " His volent agitation did not escape his uncle's notice ; but the old man ascribed it to some little weariness in his nephew, and good-na- turedly apologized for having engaged him so long in con- versation, by pleading his early departure, which he could not possibly put off beyond the first dawn of the next morning. THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 291 " Think not much of an odd hour or two thrown away," said he to "William on separating ; " may be you '11 sleep all the better for it." These last words had a deeper import to "William's thoughts than could possibly have been meant by his uncle. He saw in them an obscure allusion to Ms noc- turnal plans, which once executed, might (as he fore- boded) chase away from him forever the comfort of tran- quil slumbers. X. The third night came. Whatever was to be done must be done on this day, for the next was the day of trial. From morning to night had old Anne, with her daughter Kate, bustled about the house, to make arrange- ments for the suitable reception of her dignified guest, the commissioner. At nightfall everything was ready, and in the most becoming order. Anne embraced "William on his return from the forest, and for the first time saluted him with the endearing name of son. The eyes of Kate sparkled with the tender emotions of a youthful bride* — - that loves, and is beloved. The table was decked with festal flowers, and such as rural usage has appropriated, by way of emblems, to the occasion: viands more luxu- rious than usual were brought out by the mother; and bottles of choice old wine by the father. "This night," said Bertram, "we will keep the bridal feast : to morrow we shall not be alone, and cannot, there- fore, sit so confidentially and affectionately together; let us be happy then, — as happy as if all the pleasure of our lives were to be crowded into this one night." * " Bride." — We call no woman a bride until she is irrevocably married. But in Germany she then ceases to be a bride. The Braut. is she that is affianced ; which sometimes she is for years. But this betrothal, which makes her a bride, is swallowed up by her nuptials. 292 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. The forester embraced his family, and was deeply moved. "But, Bertram," said his wife, "let us be as happy as we will to-night, I 've a notion the young people will be happier to-morrow. Do you know what I mean ? " " Yes, love, I know what you mean ; and let the chil- dren know it also, that they may enjoy their happiness be- forehand. Do you hear, children? The vicar is invited to-morrow; and as soon as "William has passed his ex- amination — " At this moment a rattling noise and a loud cry from Katharine interrupted the forester's speech. Kuno's por- trait had again fallen from the wall, and a corner of the frame had wounded Katharine on the temples. The nail appeared to have been fixed too loosely in the wall, for it fell after the picture, and brought away part of the plas- ter. " What, in God's name, can be the reason," said Bertram with vexation, "that this picture can't be made to hang as it should do? This now is the second time that it has alarmed us. Katy, my love, art any worse ? " "No, not at all," said she, cheerfully, and wiping the blood from her tresses, "but I was sadly frightened." "William was thrown into dreadful agitation when he beheld the death-pale countenance of Kate, and the blood upon her temples. Just so had she appeared to him on the night of his hideous visions; and all the sad images of that memorable night now revived upon his mind, and tormented him afresh. The violent shock tended greatly to stagger him in his plans for the night ; but the wine, which he drank in large draughts, and more hastily than usual, for the purpose of hiding his anguish, filled him with a frantic spirit of hardihood: he resolved afresh to make the attempt boldly ; and no longer saw anything in his purpose but the honorable spectacle of love and cour- age struggling with danger. THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 293 The clock struck nine. "William's heart beat violently. He sought for some pretext for withdrawing, but in vain. What pretext could a man find for quitting his young bride on their bridal festival ? Time flew faster than an arrow : in the arms of love, that should have crowned him with happiness, he suffered the pangs of martyrdom. Ten o'clock was now past, and the decisive moment was at hand. Without taking leave, William stole away from the side of his bride ; already he was outside the house with his implements of labor, when old Anne came after him. " Whither away, William, at this time of night ? " asked she anxiously. " I shot a deer, and for- got it in my hurry," was the answer. In vain she begged him to stay : all her entreaties were flung away, and even the tender caresses of Kate, whose mind misgave her that some mystery lay buried in his hurry and agitation. William tore himself from them both, and hastened to the forest. XL The moon was in the wane, and at this time was rising, and resting with a dim red orb upon the horizon. Gloomy clouds were flying overhead, and at intervals darkened the whole country, which, by fits, the moon again lit up. The silvery birches and the aspen trees rose like apparitions in the forest ; and the poplars seemed, to William's fevered visions, pale shadowy forms that beckoned him to retire. He shuddered ; and it suddenly struck him, that the almost miraculous disturbance of his scheme on the two preceding nights, together with the repeated and ominous falling of the picture, were the last warnings of dissuasion from a wicked enterprise, ad- dressed to him by his better angel that was now ready to forsake him. 25* 294 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. Once again he faltered in his purpose. Already he was on the point of returning, when suddenly a voice appeared to whisper to him : " Fool ! hast thou not already accepted magical help ? is it only for the trouble of reaping it that thou wouldst forego the main harvest of its gifts ? " He stood still. The moon issued in splendor from behind a dark cloud, and illuminated the peaceful roof of the for- ester's cottage. He could see Katharine's chamber window glancing under the silvery rays ; in the blindness of love, he stretched out his arms towards it, and mechanically stepped homewards. Then came a second whisper from the voice ; for a sudden gust of wind brought the sound of the clock striking the half hour : " Away to business ! " it seemed to say. " Right, right ! " he said aloud, " away to business ! It is weak and childish to turn back from a business half accomplished ; it is folly to renounce the main advantage, having already, perhaps, risked one's sal- vation for a trifle. No : let me go through with it." He stepped forwards with long strides ; the wind drove the agitated clouds again over the face of the moon ; and William plunged into the thickest gloom of the forest. At length he stood upon the cross way. At length the magic circle was drawn ; the skulls were fixed ; and the bones were laid round about. The moon buried herself deeper and deeper in the clouds ; and no light was shed upon the midnight deed, except from the red, lurid gleam of the fire, that waxed and waned by fits, under the gusty squalls of the wind. A remote church clock proclaimed that it was now within a quarter of eleven. "William put the ladle upon the fire, and threw in the lead together with three bullets which had already hit the mark once : a practice, amongst those who cast the " fatal bullets," which he remembered to have heard mentioned in his apprentice- ship. In the forest was now heard a pattering of rain. THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. 295 At intervals came flitting motions of owls, bats, and other light-shunning creatures, scared by the sudden gleams of the fire; some, dropping from the surrounding boughs, placed themselves on the magic circle, where, by their low, dull croaking, they seemed holding dialogues, in some unknown tongue, with the dead men's skulls. Their num- bers increased ; and amongst them were indistinct outlines of misty forms, that went and came, some with brutal, some with human faces. Their vapory lineaments fluctu- ated and obeyed the motions of the wind ; one only stood unchanged, and, like a shadow, near to the circle, and settled the sad light of its eyes steadfastly upon William. Sometimes it would raise its pale hands, and seem to sigh : and when it raised its hands, the fire would burn more sullenly ; but a gray owl would then fan with his wings, and rekindle the decaying embers. William averted his eyes : for the countenance of his buried mother seemed to look out from the cloudy figure, with piteous expressions of unutterable anguish. Suddenly it struck eleven ; and then the shadow vanished, with the action of one who prays and breathes up sighs to heaven. The owls and the night- ravens flitted croaking about ; and the skulls and bones rattled beneath their wings. William kneeled down on his coaly hearth ; and with the last stroke of eleven, out fell the first bullet. XIL The owls and the bones were now silent ; but along the road came an old crooked beldame pell-mell against the magic circle. She was hung round with wooden spoons, ladles, and other kitchen utensils, and made a hideous rattling as she moved. The owls saluted her with hoot- ing, and fanned her with their wings. On reaching the circle, she bowed to the bones and skulls ; but the coals 296 THE FATAL MAEKSMAN. shot forth lambent tongues of flame against her, and she drew back her withered hands. --Then she paced round the circle, and with a grin presented her wares to William. " Give me the bones," said she, in a harsh, guttural tone, " and I '11 give thee some spoons. Give the skulls to me, love ; what 's the trumpery to thee, love ? " and then she chanted, with a scornful air : — " There 's nothing can help : 't is an hour too late ; Nothing can step betwixt thee and thy fate. Shoot in the light, or shoot in the dark, Thy bullets, be sure, shall go true to the mark. ' Shoot the dove,' says the word of command; And the forester bold, with the matchless hand, Levels and fires : marksman good ! The dove lies bathed in her innocent blood ! Here 's to the man that shoots the dove ! Come for the prize to me, my love ! " "William was aghast with horror; but he remained quiet within the circle, and pursued his labors. The old woman was one whom he well knew. A crazy old female beggar had formerly roamed about the neighborhood in this attire, till at last she was lodged in a mad-house. He was at a loss to discover whether the object now before him were the reality or an illusion. After some little pause, the old crone scattered her lumber to the right and left with an angry air, and then tottered slowly away into the gloomy depths of the forest, singing those words : — " This to the left, and that to the right; This and that for the bridal night. Marksman fine, be sure and steady; The bride she is dressed, — the priest he is ready. To-morrow, to-morrow, when daylight departs, And twilight is spread over broken hearts ; When the fight is fought, when the race is run, When the strife and the anguish are over and done ; When the bride-bed is decked with a winding-sheet, And the innocent dove has died at thy feet, — THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. 297 Then comes a bridegroom for me, I trow, That shall live with me in my house of woe. Here 's to him that shoots the dove ! Gome for the prize to me, my Jove ! " Now came all at once a rattling as of wheels and the cracking of postilions' whips. A carriage and six drove up with outriders. " What the devil 's this that stops the way ? " cried the man who rode the leaders. " Make way there, I say,' — clear the road." William looked up and saw sparks of fire darting from the horses' hoofs, and a circle of flame about the carriage wheels. By this he knew it to be a work of the fiend, and never stirred. " Push on, my lads, — drive over him helter-skelter," cried the same postilion, looking back to the others; and in a moment the whole equipage moved rapidly upon the circle. William cowered down to the ground, beneath the dash of the leaders' fore-legs ; but the airy train and the carriage soared into the air with a whistling sound, round and round the circle, and vanished in a hurricane, which moved not a leaf of the trees. Some time elapsed before Wil- liam recovered from his consternation. However, he compelled his trembling hands to keep firm, and cast a few bullets. At that moment a well-known church clock at a distance began to strike. At first the sound was a sound of comfort, connecting, as with the tones of some friendly voice, the human world with the dismal circle in which he stood, that else seemed cut off from it as by an impassable gulf; but the clock struck twice, thrice, — here he shud- dered at the rapid flight of time, for his work was not a third part advanced, — then it struck a fourth time. He was appalled ; every limb seemed palsied ; and the mould slipped out of his nerveless hand. With the calmness of despair he listened to the clock until it completed the full hour of twelve ; the knell then vibrated on the air, lingered, 298 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. and died away. To sport with the solemn hour of midnight appeared too bold an undertaking even for the powers of darkness. However, he drew out his watch, looked, and behold! it was no more than half-past eleven. Recovering his courage, and now fully steeled against all fresh illusions, he resumed his labors with energy. Profound quiet was all around him, disturbed only at intervals by the owls, that made a low muttering, and now and then rattled the skulls and bones together. All at once a crashing was heard in the bushes. The sound was familiar to the experienced hunter's ears ; he looked round, and, as he expected, a wild boar sprang out and rushed up to the circle. " This,'' thought William, " is no deception ; " and he leaped up, seized his gun, and snapped it hastily at the wild beast ; but no spark issued from the flint: he drew his hanger, but the bristly monster, like the carriage and horses, soared far above him into the air, and vanished. xin. William, thus repeatedly baffled, now hastened to fetch up the lost time. Sixty bullets were already cast : he looked up ; suddenly the clouds opened, and the moon again threw a brilliant light over the whole country. Just then a voice was heard from the depths of the forest cry- ing out, in great agitation, — " William ! William ! " It was the voice of Kate. William saw her issue from the bushes, and fearfully look round her. Behind her panted the old woman, stretching her withered, spidery arms after the flying girl, and endeavoring to catch hold of her float- ing garments. Katharine now collected the last remains of her exhausted strength for flight : at that moment the old wooden-leg stepped across her path ; for an instant it checked her speed, and then the old hag caught her with THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 299 her bony hands. William could contain himself no longer : he threw the mould with the last bullet out of his hands, and would have leaped out of the circle : but just then the clock struck twelve ; the fiendish vision had vanished ; the owls threw the skulls and bones confusedly together, and flew away ; the fire went out, and "William sank exhausted to the ground. Now came up slowly a horseman upon a black horse. He stopped at the effaced outline of the magic circle, and spoke thus : " Thou hast stood the trial well ; what wouldst thou have of me ? " " Nothing of thee, nothing at all," said William : " what I want, I have prepared for myself." " Ay ; but with my help : therefore part belongs to me." " By no means, by no means : I bargained for no help ; I summoned thee not." The horseman laughed scornfully. " Thou art bolder," said he, " than such as thou are wont to be. Take the balls which thou hast cast ; sixty for thee, three for me ; the sixty go true, the three go askew : all will be plain when we meet again." William averted his face. "I will never meet thee again," said he ; " leave me." " Why turnest thou away ? " said the stranger with a dreadful laugh ; " dost know me ? " " No, no," said William, shuddering : " I know thee not ! I wish not to know thee. Be thou who thou mayest, leave me ! " The black horseman turned away his horse, and said with a gloomy solemnity : " Thou dost know me : the very hair of thy head, which stands on end, confesses for thee that thou dost. I am he — whom at this moment thou namest in thy heart with horror." So saying, he vanished, followed by the dreary sound of withered leaves, and by the echo of blasted boughs falling from the trees beneath which he had stood. 300 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. XIV. " Merciful God ! what has happened to you, William ? " exclaimed Kate and her mother, as William returned, pale and agitated, after midnight: "you look as if fresh risen from the grave." "Nothing, nothing," said William, "nothing but night air ; the truth is, I am a little feverish." " William, William ! " said old Bertram, stepping up to him, " you can't deceive me : something has met you in the forest. Why would you not stop at home ? Something has crossed you on the road, I '11 swear." William was struck with the old man's seriousness, and replied : " Well, yes ; I acknowledge something has crossed me. But wait for nine days : before then, you know yourself that — " " Gladly, gladly, my son," said Bertram : " and God be praised, that it is anything of that kind which can wait for nine days. Trouble him not, wife ; Kate, leave him at peace ! — Beshrew me, but I had nearly done thee wrong, William, in my thoughts. Now, my good lad, go to bed, and rest thyself. ' Night,' says the proverb, ' is no man's friend.' But be of good cheer : the man that is in his vocation, and walks only in lawful paths, may bid defi- ance to the fiends of darkness and all their works." William needed his utmost powers of dissimulation to disguise from the old man's penetration how little his sus- picions had done him injustice. This indulgent affection of father Bertram, and such unshaken confidence in his uprightness, wrung his heart. He hurried to his bedroom, with full determination to destroy the accursed bullets. " One only will I keep, only one I will use," said he, hold- ing out his supplicating hands pressed palm to palm, with bitter tears, towards heaven. " O let the purpose, let the THE FATAL MAKKSMAN. 301 purpose, plead for the offence ; plead for me the anguish of my heart, and the trial which I could not bear ! I will humble, I will abase myself in the sight of God : with a thousand, with ten thousand penitential acts I will wash out the guilt of my transgression. But can I, can I now go back, without making shipwreck of all things, — of my happiness, my honor, my darling Kate ? " Somewhat tranquillized by this view of his own conduct, he beheld the morning dawn with more calmness than he had anticipated. XV. The ducal commissioner arrived, and expressed a wish, previously to the decisive trial, of making a little hunting excursion in company with the young forester. " For," said he, " it is all right to keep up old usages ; but, be- tween ourselves, the hunter's skill is best shown in the forest. So, jump up, Mr. Forester elect ; and let 's away to the forest ! " William turned pale, and would have made excuses : but, as these availed nothing with the commissioner, he begged, at least, that he might be allowed to stand his trial first. Old Bertram shook his head thoughtfully : " "William, "William ! " said he, with a deep tremulous tone. William withdrew instantly; and in a few moments he was equipped for the chase, and, with Bertram, followed the commissioner into the forest. The old forester sought to suppress his misgivings, but struggled in vain to assume a cheerful aspect. Katharine, too, was dejected and agitated, and went about her house- hold labors as if dreaming. " Was it not possible," she had asked her father, "to put off the trial?" "I also thought of that," replied he, and he kissed her in silence. Recovering himself immediately, he congratulated his 26 302 THE FATAL MARKSMAN. daughter on the day — and reminded her of her bridal garland. The garland had been locked up by old Anne in a drawer ; and hastily attempting to open it, she injured the lock. A child was therefore despatched to a shop to fetch another garland for the bride. " Bring the handsomest they have," cried dame Anne after the child : but the child, in its simplicity, pitched upon that which glittered most : and this happened to be a bride's funeral garland of myrtle and the rosemary entwined with silver, which the mistress of the shop, not knowing the circumstances, allowed the child to carry off. The bride and the mother well under- stood the ominous import of this accident : each shuddered ; and flinging her arms about the other's neck, sought to stifle her horror in a laugh at the child's blunder. The lock was now tried once more ; it opened readily ; the coronals were exchanged; and the beautiful tresses of Katharine were enwreathed with the blooming garland of a bride. XVI. The hunting party returned. The commissioner was in- exhaustible in William's praise. " After such proofs of skill," said he, " it seems next to ridiculous that I should call for any other test : but to satisfy old ordinances, we are sometimes obliged to do more than is absolutely need- ful : and so we will despatch the matter as briefly as pos- sible. Yonder is a dove sitting on that pillar : level, and bring her down.'' " O, not that, — not that, for God's sake, William ! " cried Katharine, hastening to the spot, " shoot not, for God's sake, at the dove. Ah ! William, last night I dreamed that I was a white dove ; and my mother put a ring about my neck ; then came you, and in a moment my mother was covered with blood." THE FATAL MARKSMAN. 303 William drew back his piece, 'which he had already levelled ; but the commissioner laughed. " Eh, what ? " said he, " so timorous ? That will never do in a forester's wife : courage, young bride, courage ! Or stay, may be the dove is a pet dove of your own ? " " No, it 's not that," said Katharine, " but the dream has sadly sunk my spirits." "Well, then," said the commissioner, "if that's all, pluck 'em up again ! and so fire away, Mr. Forester." He fired : and at the same instant, with a piercing shriek, fell Katharine to the ground. " Strange girl ! " said the commissioner, fancying that she had fallen only from panic, and raised her up ; but a stream of blood flowed down her face ; her forehead was shattered ; and a bullet lay sunk in the wound. "What's the matter?" exclaimed William, as the cry resounded behind him. He turned and saw Kate with a deathly paleness lying stretched in her blood. By her side stood the wooden-leg, laughing in fiendish mockery, and snarling out, " Sixty go true, three go askew." In the madness of wrath, William drew his hanger, and made a thrust at the hideous creature. " Accursed devil ! " cried he, in tones of despair ; " is it thus thou hast deluded me ? " More he had no power to utter ; for he sank in- sensible to the ground close by his bleeding bride. The commissioner and the priest sought vainly to speak comfort to the desolate parents. Scarce had the aged mother laid the ominous funeral garland upon the bosom of her daughter's corpse, when she wept away the last tears of her unfathomable grief. The solitary father soon followed her. William, the fatal marksman, wore away his days in a mad-house. THE INCOGNITO; OR, COUNT FITZ-HUM. PREFATORY EXPLANATION WRITTEN WHEN THIS LITTLE SKETCH WAS FIRST PUBLISHED. [The following Tale is translated from the German of Dr. Schulzc, a living * author of great popularity, not known at all under that name, but under the nom-de-plume of Friederich Laun. A judicious selection (well translated) from the im- mense body of his tales and schwalze would have a triple claim on public attention : first, as reflecting in a lively way the gen- eral aspect of German domestic life among the middle ranks : secondly, as pretty faithful reflexes of German tastes and pro- pensities amongst the most numerous class of readers ; no writer, except Kotzebue, having dedicated his exertions with more success to the one paramount purpose of meeting the popular taste, and adapting himself to the immediate demands of the market : thirdly, as possessing considerable intrinsic merit in the lighter department of comic tales. On this point, and effectu- ally to guard the reader against disappointment from seeking for more than was ever designed, I will say all that needs to be said in a single brief sentence ; the tales of Dr. Schulze have exactly that merit, and pretend to that merit, neither more nor * " Living." — He certainly was living, when I wrote this little pas- sage. But it may make all the difference in the world to the doctor, as also to the doctor's creditors, that the entire notice (consequently that particular word living) was written by me in the year 1823. THE INCOGNITO. 305 less, which we look for in a clever one-act dramatic after-piece ; viz. the very slightest basis of incident ; a few grotesque or laughable situations ; a playful style ; and an airy, sketchy mode of catching such fugitive revelations, in manners or in character, as are best suited to a comic treatment. The unelaborate nar- ratives of Laun are mines of what is called Fun, which in its way, even when German fun, is no bad thing. To apply any more elaborate criticism to them, would be " to break a fly upon the wheel."] The Town-Council were sitting, and in gloomy silence ; alternately they looked at each other, and at the official order (that morning received), which reduced their perqui- sites and salaries by one half. At length the chief burgo- master arose, turned the mace-bearer out of the room, and bolted the door. That worthy man, however, or (as he was more frequently styled) that worthy mace, was not so to be baffled : old experience in acoustics had taught him where to apply his ear with most advantage in cases of the present emergency ; and as the debate soon rose from a humming of gentle dissent to the stormy pitch of down- right quarrelling, he found no difficulty in assuaging the pangs of his curiosity. The council, he soon learned, were divided as to the course to be pursued on their common calamity ; whether formally to remonstrate or not, at the risk of losing their places ; indeed, they were divided on every point except one ; and that was, contempt for the political talents of the new prince, who could begin his administration upon a principle so monstrous as that of retrenchment. At length, in one of the momentary pauses of the hurri- cane, the council distinguished the sound of two vigorous fists playing with the utmost energy upon the panels of 26* 306 THE INCOGNITO; the door outside. "What presumption is this? exclaimed the chairman, immediately leaping up. However, on open- ing the door, it appeared that the fury of the summons was dictated by no failure in respect, but by absolute necessity : necessity has no law ; and any more reverential knocking could have had no chance of being audible. The person outside was Mr. Commissioner Pig; and his business was to communicate a despatch of urgent impor- tance which he had that moment received by express. " First of all, gentlemen," said the pursy Commissioner, " allow me to take breath : " and, seating himself, he began to wipe his forehead. Agitated with the fear of some un- happy codicil to the unhappy testament already received, the members gazed anxiously at the open letter which he held in his hand ; and the chairman, unable to control his impatience, made a grab at it : " Permit me, Mr. Pig." " No ! " said Pig ; " it is the postscript only which concerns the council : wait one moment, and I will have the honor of reading it myself." Thereupon he drew out his spec- tacles ; and, adjusting them with provoking coolness, slow- ly and methodically proceeded to read as follows : — "We open our letter to acquaint you with a piece of news which has just come to our knowledge, and which it will be im- portant for your town to learn as soon as possible. His Serene Highness has resolved on visiting the remote prov- inces of his new dominions immediately; he means to preserve the strictest incognito; and we understand will travel under the name of Count Fitz-Hum, attended only by one gentleman of the bedchamber, viz. the Baron Von Hoax. The carriage he will use on this occasion is a plain English landau, the body painted dark blue, ' picked out ' with tawny and white : and for his Highness in par- ticular, you will easily distinguish him by his superb whiskers. Of course we need scarcely suggest to you, OR, COUtfT PITZ-HUM. 307 that, if the principal hotel of your town should not be in comme-il-faut order, or for any reason not fully and uncon- ditionally available, it will be proper in that case to meet the illustrious traveller on his entrance with an offer of better accommodations in one of the best private mansions, amongst which your own, Herr Pig, is reputed to stand foremost. Your town is to have the honor of the new sov- ereign's first visit ; and on this account you will be much envied, and the eyes of all. Germany turned upon you." " Doubtless, most important intelligence ! " said the chair- man: "but who is your correspondent?" " The old and eminent house of Wassermiiller ; and I thought it my duty to communicate the information with- out delay." " To be sure, to be sure ; and the council is under the greatest obligation to you for the service." So said all the rest ; for they all viewed in the light of a providential interference on behalf of the old traditional fees, perquisites, and salaries, this opportunity so unex- pectedly thrown in their way of winning the prince's favor. To make the best use of such an opportunity, it was abso- lutely necessary that their hospitalities should be on the most liberal scale. On that account it was highly gratify- ing to the council that Commissioner Pig loyally volun- teered the loan of his house. Some drawback undoubtedly it was on this pleasure, that Commissioner Pig in his next sentence made known that he must be paid for his loyalty. However there was no remedy ; and his demands were ac- ceded to. For not only was Pig-house the only mansion in the town at all suitable for the occasion ; but it was also known to be so in the prince's capital, as clearly appeared from the letter which had just been read; at least when read by Pig himself. All being thus arranged, and the council on the point of 308 THE incognito; breaking up, a sudden cry of " Treason ! " was raised by a member ; and the mace-bearer was detected skulking be- hind an arm-chair, perfidiously drinking' in the secrets of the state. He was instantly dragged out, the enormity of his crime displayed to him (which under many wise governments, the chairman assured him, would have been punished with the bowstring or instant impalement), and after being amerced in a considerable fine, which paid the first instalment of the Piggian- demand, he was bound over to inviolable secrecy by an oath of great solemnity. This oath, at the suggestion of a member, was afterwards ad- ministered to the whole of the senate in rotation, as also to the Commissioner ; which done, the council adjourned. " Now, my dear creatures," said the Commissioner to his wife and daughter, on returning home, "without a moment's delay send for the painter, the upholsterer, the cabinet-maker, also for the butcher, the fishmonger, the poulterer, the confectioner; in one half-hour let each and all be at work : and at work let them continue all day and all night." " At work ! but what for ? what for, Pig ? " "And, do you hear, as quickly as possible,'' added Pig, driving them both out of the room. "But what for?" they both repeated, re-entering at another door. Without vouchsafing any answer, however, the Commis- sioner went on : " And let the tailor, the shoemaker, the milliner, the " "The fiddle-stick end, Mr. Pig. I insist upon know- ing what all this is about." "No matter what, my darling. Sic volo, sic jubeo stet pro ratione voluntas." " Hark you, Mr. Commissioner. Matters are at length come to a crisis. You have the audacity to pretend to OK, COUNT F1TZ-HUM. 309 keep a secret from your lawful wife. Hear then my fixed determination. At this moment there is a haunch of venison roasting for dinner. The cook is so ignorant that, without my directions, this haunch will be scorched to a cinder. Now I swear that, unless you instantly reveal to me this secret, without any reservation whatever, I will resign the venison to its fate. I will, by all that is sacred." The venison could not be exposed to a more fiery trial than was Mr. Commissioner Pig ; the venison, when alive and hunted, could not have perspired more profusely, nor trembled in more anguish. But there was no alternative. His " morals " gave way before his " passions : " and after binding his wife and daughter by the general oath of secrecy, he communicated the state mystery. By the same or similar methods so many other wives assailed the virtue of their husbands, that in a few hours the limited scheme of secrecy adopted by the council was realized on the most extensive scale ; for before nightfall, not mere- ly a few members of the council, but every man, woman, and child in the place, had been solemnly bound over to inviolable secrecy. Meantime some members of the council, who had an unhappy leaning to infidelity, began to suggest doubts on the authenticity of the Commissioner's news. Of old time he had been celebrated for the prodigious quantity of secret intelligence which his letters communicated, but not equally for its quality. Too often it stood in unhappy contradiction to the official news of the public journals. But still, on such occasions, the Commissioner would ex- claim : What then ? Who would believe what newspapers say ? No man of sense believes a word the newspapers say. Agreeably to which hypothesis, upon various cases of obstinate discord between his letters and the gazettes 310 THE INCOGNITO ; of Europe, some of which went the length of point-blank contradiction, unceremoniously giving the lie to each other, he persisted in siding with the former: peremptorily re- fusing to be talked into a belief of certain events which the rest of Europe have long ago persuaded themselves to think matter of history. The battle of Leipsic, for in- stance, he treates to this hour as a mere idle chimera of visionary politicians.* Pure hypochondriacal fiction ! says he. No such affair ever could have occurred, as you may convince yourself by looking at my private letters : they make no allusion to any transaction of that sort, as you will see at once; none whatever. Such being the char- acter of the Commissioner's private correspondence, sev- eral councilmen were disposed, on reflection, to treat his recent communication as very questionable and apocryphal, amongst whom was the chairman or chief burgomaster; and the next day he walked over to Pig-house for the purpose of expressing his doubts. The Commissioner was so much offended, that the other found it advisable to apologize with some energy. " I protest to you, '' said he, "that as a private individual I am fully satisfied, it is only in my public capacity that I took the liberty of doubt- ing. The truth is, our town chest is miserably poor, and we would not wish to go to the expense of a new covering for the council-table upon a false alarm. Upon my honor, * This seeming extravagance might have pleaded its own counter- part in Liverpool. Mr. Koster, a gold-merchant in that great town, never to his dying day would hear of any pretended battle at Talaveva in the year 1809. Through Southey's introduction I myself formed his acquaintance, and though I found him (as the reader will sup- pose) by intermitting fits crotchety and splenetically eccentric, no man could refuse his deference to Mr. ICoster's intellectual preten- sions. I may add, that he was pre-eminently hospitable, and full of friendly services. But, as to Talavera, really you must excuse him. OK, COUNT FITZ-HUM. 311 it was solely upon patriotic grounds that I sided with the sceptics." The Commissioner scarcely gave himself the trouble of accepting his apologies. And indeed at this moment the burgomaster had reason himself to feel ashamed of his absurd scruples ; for in rushed a breath- less messenger to announce that the blue landau and the "superb whiskers" had just passed through the north gate. Yes ; Fitz-Hum and Von Hoax were positively here ; not coming, but come ; and the profanest sceptic could no longer presume to doubt. For, whilst the mes- senger yet spoke, the wheels of Fitz-Hum's landau began to hum along the street. The chief burgomaster fled in affright; and with him fled the shades of infidelity. This was a triumph, a providential coup-de-theatre, on the side of the true believers : the orthodoxy of the Pig- gian Commercium Epistolicum was now forever established. Nevertheless, even in this great moment of his existence, Pig felt that he was not happy, not perfectly happy ; some- thing was still left to desire ; something which reminded him that he was mortal. " O, why," said he, " why, when such a cornucopia of blessings is showered upon me, why would destiny will that it must come one day too soon? before the Brussels carpet was laid down in the breakfast-room, before the — ." At this instant the car- riage suddenly rolled up to the door : a dead stop followed, which put a dead stop to Pig's soliloquy : the steps were audibly let down ; and the Commissioner was obliged to rush out precipitately in order to do the honors of re- ception to his illustrious guest. " No ceremony, I beg," said the Count Fitz-Hum : " for one day at least let no idle forms remind me of courts, or banish the happy thought that I am in the bosom of friends ! " So saying, he stretched out his hand to the Commissioner ; and, though he did not shake Pig's hand, 312 THE INCOGNITO ; yet (as great men do) lie pressed it with the air of one who has feelings too fervent and profound for utterance ; whilst Pig, on his part, sank upon one knee, and imprinted a grateful kiss upon that princely hand which had hy its condescension for ever glorified his own. Von Hoax was no less gracious than the Count Fitz- Hum; and was pleased repeatedly, both by words and gestures, to signify that he dispensed with all ceremony and idle consideration of rank. The Commissioner was beginning to apologize for the unfinished state of the preparations, but the Count would not hear of it. " Affection to my person,'' said he ; " un- seasonable affection, I must say it, has (it seems) betrayed my rank to you ; but for this night at least, I beseech you, let us forget it." And, upon the ladies excusing them- selves from appearing, on the plea that those dresses were not yet arrived in which they could think of presenting themselves before their sovereign, — " Ah ! what ? " said the Count, gayly ; " my dear Commissioner, I cannot think of accepting such excuses as these." Agitated as the ladies were at this summons, they found all their alarms put to flight in a moment by the affability and gracious manners of the high personage. Nothing came amiss to him: everything was right and delightful. Down went the little sofa-bed in a closet, which they had found it neces- sary to make up for one night, the state-bed not being ready until the following day ; and with the perfect high- breeding of a prince, he saw in the least mature of the arrangements for his reception, and the least successful of the attempts to entertain him, nothing but the good inten- tion and loyal affection which had suggested them. The first great question which arose was, At what hour would the Count Fitz-Hum be pleased to take sup- per ? But this question the Count Fitz-Hum referred OK, CODKT FITZ-HUM. 313 ■wholly to the two ladies ; and for this one night he notified his pleasure that no other company should be invited. Precisely at eleven o'clock the party sat down to supper, which was served on the round table in the library. The Count Fitz-Hum, we have the pleasure of stating, was in the best health and spirits ; and, on taking his seat, he smiled with the most paternal air, — at the same time bowing to the ladies who sat on his right and left hand, and saying, — " Ou peut-on Stre mieux, qu'au sein de sa famille ? " At which words tears began to trickle down the cheeks of the Commissioner, overwhelmed with the sense of the honor and happiness which were thus descending pleno imbre upon his family ; and finding nothing left to wish for but that the whole city had been witness to his felicity. Even the cook came in for some distant rays and emanations of the princely countenance ; for the Count Fitz-Hum condescended to express his entire approbation of the supper, and signified his pleasure to Von Hoax, that the cook should be remembered on the next vacancy which occurred in the palace establishment. "Tears, such as tender fathers shed," had already on this night bedewed the cheeks of the Commissioner ; but before he retired to bed, he was destined to shed more and still sweeter tears ; for after supper he was honored by a long private interview with the Count, in which that per- sonage expressed his astonishment (indeed, he must say his indignation) that merit so distinguished as that of Mr. Pig should so long have remained unknown at court. " I now see more than ever," said he, "the necessity there was that I should visit my states incognito." And he then threw out pretty plain intimations that a place, and even a title, would soon be conferred on his host. Upon this Pig wept copiously : and, upon retiring, being immediately honored by an interview with Mr. Von Hoax, 27 314 THE INCOGNITO ; who assured him that he was much mistaken if he thought that his Highness ever did these things by halves, or would cease to watch over the fortunes of a family whom he had once taken into his special grace, the good man absolutely sobbed like a child, and could neither utter a word, nor get a wink of sleep that night. All night the workmen pursued their labors, and by morning the state apartments were in complete prepara- tion. By this time it was universally known throughout the city who was sleeping at the Commissioner's. As soon, therefore, as it could be supposed agreeable to him, the trained bands of the town marched down to pay their re- spects by a morning salute. The drums awoke the Count, who rose immediately, and in a few minutes presented himself at the window, bowing repeatedly and in the most gracious manner. A prodigious roar of " Vivat Serenissi- mus ! " ascended from the mob ; amongst whom the Count had some difficulty in descrying the martial body who were parading below ; that gallant corps mustering, in fact, four- teen strong, of whom nine were reported fit for service ; the " balance of five," as their commercial leader observed, being either on the sick-list, or, at least, not ready for " all work," though too loyal to decline a labor of love like the present. The Count received the report of the command- ing officer ; and declared (addressing himself to Von Hoax, but loud enough to be overheard by the officer) that he had seldom seen a more soldierly body of men, or who had more the air of being aguerris. The officer's honest face burned with the anticipation of communicating so flattering a judgment to his corps ; and his delight was not dimin- ished by overhearing the words " early promotion," and " order of merit." In the transports of his gratitude, he determined that the fourteen should fire a volley ; but this was an event not to be accomplished in a hurry ; much OK, COUNT PITZ-HUM. 315 forethought and deep premeditation were required ; a con- siderable " balance " of the gallant troops were not quite aufait in the art of loading, and a considerable "balance" of the muskets not quite au fait in the art of going off. Men and muskets being alike veterans, the agility of youth was not to be expected of them ; and the issue was — that only two guns did actually go off. " But in com- mercial cities/' as the good-natured Count observed to his host, " a large discount must always be made on prompt payment." Breakfast was now over : the bells of the churches were ringing ; the streets swarming with people in their holiday clothes ; and numerous deputations, with addresses, peti- tions, &c, from the companies and guilds of the city were forming into processions. First came the town-council, with the chief burgomaster at their head ; the recent order for the reduction of fees, &c, was naturally made the sub- ject of a dutiful remonstrance ; and great was the joy with which the Count's answer was received : " On the word of a prince, he had never heard of it before : his signature must have been obtained by some court intrigue ; but he could assure his faithful council that, on his return to his capital, his first care would be to punish the authors of so scandalous a measure ; and to take such other steps, of an opposite description, as were due to the long services of the petitioners, and to the honor and dignity of the nation.'' The council were then presented seriatim, and had all the honor of kissing hands. These gentlemen having with- drawn, next came all the trading companies ; each with an address of congratulation expressive of love and devo- tion, but uniformly bearing some little rider attached to it of a more exclusive nature. The tailors prayed for the general abolition of seamstresses, as nuisances and invad- ers of chartered rights. The shoemakers, in conjunction 316 THE INCOGNITO ; with, the tanners and curriers, complained that Providence had in vain endowed leather with the valuable property of perishableness, if the selfishness of the iron trade were allowed to counteract this benign arrangement by driving nails into all men's shoe-soles. The hair-dressers were modest, indeed too modest in their demands, confining themselves to the request that, for the better encourage- ment of wigs, a tax should be imposed upon every man who presumed to wear his own hair, and that it should be felony for a gentleman to appear without powder. The glaziers were content with the existing state of things ; only that they felt it their duty to complain of the police regulation against breaking the windows of those who refused to join in public illuminations : a regulation the more harsh, as it was well known that hail-storms had for many years sadly fallen off, and the present race of hail- stones were scandalously degenerating from their ancestors of the last generation. The bakers complained that their enemies had accused them of wishing to sell their bread at a higher price ; which was a base insinuation ; all they wished for being that they might diminish their loaves in size ; and this, upon public grounds, was highly requisite : " fulness of bread " being notoriously the root of Jacobin- ism, and under the present assize of bread, men ate so much bread that they did not know what the d — they would be at. A course of small loaves would therefore be the best means of bringing them round to sound principles. To the bakers succeeded the projectors ; the first of whom offered to make the town conduits and sewers navigable, if his Highness would " lend him a thousand pounds." The clergy of the city, whose sufferings had been great from the weekly scourgings which they and their works received from the town newspaper, called out clamorously for a literary censorship. On the other hand, the editor of the ' OK, COUNT FITZ-HUM. 317 newspaper prayed for unlimited freedom of the press, and abolition of the law of libel. Certainly the Count Fitz-Hum must have had the happi- est art of reconciling contradictions, and insinuating hopes into the most desperate cases ; for the petitioners, one and all, quitted his presence delighted and elevated with hope. Possibly one part of his secret might lie in the peremptory injunction which he laid upon all the petitioners to observe the profoundest silence for the present upon his intentions in their favor. The corporate bodies were now despatched: but such was the report of the Prince's gracious affability, that the whole town kept crowding to the Commissioner's house, and pressing for the honor of an audience. The Com- missioner represented to the mob that his Highness was made neither of steel nor of granite, and was at length worn out by the fatigues of the day. But to this every man answered, that what he had to say would be finished in two words, and could not add much to the Prince's fatigue ; and all kept their ground before the house as firm as a wall. In this emergency the Count Fitz-Hum resorted to a ruse. He sent round a servant from the back door to mingle with the crowd, and proclaim that a mad dog was ranging about the streets, and had already bit many other dogs and several men. This answered : the cry of " mad dog " was set up ; the mob flew asunder from their cohe- sion, and the blockade in front of Pig-house was raised. Farewell now to all faith in man or dog ; for all might be among the bitten, and consequently might in turn be among the biters. The night was now come ; dinner was past, at which all the grandees of the place had been present : all had now departed, delighted with the condescensions of the Count, and puzzled only on one point, viz. the extraordinary 27* 318 THE INCOGNITO ; warmth of his attentions to the Commissioner's daughter. The young lady's large fortune might have explained this excessive homage in any other case, but not in that of a Prince, and beauty or accomplishments they said she had none. Here, then, was subject for meditation without end to all the curious in natural philosophy. Amongst these, spite of parental vanity, were the Commissioner and his wife ; but an explanation was soon given, which, however, did but explain one riddle by another. The Count desired a private interview, in which, to the infinite astonishment of the parents, he demanded the hand of their daughter in marriage. State policy, he was aware, opposed such con- nections ; but the pleadings of the heart outweighed all considerations of that sort ; and he requested that, with the consent of the young lady, the marriage might be solem- nized immediately. The honor was too much for the Commissioner ; he felt himself in some measure guilty of treason, by harboring for one moment hopes of so pre- sumptuous a nature, and in a great panic he ran away and hid himself in the wine-cellar. Here he imbibed fresh courage ; and, upon his re-ascent to the upper world, and finding that his daughter joined her entreaties to those of the Count, he began to fear that the treason might lie on the other side, viz. in opposing the wishes of his sovereign, and he joyfully gave his consent : upon which, all things being in readiness, the marriage was immediately cele- brated, and a select company who witnessed it had the honor of kissing the hand of the new Countess Fitz-Hum. Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, before a horse- man's horn was heard at the Commissioner's gate. A special messenger with despatches, no doubt, said the Count ; and immediately a servant entered with a box bearing the state arms. Von Hoax unlocked the box ; and from a great body of papers which he said were " merely OR, COUNT PITZ-HUM. 319 petitions, addresses, or despatches from foreign powers," he drew out and presented to the Count a " despatch from the Privy Council." The Count read it, repeatedly shrug- ging his shoulders. " No bad news, I hope ? " said the Commissioner, deriv- ing courage from his recent alliance with the state person- age to ask after the state affairs. " No, no ! none of any importance," said the Count, with great suavity ; " a little rebellion, nothing more," smiling at the same time with the most imperturbable compla- cency. " Rebellion ! " said Mr. Pig, aloud ; " nothing more ! " said Mr. Pig to himself. " Why, what upon earth — " " Yes, my dear sir, rebellion ; a little rebellion. Very unpleasant, as I believe you were going to observe : truly unpleasant, and distressing to every well-regulated mind ! " " Distressing ! I should think so, and very awful. Are the rebels in strength ? Have they possessed themselves of—" " O, my dear sir," interrupted Fitz-Hum, smiling with the utmost gayety, "make yourself easy; nothing like nipping these things in the bud. Vigor and well-placed lenity will do wonders. What most disturbs me, however, is the necessity of returning instantly to my capital ; to- morrow I must be at the head of my troops, who have already taken the field ; so that I shall be obliged to quit my beloved bride without a moment's delay ; for I would not have her exposed to the dangers of war, however tran- sient." At this moment the carriage, which had been summoned by Von Hoax, rolled up to the door ; the Count whispered a few tender words in the ear of his bride ; uttered some nothings to her father, of which all that transpired were the words, "truly distressing," and "every well-consti- 320 THE INCOGNITO ; tuted mind " ; smiled most graciously on the whole com- pany ; pressed the Commissioner's hand as fervently as he had done on his arrival ; stept into the carriage ; and in a few moments " the blue landau," together with " the su- perb whiskers," had rolled back through the city gates to their old original home. "Early the next morning, under solemn pledges of secrecy, the " rebellion " and the marriage were circulated in every quarter of the town ; and the more so, as strict orders had been left to the contrary. "With respect to the marriage, all parties (fathers especially, mothers, and daughters) agreed privately that his serene Highness was a great fool ; but, as to the rebellion, the guilds and companies declared unanimously that they would fight for him to the last man. Meantime, the Commissioner presented his accounts to the council ; they were of startling amount ; and, although prompt payment seemed the most prudent course toward the father-in-Jaw of a reigning prince, yet, on the other hand, the " rebellion " suggested arguments for demurring a little. And accordingly, the Commissioner was informed that his accounts were admitted ad delibe- randum. On returning home, the Commissioner found in the saloon a large despatch which had fallen out of the pocket of Von Hoax ; this, he was at first surprised to dis- cover, was nothing but a sheet of blank paper. However, on recollecting himself, " No doubt," said he, " in times of rebellion ink is not safe ; besides, carte blanche — simple as it looks — is a profound diplomatic phrase, implying permission to dictate your own stipulations on a wide champaign acreage of white paper, not hedged in right and left by rascally conditions, not intersected by fences that cut up all freedom of motion." So saying, he sealed up the despatch, sent it off by an estafette, and charged it in a supplementary note of expenses to the council. OK, COUNT FITZ-HUM. 321 Meantime, the newspapers arrived from the capital, but they said not a word of the rebellion ; in fact they were more than usually dull, not containing even a lie of much interest. All this, however, the Commissioner ascribed to the prudential policy which their own safety dictated to the editors in times of rebellion ; and the longer the silence lasted, so much the more critical (it was inferred) must be the state of affairs, and so much the more prodigious that accumulating arrear of great events which any decisive blow would open upon them. At length, when the general patience began to give way, a newspaper arrived, which, under the head of domestic intelligence, communicated the following disclosures : — " A curious hoax has been played off on a certain loyal and ancient borough town not a hundred miles from the little river P — . On the accession of our present gracious sovereign, and before his person was generally known to his subjects, a wager of large amount was laid by a certain Mr. Von Holster, who had been a gentleman of the bed- chamber to his late Highness, that he would succeed in passing himself off upon the whole town and corporation in question for the new prince. Having paved the way for his own success by a previous communication through a clerk in the house of W — & Co., he departed on his errand, attended by an agent for the parties who had betted largely against him. This agent bore the name of Von Hoax ; and, by his report, the wager has been ad- judged to Von Holster as brilliantly won. Thus far all was well ; what follows, however, is still better. Some time ago, a young lady of large fortune, and still larger expectations, on a visit to the capital, had met with Mr. Von H., and had clandestinely formed an acquaintance which had ripened into a strong attachment. The gentle- man, however, had no fortune, or none which corresponded 322 THE INCOGNITO ; to the expectations of the lady's family. Under these circumstances, the lady (despairing in any other way of obtaining her father's consent) agreed, that, in connection with his scheme for winning the wager, Fitz-Hum should attempt another, more interesting to them both ; in pursu- ance of which arrangement, he contrived to fix himself under his princely incognito at the very house of Mr. Com- missioner P — , the father of his mistress ; and the result is that he has actually married her with the entire approba- tion of her friends. "Whether the sequel of the affair will correspond with its success hitherto, remains however to be seen. Certain it is, that for the present, until the prince's pleasure can be taken, Mr. Von Holster has been com- mitted to prison under the new law for abolishing bets of a certain description, and also for having presumed to personate the sovereign." Thus far the newspaper. However, in a few days, all clouds hanging over the prospects of the young couple cleared away. Mr. Von Holster, in a dutiful petition to the prince, declared that he had not personated his Serene Highness. On the contrary, he had given himself out both before and after his entry into the town of P — for no more than the Count Fitz-Hum ; and it was they, the good people of that town, who had insisted on mistaking him for a prince ; if they would kiss his hand, was it for a humble individual of no pretensions whatever arrogantly to refuse ? If they would make addresses to him, was it for an inconsiderable person like himself rudely to refuse their homage, when the greatest kings (as was notorious) always listened and replied in the most gracious terms? On further inquiry, the whole circumstances were detailed to the prince, and amused him greatly; but when the narrator came to the final article of the " rebellion " (under which sounding title a friend of Von Plolster's had com- OR, COUNT FITZ-HUM. 323 municated to him a general combination amongst his cred- itors for arresting his person), the good-natured prince laughed immoderately, and it became easy to see that no very severe punishment would follow. In fact, by his services to the late prince, Von H. had established some claims upon the gratitude of this, an acknowledgment which the prince generously made at this seasonable crisis. Such an acknowledgment from such a quarter, together with some other marks of favor to Von H., could not fail to pacify the "rebels" against that gentleman, and to reconcile Mr. Commissioner Pig to a marriage which he had already once approved. His scruples had originally been vanquished in the wine-cellar ; and there also it was, that, upon learning the total suppression of the insurrection, he drowned all his scruples for a second and a final time. The town of M — has, however, still occasion to remem- ber the blue landau, and the superb whiskers, from the jokes which they are now and then called on to parry upon that subject. Dr. B — , in particular, the physician of that town, having originally offered five hundred dollars to the man who should notify to him his appointment to the place of court physician, has been obliged solemnly to ad- vertise in the gazette, for the information of the wits in the capital, " That he will not consider himself bound by his promise, seeing that every week he receives so many private notifications of that appointment, that it would beggar him to pay for them at any such rate." With respect to the various petitioners, the bakers, the glaziers, the hair-dressers, &c, they all maintain, that though Fitz- Hum may have been a spurious prince, yet undoubtedly the man had so much sense and political discernment that he well deserved to have been a true one. THE DICE. FROM THE GERMAN. For more than 150 years had the family of Schroll been settled at Taubendorf, and generally respected for knowl-' edge and refinement of manners superior to its station. Its present representative, the bailiff Elias Schroll, had in his youth attached himself to literature, but, later in life, from love to the country, he had returned to his native village, and lived there in great credit and esteem. During this whole period of 150 years, tradition had recorded only one single Schroll as having borne a doubtful character ; he, indeed, as many persons affirmed, had dealt with the devil. Certain it is that there was still preserved in the house a scrutoire fixed in the wall, and containing some mysterious manuscripts attributed to him, and the date of the year, 1630, which was carved upon the front, tallied with his era. The key to tliis scrutoire had been constantly handed down, to the eldest son through five generations, with a solemn charge to take care that no other eye or ear should ever become acquainted with its contents. Every precaution had been taken to guard against accidents or oversights ; the lock was so constructed, that even with the right key it could not be opened without special instruc- tions ; and for still greater security the present proprietor had added a padlock of most elaborate workmanship, which THE DICE. 325 presented a sufficient obstacle before the main lock could be approached. In vain did the curiosity of the whole family direct itself to this scrutoire. Nobody had succeeded in discover- ing any part of its contents, except Rudolph, the only son of the bailiff; he had succeeded ; at least his own belief was, that the old folio with gilt edges, and bound in black velvet, which he had one day surprised his father anxiously read- ing, belonged to the mysterious scrutoire ; for the door of the scrutoire, though not open, was unlocked, and Elias had hastily closed the book with great agitation, at the same time ordering his son out of the room in no very gentle tone. At the time of this incident Rudolph Was about twelve years of age. Since that time the young man had sustained two great losses in the deaths of his excellent mother and a sister tenderly beloved. His father also had suffered deeply in health and spirits under these afflictions. Every day he grew more fretful and humorsome; and Rudolph, upon his final return home from school in his eighteenth year, was shocked to find him greatly altered in mind as well as in person. His flesh had fallen away, and he seemed to be consumed by some internal strife of thought. It was evidently his own opinion that he was standing on the edge of the grave, and he employed himself unceasingly in arranging his affairs, and in making his successor acquaint- ed with all such arrangements as regarded his more pecu- liar interests. One evening as Rudolph came in suddenly from a neighbor's house, and happened to pass the scrutoire, he found the door wide open, and the inside obviously empty. Looking round he observed his father standing on the hearth close to a great fire, in the midst of which was consuming the old black book. Elias entreated his son earnestly to withdraw, but 28 326 THE DICE. Rudolph could not command himself; and he exclaimed, " I doubt, I doubt, sir, that this is the book which belongs to the scrutoire." His father assented with visible confusion. " "Well, then, allow me to say that I am greatly surprised at your treating in this way an heirloom that for a century and more has always been transmitted to the eldest son." " You are in the right, my son," said the father affection- ately, taking him by the hand. " You are partly in the right ; it is not quite defensible, I admit ; and I myself have had many scruples about the course I have taken. Yet still I feel myself glad upon the whole that I have destroyed this accursed book. He that wrote it never prospered, — all traditions agree in that ; why then leave to one's descendants a miserable legacy of unhallowed mysteries ? " This excuse, however, did not satisfy Rudolph. He maintained that his father had made an aggression upon his rights of inheritance ; and he argued the point so well, that Elias himself began to see that his son's complaint was not altogether groundless. The whole of the next day they behaved to each other, not unkindly, but yet with some coolness. At night Elias could bear this no longer, and he said, " Dear Rudolph, we have lived long together in harmony and love ; let us not begin to show an altered countenance to each other during the few days that I have yet to live." Rudolph pressed his father's offered hand with a filial warmth ; and the latter went on to say, " I purpose now to communicate to you by word of mouth the contents of the book which I have destroyed. I will do this with good faith and without reserve, unless you yourself can be per- suaded to forego your own right to such a communication." Elias paused, flattering himself as it seemed that his son THE DICE. 327 would forego his right. But in this he was mistaken ; Rudolph was far too eager for the disclosure, and earnestly pressed his father to proceed. Again Elias hesitated, and threw a glance of profound love and pity upon his son, — a glance that conjured him to think better, and to waive his claim, but this being at length obviously hopeless, he spoke as follows : " The book relates chiefly to yourself ; it points to you as to the last of our race. You turn pale. Surely, Rudolph, it would have been better that you had resolved to trouble yourself no further about it ? " " No," said Rudolph, recovering his self-possession. " No ; for it still remains a question whether this prophecy be true." " It does so ; it does, no doubt." " And is this all that the book says in regard to me ? " " No, it is not all ; there is something more. But possi- bly you will only laugh when you hear it ; for at this day nobody believes in such strange stories. However, be that as it may, the book goes on to say plainly and positively, that the Evil One (Heaven protect us !) will make you an offer tending greatly to your worldly advantage." Rudolph laughed outright, and replied, that, judging by the grave exterior of the book, he had looked to hear of more serious contents. " Well, well, my son,'' said the old man, " I know not that I myself am disposed to place much confidence in these tales of contracts with the devil. But, true or not, we ought not to laugh at them. Enough for me that under any circumstances I am satisfied you have so much natural piety, that you would reject all worldly good fortune that could meet you upon unhallowed paths." Here Elias would have broken off, but Rudolph said, " One thing more I wish to know : what is to be the 328 THE DICE. nature of the good fortune offered to me? and did the book say whether I should accept it or not?" " Upon the nature of the good fortune the writer has not explained himself; all that he says is, that by a dis- creet use of it, it is in your power to become a very great man. Whether you will accept it — but God preserve thee, my child, from any thought so criminal — upon this question there is a profound silence. Nay, it seems even as if this trader in black arts had at that very point been overtaken by death, for he had broken off in the very middle of the word. The Lord have mercy upon his soul ! " Little as Rudolph's faith was in the possibility of such a proposal, yet he was uneasy at his father's communica- tion and visibly disturbed ; so that the latter said to him, " Had it not been better, Rudolph, that you had left the mystery to be buried with me in the grave ? " Rudolph said, " No : " but his restless eye and his agi- tated air too evidently approved the accuracy of his father's solicitude. The deep impression upon Rudolph's mind from this conversation — the last he was ever to hold with his fa- ther — was rendered still deeper by the solemn event which followed. About the middle of that same night he was awakened suddenly by a summons to his father's bedside; his father was dying, and earnestly asking for him. " My son ! " he exclaimed with an expression of the bitterest anguish ; stretched out both his arms in supplica- tion towards him; and in the anguish of the effort he expired. The levity of youthful spirits soon dispersed the gloom which at first hung over Rudolph's mind. Surrounded by jovial companions at the university which he now visited, THE DICE. 329 he found no room left in his bosom for sorrow or care : and his heaviest affliction was the refusal of his guardian at times to comply with his too frequent importunities for money. After a residence of one year at the university, some youthful irregularities in which Rudolph was concerned subjected him, jointly with three others, to expulsion. Just at that time the Seven Years' War happened to break out; two of the party, named Theiler and Werl, entered the military service together with Rudolph; the last very much against the will of a young woman to whom he was engaged. Charlotte herself, however, be- came reconciled to this arrangement, when she saw that her objections availed nothing against Rudolph's resolu- tion, and heard her lover describe in the most flattering colors his own return to her arms in the uniform of an officer ; for that his distinguished courage must carry him in the very first campaign to the rank of lieutenant, was as evident to his own mind as that he could not possibly fall on the field of battle. The three friends were fortunate enough to be placed in the same company. But, in the first battle, Werl and Theiler. were stretched lifeless by Rudolph's side ; Werl by a musket-ball through his heart, and Theiler by a can- non-shot which took off his head. Soon after this event, Rudolph himself returned home ; but how ? Not, as he had fondly anticipated, in the bril- liant decorations of a distinguished officer, but as a pris- oner in close custody : in a transport of youthful anger he had been guilty, in company with two others, of insubordi- nation and mutiny. The court-martial sentenced them to death. The judg- es, however, were so favorably impressed by their good conduct while under confinement, that they would certainly 28* 330 THE DICE. have recommended them unconditionally to the royal mer- cy, if it had not been deemed necessary to make an example. However, the sentence was so far mitigated, that only one of the three was to be shot. And which was he ? That point was reserved in suspense until the day of execution, when it was to be decided by the cast of the dice. As the fatal day drew near, a tempest of passionate grief assailed the three prisoners. One of them was agitated by the tears of his father ; the second, by the sad situation of a sickly wife and two children. The third, Rudolph, in case the lot fell upon him, would be sum- moned to part not only with his life, but also with a young and blooming bride, that lay nearer to his heart than any- thing else in the world. " Ah ! " said he on the evening before the day of final decision, " Ah ! if but this once I could secure a lucky throw of the dice ! " And scarce was the wish uttered, when his comrade "Werl, whom he had seen fall by his side in the field of battle, stepped into his cell. " So, brother Schroll, I suppose you did n't much ex- pect to see me?" " No, indeed, did I not," exclaimed Rudolph in conster- nation ; for, in fact, on the next day after the battle he had seen with his own eyes this very Werl committed to the grave. " Ay, ay, it 's strange enough, I allow ; but there are not many such surgeons as he is that belongs to our regi- ment ; he had me dug up, and brought me round again, I '11 assure you. One would think the man was a conjurer. Indeed, there are many things he can do which I defy any man to explain ; and to say the truth, I 'm convinced he can execute impossibilities." "Well, so let him, for aught that I care; all his art will scarcely do me any good." THE DICE. 331 "Who knows, brother? who knows? The man is in this town at this very time ; and for old friendship's sake I 've just spoken to him about you ; and he has promised me a lucky throw of the dice, that shall deliver you from all danger." " Ah ! " said the dejected Rudolph, " but even this would be of little service to me." "Why, how so?" asked the other. " How so ? Why, because — even if there were such dice (a matter I very much dispute) — yet I could never allow myself to turn aside, by black arts, any bad luck designed for myself upon the heads of either of my com- rades." "Now this, I suppose, is what you call being noble? But excuse me, if I think that in such cases one's first duty is to one's self." "Ah, but just consider; one of my comrades has an old father to maintain, the other a sick wife with two chil- dren." " Schroll, Schroll, if your young bride were to hear you, I fancy she would n't think herself much flattered. Does poor Charlotte deserve that you should not bestow a thought on her and her fate? A dear young creature, that places her whole happiness in you, has nearer claims (I think) upon your consideration than an old dotard with one foot in the grave, or a wife and two children that are nothing at all to you. Ah ! what a deal of good might you do in the course of a long life with your Charlotte ! So then, you really are determined to reject the course which I point out to you ? Take care, Schroll ! If you disdain my offer, and the lot should chance to fall upon you, — take care lest the thought of' a young bride whom you have betrayed, take care I say, lest this thought should add to the bitterness of death when you come to kneel 332 THE DICE. down on the sand-hill. However, I 've given you advice sufficient, and have discharged my conscience. Look to it yourself: and farewell!" " Stay, brother, a word or two," said Rudolph, who was powerfully impressed by the last speech, and the picture of domestic happiness held up before him, which he had often dallied with in thought, both when alone and in company with Charlotte. " Stay a moment. Undoubtedly, I do not deny that I wish for life, if I could receive it a gift from Heaven; and that is not impossible. Only I would not willingly have the guilt upon my conscience of being the cause of misery to another. However, if the man you speak of can tell, I should be glad that you would ask him upon which of us three the lot of death will fall. Or — stay; don't ask him," said Rudolph, sighing deeply. "I have already asked him," was the answer. " Ah ! have you so ? And it is after his reply that you come to me with this counsel?" The foretaste of death overspread the blooming face of Rudolph with a livid paleness ; thick drops of sweat gathered upon his forehead ; and the other exclaimed with a sneer: "I'm going; you take too much time for con- sideration. May be you will see and recognize me at the place of execution ; and, if so, I shall have the dice with me ; and it will not be too late even then to give me a sign ; but, take notice, I can't promise to attend." Rudolph raised his forehead from the palm of his hand, in which he had buried it during the last moments of his perturbation, and would have spoken something in reply ; but his counsellor was already gone. He felt glad, and yet at the same time sorry. The more he considered the man and his appearance, so much the less seemed his re- semblance to his friend whom he had left buried on the field of battle. This friend had been the very soul of THE DICE. 333 affectionate cordiality, — a temper that was altogether wanting to'his present counsellor. No ! the scornful and insulting tone with which he treated the unhappy prisoner, and the unkind manner with which he had left him, con- vinced Schroll that he and "Werl must be two different persons. Just at this moment a thought struck him, like a blast of lightning, of the black book which had perished in the fire and its ominous contents. A lucky cast of the dice ! Ay ; that then was the shape in which the tempter had presented himself; and heartily glad he felt that he had not availed himself of his suggestions. But this temper of mind was speedily changed by his young bride, who hurried in soon after, sobbing, and flung her arms about his neck. He told her of the proposal which had been made to him ; and she was shocked that he had not immediately accepted it. With a bleeding heart, Rudolph objected that so charm- ing and lovely a creature could not miss of a happy fate, even if he should be forced to quit her. But she protest- ed vehemently that he or nobody should enjoy her love. The clergyman, who visited the prisoner immediately after her departure, restored some composure to his mind, which had been altogether banished by the presence of his bride. " Blessed are they who die in the Lord ! " said the •ray-haired divine ; and with so much earnestness and devotion, that this single speech had the happiest effect upon the prisoner's mind. On the morning after this night of agitation, the morn- inn- of the fatal day, the three criminals saw each other for the first time since their arrest. Community of fate, and long separation from each other, contributed to draw still closer the bond of friendship that had been first knit on the field of battle. Each of the three testified a lively abhor- rence for the wretched necessity of throwing death to some 334 THE DICE. one of his comrades, by any cast of the dice which should bring life to himself. Dear as their several friends were to all, yet at this moment the brotherly league, which had been tried and proved in the furnace of battle, was tri- umphant over all opposing considerations. Each would have preferred death himself, rather than escape it at the expense of his comrade. The worthy clergyman, who possessed their entire con- fidence, found them loudly giving utterance to this heroic determination. Shaking his head, he pointed their atten- tion to those who had claims upon them whilst living, and for whom it was their duty to wish to live as long as pos- sible. " Place your trust in God ! " said he : " resign your- selves to him ! He it is that will bring about the decision through your hands ; and think not of ascribing that power to yourselves, or to his lifeless instruments — the dice. He, without whose permission no sparrow falls to the ground, and who has numbered every hair upon your head — He it is that knows best what is good for you ; and He only." The prisoners assented by squeezing his hand, embraced each other, and received the sacrament in the best disposi- tion of mind. After this ceremony they breakfasted to- gether, in as resigned, nay, almost in as joyous a mood as if the gloomy and bloody morning which lay before them were ushering in some gladsome festival. When, however, the procession was marshalled from the outer gate, and their beloved friends were admitted to utter their last farewells, then again the sternness of their courage sank beneath the burden of their melancholy fate. " Rudolph ! " whispered amongst the rest his despairing bride, " Rudolph ! why did you reject the help that was offered to you ? " He adjured her not to add to the bitter- ness of parting ; and she in turn adjured him, a little be- THK DICE. 335 fore the ■word of command was given to march, — which robbed her of all consciousness, — to make a sign to the stranger who had volunteered his offer of deliverance, pro- vided he should anywhere observe him in the crowd. The streets and the windows were lined with spectators. Vainly did each of the criminals seek, by accompanying the clergyman in his prayers, to shelter himself from the thought, that all return, perhaps, was cut off from him. The large house of his bride's father reminded Schroll of a happiness that was now lost to him forever, if any faith were to be put in the words of his yesterday's monitor ; and a very remarkable faintness came over him. The clergyman, who was acquainted with the circumstances of his case, and therefore guessed the occasion of his sudden agitation, laid hold of his arm, and said, with a powerful voice, that he who trusted in God would assuredly see all his righteous hopes accomplished — in this world, if it were God's pleasure ; but, if not, in a better. These were words of comfort: but their effect lasted only for a few moments. Outside the city gate his eyes were met by the sand-hill already thrown up ; a spectacle which renewed his earthly hopes and fears. He threw a hurried glance about him : but nowhere could he see his last night's visitor. Every moment the decision came nearer and nearer. It has begun. One of the three has already shaken the box : the die is cast ; he has thrown a six. This throw was now registered amidst the solemn silence of the crowd. The by-standers regarded him with solemn congratulations in their eyes ; for this man and Rudolph were the two spe- cial objects of the general compassion: this man, as the husband and father ; Rudolph, as the youngest and hand- somest, and because some report had gone abroad of his superior education and attainments. 336 THK DICE. Rudolph was youngest in a double sense ; youngest in years, and youngest in the service : for both reasons he was to throw last. It may be supposed, therefore, how much all present trembled for the poor delinquent, when the second of his comrades likewise flung a six. Prostrated in spirit, Rudolph stared at the unpropitious die. Then a second time he threw a horrid glance around him, and that so full of despair, that from horrid sympathy a violent shuddering ran through the by-standers. " Here is no deliverer," thought Rudolph ; " none to see me or to hear me ! And if there were, it is now too late ; for no change of the die is any longer possible." So saying, he seized the fatal die, convulsively his hand clutches it, and before the throw is made he feels that the die is broken in two. During the universal thrill of astonishment which suc- ceeded to this strange accident, he looked round again. A sudden shock and a sudden joy fled through his counte- nance. Not far from him, in the dress of a pedler, stands Theiler without a wound, the comrade whose head had been carried off on the field of battle by a cannon-ball. Rudolph made an under-sign to him with his eye; for clear as it now was to his mind with whom he was dealing, yet the dreadful trial of the moment overpowered his better res- olutions. The military commission were in some confusion. No provision having been thought of against so strange an accident, there was no second die at hand. They were just on the point of despatching a messenger to fetch one, when the pedler presented himself with the offer of supplying the loss. The new die is examined by the auditor, and deliv- ered to the unfortunate Rudolph. He throws ; the die is lying on the drum, and again it is a six ! The amazement is universal ; nothing is decided ; the throws must be re- THE DICE. 337 peated. They are ; and Weber, the husband of the sick wife, the father of the two half-naked children, flings the lowest throw. Jmmediately the officer's voice was heard wheeling his men into their position. On the part of Weber there was as little delay. The overwhelming injury to his wife and children, inflicted by his own act, was too mighty to con- template. He shook hands rapidly with hi3 two comrades ; stept nimbly into his place; kneeled down. The word of command was heard, " Lower your muskets ; " instantly he dropped the fatal handkerchief with the gesture of one who prays for some incalculable blessing, and, in the twinkling of an eye, sixteen bullets had lightened the heart of the poor mutineer from its whole immeasurable freight of anguish. All the congratulations with which they were welcomed on their return into the city, fell powerless on Rudolph's ear. Scarcely could even Charlotte's caresses affect with any pleasure the man who believed himself to have sacri- ficed his comrade through collusion with a fiend. The importunities of Charlotte prevailed over all objec- tions which the pride of her aged father suggested against a son-in-law who had been capitally convicted. The mar- riage was solemnized ; but at the wedding-festival, amidst the uproar of merriment, the parties chiefly concerned were not happy or tranquil. In no long time the father-in-law died, and by his death placed the young couple in a state of complete independence ; but Charlotte's fortune, and the remainder of what Rudolph had inherited from his father, were speedily swallowed up by an' idle and luxurious mode of living. Rudolph now began to ill-use his wife. To escape from his own conscience, he plunged into all sorts of dissolute courses ; and very remarkable it was, that, from manifesting the most violent abhorrence for everything 29 S38 THE DICE. which could lead his thoughts to his own fortunate cast of the die, he gradually came to entertain so uncontrollable a passion for playing at dice, that he spent all his time in the company of those with whom he could turn this passion to account. His house had long since passed out of his own hands ; not a soul could be found anywhere to lend him a shilling. The sickly widow of Weber, and her two children, whom he had hitherto supported, lost their home and means of livelihood, and in no long space of time the same fate fell upon himself, his wife, and his child. Too little used to labor to have any hope of improving his condition in that way, one day he bethought himself that the Medical Institute was in the habit of purchasing from poor people, during their lifetime, the reversion of their bodies. To this establishment he addressed himself; and the ravages in his personal appearance and health, caused by his dissolute life, induced them the more readily to lend an ear to his proposal. But the money thus obtained, which had been designed for the support of his wife and half-famished children, was squandered at the gaming-table. As the last dollar van- ished, Schroll bit one of the dice furiously between his teeth. Just then he heard these words whispered at his ear, — " Gently, brother, gently ; all dice do not split in two like that on the sand-hill." Pie looked round in agitation, but saw no trace of any one who could have uttered the words. With dreadful imprecations on himself and those with whom he had played, he flung out of the gaming-house homewards on his road to the wretched garret, where his wife and children were awaiting his return and his succor ; but here the poor creatures, tormented by hunger and cold, pressed upon him so importunately, that he had no way to deliver himself from misery but by flying from the specta- cle. But whither could he go thus late at night, when his THE DICE. 339 utter poverty was known in every alehouse ? Roaming lie knew not whither, he found himself at length in the church- yard. The moon was shining solemnly upon the quiet gravestones, though obscured at intervals by piles of stormy clouds. Rudolph shuddered at nothing but at him- self and his own existence. He strode with bursts of laughter over the dwellings of the departed, and entered a vault which gave him shelter from the icy blasts of wind which now began to bluster more loudly than before. The moon threw her rays into the vault full upon the golden legend inscribed in the wall, — "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord! " Schroll took up a spade that was stick- ing in the ground, and struck with it furiously against the gilt letters on the wall, but they seemed indestructible ; and he was going to assault them with a mattock, when suddenly a hand touched him on the shoulder, and said to him, " Gently, comrade ; thy pains are all thrown away." Schroll uttered a loud exclamation of terror, for in these words he heard the voice of "Weber, and, on turning round, recognized his whole person. " "What wouldst thou have ? " asked Rudolph. " "What art thou come for ? " " To comfort thee,' 7 replied the figure, which now sud- denly assumed the form and voice of the pedler to whom Schroll was indebted for the fortunate die. " Thou hast forgotten me ; and thence it is that thou art fallen into misfortune. Look up and acknowledge thy friend in need, that comes only to make thee happy again." " If that be thy purpose, wherefore is it that thou wearest a shape, before which, of all others that have been on earth, I have most reason to shudder?" " The reason is, because I must not allow to any man my help or my converse on too easy terms. Before ever my die was allowed to turn thy fate, I was compelled to 340 THE DICE. give thee certain intimations from which thou knewest with whom it was that thou wert dealing." " "With whom, then, was it that I was dealing ? " cried Schroll, staring with his eyes wide open, and his hair standing erect. " Thou knewest, comrade, at that time, thou knowest at this moment," said the pedler laughing, and tapping him on the shoulder. "But what is it that thou desirest?" Schroll struggled internally ; but, overcome by his deso- late condition, he said immediately, " Dice : I would have dice that shall win whenever I wish." " Very well ; but first of all stand out of the blaze of this golden writing on the wall ; it is a writing that has nothing to do with thee. Here are dice ; never allow them to go out of thy own possession ; for that might bring thee into great trouble. When thou needest me, light a fire at the last stroke of the midnight hour; throw in my dice and with loud laughter. They will crack once or twice, and then split. At that moment catch at them in the flames ; but let not the moment slip, or thou art lost. And let not thy courage be daunted by the sights that I cannot but send before me whensoever I appear. Lastly, avoid choosing any holy day for this work ; and beware of the priest's benediction. Here, take the dice." Schroll caught at the dice with one hand, whilst with the other he covered his eyes. When he next looked up, he was standing alone. He now quitted the burying-ground to return as hastily as possible to the gaming-house, where the light of candles was still visible. But it was with the greatest difficulty that he obtained money enough from a " friend " to enable him to make the lowest stake which the rules allowed. He found it a much easier task to persuade the company to use the dice which he had brought with him. They saw THE DICE. 341 in this nothing but a very common superstition, and no possibility of any imposture, as they and he should natu- rally have benefited alike by the good luck supposed to accompany the dice. But the nature of the charm was, that only the possessor of the dice enjoyed their supernat- ural powers ; and hence it was, that, towards morning, Schroll reeled home intoxicated with wine and pleasure, and laden with the money of all present, to the garret where his family were lying, half frozen and famished. Their outward condition was immediately improved. The money which Schroll had won was sufficient not only for their immediate and most pressing wants : it was enough also to pay for a front apartment, and to leave a sum sufficient for a very considerable stake. With this sum, and in better attire, Rudolph repaired to a gaming-house of more fashionable resort, and came home in the evening laden with gold. He now opened a gaming establishment himself; and so much did his family improve in external appearances within a very few weeks, that the police began to keep a watchful eye over him. This induced him to quit the city, and to change his residence continually. All the different baths of Germany he resorted to beyond other towns: but, though his dice perseveringly maintained their luck, he yet never accumu- lated any money. Everything was squandered upon the dissipated life which he and his family pursued. At length, at the Baths of , the matter began to take an unfortunate turn. A violent passion for a beauti- ful young lady whom Rudolph had attached himself to in vain at balls, concerts, and even at church, suddenly bereft him of all sense and discretion. One night when Schroll (who now styled himself Captain von Schrollshausen) was anticipating a master-stroke from his dice, probably for 29* 342 THE DICE. the purpose of winning the lady by the display of over- flowing wealth and splendor, suddenly they lost their vir- tue, and failed him without warning. Hitherto they had lost only when he willed them to lose : but, on this occa- sion, they failed at so critical a moment, as to lose him not only all his own money, but a good deal beside that he had borrowed. Foaming with rage, he came home. He asked furiously after his wife : she was from home. He examined the dice attentively; and it appeared to him that they were not his own. A powerful suspicion seized upon him. Madame von Schrollshausen had her own gaming circle as well as himself. Without betraying its origin, he had oc- casionally given her a few specimens of the privilege at- tached to his dice : and she had pressed him earnestly to allow her the use of them for a single evening. It was true he never parted with them even ou going to bed : but it was possible that they might have been changed whilst he was sleeping. The more he brooded upon this suspicion, the more it strengthened: from being barely possible, it became probable : from a probability it ripened into a cer- tainty ; and this certainty received the fullest confirmation at this moment, when she returned home in the gayest temper, and announced to him that she had been this night overwhelmed with good luck ; in proof of which, she poured out upon the table a considerable sum in gold coin. " And now," she added laughingly, " I care no longer for your dice ; nay, to tell you the truth, I would not exchange my own for them." Rudolph, now confirmed in his suspicions, demanded the dice, as his property that had been purloined from him. She laughed and refused. He insisted with more vehe- mence ; she retorted with warmth ; both parties were irritated: and, at length, in the extremity of his wrath, THE DICE. 343 Rudolph snatched up a knife and stabbed her ; the knife pierced her heart ; she uttered a single sob, was convulsed for a moment, and expired. "Cursed accident!" he ex- claimed, when it clearly appeared, on examination, that the dice which she had in her purse were not those which he suspected himself to have lost. No eye but Rudolph's had witnessed the murder: the child had slept on undisturbed : but circumstances be- trayed it to the knowledge of the landlord; and, in the morning, he was preparing to make it public. By great offers, however, Rudolph succeeded in purchasing the man's silence : he engaged in substance to make over to the landlord a large sum of money, and to marry his daughter, with whom he had long pursued a clandestine intrigue. Agreeably to this arrangement, it was publicly notified that Madame von Schrollshausen had destroyed herself under a sudden attack of hypochondriasis, to which she had been long subject. Some there were undoubtedly who chose to be sceptics on this matter : but nobody had an interest sufficiently deep in the murdered person to prompt him to a legal inquiry. A fact, which at this time gave Rudolph far more dis- turbance of mind than the murder of his once beloved wife, was the full confirmation, upon repeated experience, that his dice had forfeited their power. For he had now been a loser for two days running to so great an extent, that he was obliged to abscond on a misty night His child, towards whom his affection increased daily, he was under the necessity of leaving with his host, as a pledge for his return and fulfilment of his promises. He would not have absconded, if it had been in his power to summons his dark counsellor forthwith ; but on account of the great fes- tival of Pentecost, which fell on the very next day, this summons was necessarily delayed for a short time. By 344 THE DICE. staying, he would have reduced himself to the necessity of inventing various pretexts for delay, in order to keep up his character with his creditors; whereas, when he re- turned with a sum of money sufficient to meet his debts, all suspicions would be silenced at once. In the metropolis of an adjacent territory, to which he resorted so often that he kept lodgings there constantly, he passed Whitsunday with impatience, and resolved on the succeeding night to summon and converse with his counsel- lor. Impatient, however, as he was of any delay, he did not on that account feel the less anxiety as the hour of midnight approached. Though he was quite alone in his apartments, and had left his servant behind at the baths, yet long before midnight he fancied that he heard footsteps and whisperings round about him. The purpose he was meditating, that he had regarded till now as a matter of indifference, now displayed itself in its whole monstrous shape. Moreover, he remembered that his wicked coun- sellor had himself thought it necessary to exhort him to courage, which at present he felt greatly shaken. However, he had no choice. As he was enjoined, therefore, with the last stroke of twelve, he set on fire the wood which lay ready split upon the hearth, and threw the dice into the flames, with a loud laughter that echoed frightfully from the empty hall and staircases. Confused and half stifled by the smoke which accompanied the roaring flames, he stood still for a few minutes, when suddenly all the sur- rounding objects seemed changed, and he found himself transported to his father's house. His father was lying on his death-bed just as he had actually beheld him. He had upon his lips the very same expression of supplication and anguish with which he had at that time striven to address him. Once again he stretched out his arms in love and pity to his son; and once again he seemed to expire in the act. THE DICE. 345 Schroll was agitated by the picture, which called up and reanimated in his memory, with the power of a mighty tormentor, all his honorable plans and prospects from that innocent period of his life. At this, moment the dice cracked for the first time ; and Schroll turned his face towards the flames. A second time the smoke stifled the light in order to reveal a second picture. He saw himself on the day before the scene of the sand-hill, sitting in his dungeon. The clergyman was with him. From the ex- pression of his countenance, he appeared to be just saying : "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." Rudolph thought of the disposition in which he then was, of the hopes which the clergyman had raised in him, and of the feeling which he then had, that he was still worthy to" be re- united to his father, or had become worthy by bitter peni- tence. The next fracture of the die disturbed the scene, — but to substitute one that was not at all more consola- tory. For now appeared a den of thieves, in which the unhappy widow of Weber was cursing her children, who — left without support, without counsel, without protection — had taken to evil courses. In the background stood the bleeding father of these ruined children, one hand stretched out towards Schroll with a menacing gesture, and the other lifted towards heaven with a record of impeachment against him. At the third splitting of the dice, out of the bosom of the smoke arose the figure of his murdered wife, who seemed to chase him from one corner of the room to another, until at length she came and took a seat at the fire-place ; by the side of which, as Rudolph now observed with horror, his buried father and the unhappy Weber had stretched themselves ; and they carried on together a low and noiseless whispering and moaning, that agitated him with a mysterious horror. 346 THE BICE. After long and hideous visions, Rudolph beheld the flames grow weaker and weaker. He approached. The figures that stood round about held up their hands in a threatening attitude. A moment later, and the time was gone for ever; and Rudolph, as his false friend had asserted, was a lost man. With the courage of despair he plunged through the midst of the threatening figures, and snatched at the glowing dice, — which were no sooner touched than they split asunder with a dreadful sound, before'which the apparitions vanished in a body. The evil counsellor appeared on this occasion in the dress of a grave-digger, and asked, with a snorting sound, " What wouldst thou from me ? " "I would remind you of your promise," answered Schroll, stepping back with awe ; " your dice have lost their power." "Through whose fault?" Rudolph was silent, and covered his eyes from the withering glances of the fiendish being who was gazing upon him. " Thy foolish desires led thee in chase of the beautiful maiden into the church ; my words were forgotten ; and the benediction, against which I warned thee, disarmed the dice of their power. In future observe my directions better." So saying he vanished; and Schroll found three new dice upon the hearth. After such scenes sleep was not to be thought of; and Rudolph resolved, if possible, to make trial of his dice this very night. The ball at the hotel over the way, to which he had been invited, and from which the steps of the waltzers were still audible, appeared to present a fair oppor- tunity. Thither he repaired ; but not without some anxiety, lest some of the noises in his own lodgings should have THE DICE. 347 reached the houses over the way. He was happy to find this fear unfounded. Everything appeared as if calcu- lated only for his senses ; for when he inquired, with assumed carelessness, what great explosion that was which occurred about midnight, nobody acknowledged to having heard it. The dice also, he was happy to find, answered his expec- tations. He found a company engaged at play, and, by the break of day, he had met with so much luck, that he was immediately able to travel back to the tiaths, and to redeem his child and his word of honor. In the baths he now made as many new acquaintances as the losses were important which he had lately sustained. He was reputed one of the wealthiest cavaliers in the place ; and many who had designs upon him in consequence of this reputed wealth, willingly lost money to him to favor their own schemes ; so that in a single month he gained sums which would have established him as a man of fortune. Under countenance of this repute, and as a widower, no doubt he might now have made successful advances to the young lady whom he had formerly pursued, for her father had an exclusive regard to property, and would have over- looked morals and respectability of that sort in any candi- date for his daughter's hand ; but with the largest offers of money, he could not purchase his freedom from the contract made with his landlord's daughter, — a woman of very dis- reputable character. In fact, six months after the death of his first wife, he was married to her. By the unlimited profusion of money with which his second wife sought to wash out the stains upon her honor, Rudolph's new-raised property was as speedily squandered. To part from her, was one of the wishes which lay nearest his heart. He had, however, never ventured to express it a second time before his father-in-law, for, on the single 348 THE DICE. occasion when he had hinted at such an intention, that person had immediately broken out into the most dreadful threats. The murder of his first wife was the chain which bound him to his second. The boy whom his first wife had left him, closely as he resembled her in features and in the bad traits of her character, was his only comfort, if indeed his gloomy and perturbed mind would allow him at any time to taste of comfort. To preserve this boy from the evil influences of the many bad examples about him, he had already made an agreement with a man of distinguished abilities, who was to have superintended his education in his own family. But all was frustrated. Madame von Schrollshausen, whose love of pomp and display led her eagerly to catch at every pre- text for creating a. fete, had invited a party on the evening before the young boy's intended departure. The time which was not occupied in the eating-room was spent at the gaming-table, and dedicated to the dice, of whose extraor- dinary powers the owner was at this time availing himself with more zeal than usual, having just invested all his disposable money in the purchase of a landed estate. One of the guests having lost very considerable sums in an un- interrupted train of ill-luck, threw the dice, in his vexation, with such force upon the table, that one of them fell down. The attendants searched for it on the floor, and the child also crept about in quest of it. Not finding it, he rose, and in rising stept upon it, lost his balance, and fell with such violence against the edge of the stove, that he died in a few hours of the injury inflicted on the head. This accident made the most powerful impression upon the father. He recapitulated the whole of his life from the first trial he had made of the dice ; from them had arisen all his misfortunes ; in what way could he liberate himself from their accursed influence ? Revolving this point, and in THE DICE. 349 the deepest distress of mind, Schroll wandered out towards nightfall, and strolled through the town. Coming to a solitary bridge in the outskirts, he looked down from the battlements upon the gloomy depths of the waters below, which seemed to regard him with looks of sympathy and strong fascination. " So be it then ! "- he exclaimed, and sprang over the railing ; but instead of finding his grave in the waters, he felt himself below seized powerfully by the grasp of a man, whom, from his scornful laugh, he recog- nized as his evil counsellor. The man bore him to the shore, and said, " No, no ! my good friend ; he that once enters into a league with me, him I shall deliver from death even in his own despite." Half crazy with despair, the next morning Schroll crept out of the town with a loaded pistol. Spring was abroad ; spring flowers, spring breezes, and nightingales.* They were all abroad, but not for him or Ms delight. A crowd of itinerant tradesmen passed him, who were on the road to a neighboring fair. One of them, observing his dejected countenance with pity, attached himself to his side, and asked in a tone of sympathy what was the matter. Two others of the passers-by Schroll heard distinctly saying, " Faith, I should not like, for my part, to walk alone with such an ill-looking fellow." He darted a furious glance at the 'men, separated from his pitying companion with a fer- vent pressure of his hand, and struck off into a solitary track of the forest. In the first retired spot he fired the pistol, and behold the man who had spoken to him with so much kindness lies stretched in his blood, and he himself is without a wound. At this moment, while staring half * It may be necessary to inform some readers, who have never lived far enough to the south to have any personal knowledge of the nightingale, that this bird sings in the daytime as well as the night. 30 350 THE DICE. unconsciously at the face of the murdered man, he feels himself seized from behind. Already he seems to himself in the hands of the public executioner. Turning round, however, he hardly knows whether to feel pleasure or pain on seeing his evil suggester in the dress of a grave-digger. "My friend," said the grave-digger, "if you cannot be content to wait for death until I send it, I must be forced to end with dragging you to that from which I began by saving you, — a public execution. But think not thus, or by any other way, to escape me. After death, thou wilt assuredly be mine again." "Who, then," said the unhappy man, "who is the murderer of the poor traveller ? " "Who? why, who but yourself? Was it not yourself that fired the pistol ? " " Ay, but at my own head." The fiend laughed in a way that made Schroll's flesh creep on his bones. " Understand this, friend, that he whose fate I hold in my hands cannot anticipate it by his own act For the present, begone, if you would escape the scaffold. To oblige you once more, I shall throw a veil over this murder." Thereupon the grave-digger set about making a grave for the corpse, whilst Schroll wandered away, — more for the sake of escaping the hideous presence in which he stood, than with any view to his own security from punishment. Seeing by accident a prisoner under arrest at the guard- house, Schroll's thoughts reverted to his own confinement. " How happy," said he, " for me and for Charlotte, had I then refused to purchase life on such terms, and had bet- ter laid to heart the counsel of my good spiritual adviser ! " Upon this a sudden thought struck him, that he would go and find out the old clergyman, and would unfold to him his wretched history and situation. He told his wife that THE DICE. 351 some private affairs required his attendance for a few days at the town of . But, say what he would, he could not prevail on her to desist from accompanying him. On the journey his chief anxiety was lest the clergy- man, who was already advanced in years at the memorable scene of the sand-hill, might now be dead. But at the very entrance of the town he saw him walking in the street, and immediately felt himself more composed in mind than he had done for years. The venerable appearance of the old man confirmed him still more in his resolution of making a full disclosure to him of his whole past life : one only transaction, the murder of his first wife, he thought himself justified in concealing ; since, with all his penitence for it, that act was now beyond the possibility of reparation. For a long time the pious clergyman refused all belief to Schrpll's narrative ; but being at length convinced that he had a wounded spirit to deal with, and not a disordered intellect, he exerted himself to present all those views of religious consolation which his philanthropic character and his long experience suggested to him as likely to be effect- ual. Eight days' conversation with the clergyman restored Schroll to the hopes of a less miserable future. But the good man admonished him at parting to put away from himself whatsoever could in any way tend to support his unhallowed connection. In this direction Schroll was aware that the dice were included : and he resolved firmly that his first measure on returning home should be to bury in an inaccessible place these accursed implements, that could not but bring mis- chief to every possessor. On entering the inn, he was met by his wife, who was in the highest spirits, and laughing profusely. He inquired the cause. " No/' said she : " you refused to communicate your motive for coming hither, and the nature of your business for the last week : I, too, 352 THE DICE. shall have my mysteries. As to your leaving me in soli- tude at an inn, that is a sort of courtesy which marriage naturally brings with it; but that you should have trav- elled hither for no other purpose than that of trifling away your time in the company of an old tedious parson, that (you will allow me to say) is a caprice which seems scarce- ly worth the money it will cost." " "Who, then, has told you that I have passed my time with an old parson?" said the astonished Schroll. "Who told me? Why, just let me know what your business was with the parson, and I'll let you know in turn who it was that told me. So much I will assure you, however, now, — that the cavalier, who was my informant, is a thousand times handsomer, and a more interesting com- panion, than an old dotard who is standing at the edge of the grave." All the efforts of Madame von Schrollshausen to irritate the curiosity of her husband proved ineffectual to draw from him his secret. The next day, on their return home- wards, she repeated her attempts. But he parried them all with firmness. A more severe trial to his firmness was prepared for him in the heavy bills which his wife present- ed to him on his reaching home. Her expenses in clothes and in jewels had been so profuse, that no expedient re- mained to Schroll but that of selling without delay the landed estate he had so lately purchased. A declaration to this effect was very ill received by his wife. " Sell the estate?" said she; "what, sell the sole resource I shall have to rely on when you are dead ? And for what rea- son, I should be glad to know ; when a very little of the customary luck of your dice will enable you to pay off these trifles ? And whether the bills be payed to-day or to-morrow cannot be of any very great importance." Upon this, Schroll declared with firmness that he never THE DICE. 353 ment to play again. "Not play again!" exclaimed his wife, "pooh! pooh! you make me blush for you! So, then, I suppose it 's all true, as was said, that scruples of conscience drove you to the old rusty parson ; and that he enjoined as a penance that you should abstain from gam- ing ? I was told as much : but I refused to believe it ; for in your circumstances the thing seemed too senseless and irrational." " My dear girl," said Schroll, " consider — " " Consider ! what 's the use of considering ? what is there to consider about?" interrupted Madame von Schroll- shausen : and, recollecting the gay cavalier whom she had met at the inn, she now, for the first time, proposed a sep- aration herself. "Very well," said her husband, "I am content." " So am I," said his father-in-law, who joined them at that moment. " But take notice that first of all I must have paid over to me an adequate sum of money for the creditable support of my daughter : else — " Here he took Schroll aside, and the old threat of reveal- ing the murder so utterly disheartened him, that at length in despair he consented to his terms. Once more, therefore, the dice were to be tried; but only for the purpose of accomplishing the separation : that over, Schroll resolved to seek a livelihood in any other way, even if it were as a day-laborer. The stipulated sum was at length all collected within a few hundred dollars ; and Schroll was already looking out for some old disused well into which he might throw the dice, and then have it filled up ; for even a river seemed to him a hiding-place not sufficiently secure for such instruments of misery. Remarkable it was on the very night when the last ar- rears were to be obtained of his father-in-law's demand — a night which Schroll had anticipated with so much bitter anxiety — that he became unusually gloomy and dejected. 30* 354: THE DICE. He was particularly disturbed by the countenance of a stranger, who for several days running had lost consider- able sums. The man called himself Stutz; but he had a most striking resemblance to his old comrade Weber, who had been shot at the sand-hill ; and differed indeed in nothing but in the advantage of blooming youth. Scarce had he leisure to recover from the shock which this spec- tacle occasioned, when a second occurred. About mid- night another man, whom nobody knew, came up to the gaming-table, and interrupted the play by recounting an event which he represented as having just happened. A certain man, he said, had made a covenant with some per- son or other that they call the Evil One,' — or what is it you call him? — and by means of this covenant he had obtained a steady run of good luck at play. " Well, sir," he went on, " and would you believe it, the other day he began to repent of this covenant ; my gentleman wanted to rat, he wanted to rat, sir. Only, first of all, he resolved privately to make up a certain sum of money. Ah, the poor idiot ! he little knew whom he had to deal with : the Evil One, as they choose to call him, was not a man to let himself be swindled in that manner. No, no, my good friend. I saw — I mean, the Evil One saw — what was going on betimes ; and he secured the swindler just as he fancied himself on the point of pocketing the last arrears of the sum wanted." The company began to laugh so loudly at this pleasant fiction, as they conceived it, that Madame von Schroll- shausen was attracted from the adjoining room. The story was repeated to her ; and she was the more delighted with it, because in the relater she recognized the gay cavalier whom she had met at the inn. Everybody laughed again, except two persons, — Stutz and Schroll. The first had again lost all the money in his purse ; and the second was THE DICE. 355 so confounded by the story, that he could not forbear star- ing with fixed eyes on the stranger, who stood over against him. His consternation increased when he perceived that the stranger's countenance seemed to alter at every mo- ment ; and that nothing remained unchanged in it, except the cold expression of inhuman scorn with which he per- severingly regarded himself. At length he could endure this no longer : and he re- marked, therefore, upon Stutz again losing a bet, that it was now late ; that Mr. Stutz was too much in a run of bad luck ; and that on these accounts he would defer the further pursuit of their play until another day. And thereupon he put the dice into his pocket. " Stop ! " said the strange cavalier ; and the voice froze Schroll with horror ; for he knew too well to whom that dreadful tone and those fiery eyes belonged. " Stop ! " he said again ; " produce your dice !" And tremblingly Schroll threw them upon the table. " Ah ! I thought as much," said the stranger ; " they are loaded dice ! " So saying, he called for a hammer, and struck one of them in two. " See !" said he to Stutz, holding out to him the broken dice, which in fact seemed loaded with lead. " Stop ! vile impostor ! " exclaimed the young man, as Schroll was preparing to quit the room in the greatest confusion ; and he threw the dice at him, one of which lodged in his right eye. The tumult in- creased ; the police came in ; and Stutz was apprehended, as Schroll's wound assumed a very dangerous appearance. Next day Schroll was in a violent fever. He asked repeatedly for Stutz. But Stutz had been committed to close confinement ; it having been found that he had trav- elled with false passes. He now confessed that he was one of the sons of the mutineer Weber ; that his sickly mother had died soon after his father's execution ; and that him- 356 THE DICE. self and his brother, left without the control of guardians, and without support, had taken to bad courses. On hearing this report, Schroll rapidly worsened ; and he unfolded to a young clergyman his whole unfortunate history. About midnight, he sent again in great haste for the clergyman. He came. But at sight of him Schroll stretched out his hands in extremity of horror, and waved him away from his presence ; but before his signals were complied with, the wretched man had expired in convul- sions. From his horror at the sight of the young clergyman, and from the astonishment of the clergyman himself, on arriving and hearing that he had already been seen in the sick-room, it was inferred that his figure had been assumed for fiendish purposes. The dice and the strange cavalier disappeared at the same time with their wretched victim, and were seen no more. THE KING OF HAYTL FKOM THE GERMAN. CHAPTEE I. Six weeks after his death stood the bust of the late stamp-distributor Goodchild, exposed to public view in the china-manufactory of L . For what purpose ? Simply for this, — that he might call heaven and earth to witness, that, allowing for some little difference in the colors, he looked just as he did heretofore in life : a proposition which his brother and heir, Mr. Goodchild the merchant, flatly denied. For this denial Mr. Goodchild had his pri- vate reasons. " It is true," said he, " my late brother, the stamp-distributor, God rest him ! did certainly bespeak three dozen copies of his own bust at the china-works ; but surely he bespoke them for his use in this life, and not in the next, pis intention, doubtless, was to send a copy to each of those loose companions of his who helped him to run through his fine estate : natural enough for him to pro- pose as a spendthrift, but highly absurd for me to ratify as executor to so beggarly an inheritance ; and therefore assuredly I shall not throw so much money out of the windows." This was plausible talking to all persons who did not happen to know that the inheritance amounted to twenty- five thousand dollars ; and that the merchant Goodchild, 358 THE KING OP HATTI. as was unanimously affirmed by all the Jews, both Chris- tian and Jewish, in L , weighed, moreover, in his own person, independently of that inheritance, One entire ton of gold. CHAPTER II. The Ostensible Reason. The china-works would certainly never have been put off with this allegation! and therefore, by the advice of his attorney, he had in reserve a more special argument why he ought not to pay for the six-and-thirty busts. " My brother," said he, " may have ordered so many copies of his bust. It is possible. I neither affirm nor deny. Busts may be ordered, and my brother may have ordered them. But what then? I suppose all men will grant that he meant the busts to have some resemblance to himself, and by no means to have no resemblance. But now, be it known, they have no resemblance to him. Ergo, I refuse to take them. One word 's as good as a thousand." CHAPTER III. "In the second place " — Dinner is on the Table. But this one word, no, nor a thousand such, would sat- isfy Mr. Whelp, the proprietor of the china-works ; so he summoned Mr. Goodchild before the magistracy. Unfor- tunately, Mr. Whelp's lawyer, in order to show his inge- nuity, had filled sixteen folio pages with an introductory argument, in which he labored to prove that the art of catching a likeness was an especial gift of God, bestowed on very few portrait-painters and sculptors ; and which, therefore, it was almost impious and profane to demand of a mere uninspired baker of porcelain. From this argu- THE KING OF HATTI. 359 ment he went on to infer a fortiori in the second place, that where the china-baker did hit the likeness, and had done so much more than could lawfully be asked of him, it was an injustice that would cry aloud to heaven for redress, if, after all, his works were returned upon his hands ; especially where, as in the present instance, so much beauty of art was united with the peculiar merit of a portrait. It was fatal, however, to the effect of this argu- ment, that just as the magistrate arrived at — "In the sec- ond place," — his servant came in and said, "If you please, sir, dinner is on the table." Naturally, therefore, conceiv- ing that the gite of the lawyer's reasoning was to defend the want of resemblance as an admitted fact, which it would be useless to deny, the worthy magistrate closed the pleadings, and gave sentence against Mr. Whelp, the plaintiff. CHAPTER IV. The Professional Verdict. Mr. "Whelp was confounded at this decree ; and as the readiest means of obtaining a revision of it, he sent in to the next sitting of the bench a copy of the bust, which had previously been omitted. As bad luck would have it, however, there happened on this occasion to be present an artist who had a rancorous enmity both to Mr. Whelp and to the modeller of the bust. This person, being asked his opinion, declared without scruple, that the bust was as wretched a portrait as it was lamentable in its pretensions as a work of art, and that his youngest pupil would not have had the audacity to produce so infamous a perform- ance, unless he had an express wish to be turned neck and heels out of his house. Upon this award of the conscientious artist — out of 360 THE KING OF HAYTI. regard to his professional judgment — the magistracy thought fit to impose silence upon their own senses, which returned a very opposite award : and thus it happened that the former decision was affirmed. Now, certainly, Mr. Whelp had his remedy : he might appeal from the magistrate's sentence. But this he declined. "No, no," said he, " I know what I 'm ahout : I shall want the magis- trate once more ; and I must n't offend him. I will appeal to public opinion : that shall decide between me and the old rogue of a merchant." And precisely in this way it was brought about, that the late stamp-distributor Goodchild came to stand exposed to the public view in the centre window of the china-manu- factory. CHAPTER V. The Sinecurist. At the corner of this china-manufactory a beggar had his daily station, which, except for his youth, which was now and then thrown in his teeth, was indeed a right pleas- ant sinecure. To this man Mr. Whelp promised a hand- some present if he would repeat to him in the evening what the passers-by had said of the bust in the day-time. Accordingly at night the beggar brought him the true and comfortable intelligence, that young and old had unan- imously pronounced the bust a most admirable likeness of the late stamp-distributor Goodchild. This report was regularly brought for eight days : on the eighth Mr. Whelp was satisfied, and paid off his commissioner, the beggar. The next morning Mr. Whelp presented himself at Mr. Goodchild's to report the public approbation of his broth- er's bust. THE KING OF HATTI. 361 CHAPTER VI. The Young Visionary. But here there was sad commotion. Mr. Goodchild was ill : and his illness arose from a little history, which must here be introduced by way of episode. Mr. Goodchild had an only daughter named Ida. Now Miss Ida had begun, like other young ladies of her age, to think of marriage : nature had put it into her head to consider all at once that she was seventeen years of age. And it sometimes oc- curred to her that Mr. Tempest, the young barrister, who occupied the first floor over the way, was just the very man she would like in the character of lover. Thoughts of the same tendency appeared to have occurred also to Mr. Tem- pest. Ida seemed to him remarkably well fitted to play the part of a wife ; and when he pretended to be reading the Pandects at his window, too often (it must be acknowl- edged) his eyes were settled all the while upon Ida's blooming face. The glances of these eyes did certainly cause some derangement occasionally in Ida's sewing and netting. What if they- did? Let her drop as many stitches as she would, the next day was long enough to take them up again. This young man, then, was clearly pointed out by Prov- idence as the partner of her future life. Ah! that her father would think so too ! But he called him always the young visionary. And whenever she took a critical review of all their opposite neighbors, and fell as if by accident upon the domestic habits, respectable practice, and other favorable points about Mr. Tempest, her father never failed to close the conversation by saying, — " Ay, but he 's a mere young visionary." And why, Mr. Goodchild ? Sim- ply for these two reasons : first, because once at a party 31 362 THE KING OF IIATTI. where they had met, Mr. Tempest had happened to say a few words very displeasing to his prejudices on the " golden age" of German poetry, to which Mr. Goodchild was much attached, and on which he could bear no opposition. Secondly, and chiefly, because, at the same time, he had unfortunately talked of the King of Hayti as a true crowned head, — a monarch whom Mr. Goodchild was determined never to acknowledge. CHAPTER VII. At last, Ida and Mr. Tempest had come to form a regu- lar correspondence together in the following way. The young advocate had conducted a commerce of looks with the lovely girl for a long time, and hardly knowing how it began, he had satisfied himself that she looked like an angel; and he grew very anxious to know whether she also talked like one ? To ascertain this point, he followed her many a time, and up and down many a street ; and he bore patiently, for her sake, all the angry looks of his cli- ents, which seemed to say that he would do more wisely to stay at home and study their causes, than to roam about in chase of a pretty girl. Mr. Tempest differed from his cli- ents on this matter : suits at law, said he, have learned to wait ; they are used to it ; but hearts have not learned to wait, and never will be used to it. However, all was in vain. Ida was attended constantly either by her father, or by an old governess ; and in either case his scheme was knocked on the head. At length, chance did for him more than he could ever do for himself, and placed him one night at her elbow in the theatre. True it was that her father, whose dislike to him ever since his fatal acknowledgment of the King of Hayti he had not failed to remark, sat on the other side THE KING OF HATTI. 363 of her ; but the devil is in it, thought he, if I cannot steal a march on him the whole night through. As the overture to his scheme, therefore, he asked, in the most respectful manner, for the play-bill which Ida held in her hand. On returning it, he said, — what a pity that the vanity of the manager should disturb so many excellent parts ; the part allotted to himself would have been far better played by several others in the company. Mr. Tempest was not much delighted on observing that Mr. Goodchild did not receive this remark very propi- tiously, but looked still gloomier than before. The fact was, that the manager constantly attended all Mr. Good- child's literary parties, professed great deference for his opinions, and was in return pronounced by Mr. Goodchild a man of " exceedingly good taste and accurate judgment." His first shot, Mr. Tempest saw clearly, had missed fire ; and he would have been very glad to have had it back again ; for he was thrown into a hideous fright when he saw the deep darkness which was gathering on Mr. Good- child's face. Meantime, it was some little support to him under his panic, that, in returning the play-bill to Ida, he had ventured to press her hand, and fancied (but it could only be fancy) that she slightly returned the pressure. His enemy, whose thunder now began to break, insisted on giving an importance to his remark which the unfortunate young man himself had never contemplated, — having meant it only as an introduction to further conversation, and not at all valuing himself upon it. " A pity, my good sir," said Mr. Goodchild : " why so, my good sir ? On the contrary, my good sir, on the contrary, I believe it is pretty generally admitted that there is no part whatsoever in which' this manager fails to outshine all competitors." "Very true, sir; as you observe, sir, he outshines all his competitors ; and, in fact, that was just the very remark I wished to make." 364 THE KING OP HAYTI. " It was, was it ? Well, then, upon my word, my good sir, you took a very odd way to express it. The fact is, young and visionary people of this day are very rash in their judgments. But it is not to be supposed that so admirable a performer as this can be at all injured by such light and capricious opinions." Mr. Tempest was confounded by this utter discomfiture of his inaugural effort, and sank dejected into silence. But his victorious foe looked abroad in all directions with a smiling and triumphant expression on his face, as if asking whether anybody had witnessed the ability with which he had taken down the conceit of the young rattle-brain. However, Mr. Tempest was not so utterly dejected, but he consoled himself with thinking that every dog has his day : his turn would come ; and he might yet perhaps suc- ceed in laying the old dragon asleep. CHAPTER VIII. With a view to do this as soon as possible, at the end of the first act he begged a friend who stood next to him to take his place by the side of Ida for a few minutes, and then hastened out. Under one of the lamps on the outside of the theatre, he took out from his pocket the envelope of a letter he had lately received, and with a pencil wrote upon it a formal declaration of love. His project was, to ask Ida a second time for the play-bill, and on returning it, to crush up the little note and put both together into her hand. But lord ! how the wisest schemes are baffled ! On returning to the pit, he found the whole condition of things changed. His faithless representative met him with an apology at the very door. The fact was, that, seeing a pretty young lady standing close by him, the devil of gal- lantry had led him to cede to her use in perpetuity what THE KING OP HAYTI. 365 had been committed to his own care in trust only for a few minutes. Nor was this all ; for the lady being much ad- mired and followed, and (like comets or Highland chief- tains) having her " tail " on for this night, there was no possibility of reaching the neighborhood of Ida for the pressure of the lady's tail of followers. CHAPTER IX. In his whole life had Mr. Tempest never witnessed a more stupid performance, worse actors, or more disgusting people about him, than during the time that he was sepa- rated from Ida. With the eye of an experienced tactician, he had calculated to a hah" the course he must steer, on the termination of the play, to rejoin the object of his anxious regard. But alas ! when the curtain dropped, he found his road quite blocked up. No remedy was left but to press right on, and without respect of persons. But he gained nothing by the indefatigable labor of his elbows except a great number of scowling looks. His attention was just called to this, when Ida, who had now reached the door, looked back for a moment, and then disappeared in com- pany with her father. Two minutes after, he had himself reached the door ; but, looking round, he exclaimed pretty loudly, " Ah, good lord ! it 's of no use ; " — and then through the moonlight and the crowd of people he shot like an arrow, leaving them all to wonder what madness had seized the young advocate, who was usually so rational and composed. However, he overtook the object of his pursuit in the street in which he lived. For, upon his turning rapidly round the corner, Mr. Goodchild, alarmed at his noise and his speed, turned round upon him suddenly, and said, " Is this a man or a horse ? " 31* 366 THE KING OF HAYTI. CHAPTER X. " Mr. Goodchild," began the breathless barrister, " I am very much indebted to you." " Hem ! " said the other in a way which seemed to ex- press, " What now, my good sir ? " " You have this evening directed my attention to the em- inent qualifications of our manager. Most assuredly you were in the right ; he played the .part divinely.'' Here Mr. Tempest stopped to congratulate himself upon the triumphant expression which the moonlight revealed upon the face of his antagonist. On this triumph, if his plans succeeded, he meant to build a triumph of his own. " Ay, ay : what, then, you 've come to reason at last, my good sir?" " Your judgment and penetration, Mr. Goodchild, I am bound at all times to bow to as far superior to my own." During this compliment to the merchant's penetration, Mr. Tempest gently touched the hand of Ida with his pen- cil note : the hand opened, and, like an oyster, closed upon it in an instant. " In which scene, Mr. Tempest," said the merchant, " is it your opinion that the manager acquitted himself best ? " " In which scene ! " Here was a delightful question. The advocate had attended so exclusively to Ida, that whether there were any scenes at all in the whole per- formance was more than he could pretend to say ; and now he was to endure a critical examination on the merits of each scene in particular. He was in direful perplexity. Considering, however, that in most plays there is some love, and therefore some love-scenes, he dashed at it, and boldly said, " In that scene, I think, where he makes the declara- tion of love." " Declaration of love ! why, God bless my soul ! in the THE KING OF HAYTI. 367 whole part, from the beginning to end, there is nothing like a declaration of love." " 0, confound your accuracy, you old fiend ! " thought Mr. Tempest to himself ; but aloud he said : " No decla- ration of love, do you say ? Is it possible ? Why, then, I suppose I must have mistaken for the manager that man who played the lover : surely he played divinely." " Divinely ! divine stick ! what, that wretched, stammer- ing, wooden booby ? Why he would have been hissed off the stage, if it had n't been well known that he was a stranger hired to walk through the part for that night." Mr. Tempest, seeing that the more he said the deeper he plunged into the mud, held it advisable to be silent. On the other hand, Mr. Goodchild began to be ashamed of his triumph over what he had supposed the lawyer's prejudices. He took his leave, therefore, in these words : " Good night, Mr. Tempest ; and for the future, my good sir, do not judge so precipitately as you did on that occasion when you complimented a black fellow with the title of king, and called St. Domingo by the absurd name of Hayti. Some little consideration and discretion go to every sound opinion.'' So saying, the old dragon walked off with his treasure, and left the advocate with his ears still tingling from his mortifications. " Just to see the young people of this day," said Mr. Goodchild ; " what presumption and what ignorance ! " The whole evening through he continued to return to this theme; and during supper nearly choked himself in an ebullition of fiery zeal upon this favorite topic. 368 THE KING OF HAYTI. CHAPTER XI, TJie Letter-Box. To her father's everlasting question, " Am not I in the right, then ? " Ida replied in a sort of pantomime, which was intended to represent "Yes." This was her outward yes ; but in her heart she was thinking of no other yes than that which she might one day be called on to pronounce at the altar by the side of Mr. Tempest. And therefore, at length, when the eternal question came round again, she nodded in a way which rather seemed to say, " O, dear sir, you are in the right for anything I have to say against it," than anything like a downright yes. On which Mr. Good- child quitted one favorite theme for another more immedi- ately necessary, viz. the lukewarmness of young people towards good counsel and sound doctrine. Meantime, Ida's looks were unceasingly directed to her neck-handkerchief: the reason of which was this. In order, on the one hand, to have the love-letter as near as possible to her heart, and, on the other, to be assured that it was in safe custody, she had converted the beautiful white drapery of her bosom into a letter-case ; and she felt continually urged to see whether the systole and diastole which went on in other important contents of this letter- case, might not by chanee expose it to view. The letter asked for an answer ; and late as it was, when all the house were in bed, Ida set about one. On the following morn- ing this answer was conveyed to its destination by the man who delivered the newspapers to her father and Mr. Tempest. From this day forward there came so many letters to Miss Goodchild by the new-established post, that the beautiful letter-case was no longer able to contain them. THE KING OF HAYTI. 369 She was now obliged to resort to the help of her writing- desk, which, so long as her father had no suspicions, was fully sufficient. CHAPTER XII. The paper intercourse now began to appear too little to Mr. Tempest. For what can be despatched in a moment by word of mouth, would often linger unaccomplished for a thousand years when conducted in writing. True it was that a great deal of important business had already been despatched by the letters. For instance, Mr. Tempest had through this channel assured himself that Ida was willing to be his forever. Tet even this was not enough. The contract had been made, but not sealed upon the rosy lips of Ida. This seemed monstrous to Mr. Tempest. " Grant me patience," said he to himself; "grant me patience; when I think of the many disgusting old relations, great raw- boned, absurd fellows, with dusty, snuff-powdered beards, that have revelled in that lip-paradise, hardly knowing — old withered wretches ! — what they were about, or what a blessing was conferred upon them ; whilst I — yes, I, that am destined to call her my bride one of these days — am obliged to content myself with payments of mere paper- money.'' This seemed shocking; and, indeed, considering the terms on which he now stood with Ida, Mr. Tempest could scarcely believe it himself. He paced up and down his study in anger, flinging glances at every turn upon the opposite house, which contained his treasure. All at once he stopped : " What 's all this ? " said he, on observing Mr. Goodchild's servants lighting up the chandeliers in the great saloon. " What 's'in the wind now ? " And imme- 370 , THE KING OF HAYTI. diately he went to his writing-table for Ida's last letter ; for Ida sometimes communicated any little events in the family that could anyways affect their correspondence ; on this occasion, however, she had given no hint of anything extraordinary approaching. Yet the preparations and the bustle indicated something very extraordinary. Mr. Tem- pest's heart began to beat violently. "What was he to think? Great fetes, in a house where there is an only daughter, usually have some reference to her. " Go, Tyr- rel," said he to his clerk, "go and make inquiries (but cautiously, you understand, and in a lawyer-like manner) as to the nature and tendency of these arrangements." Tyrrel came back with the following report: Mr. Good- child had issued cards for a very great party on that evening; all the seniors were invited to tea, and almost all the young people of condition throughout the town to a masqued ball at night. The suddenness of the invita- tions, and the consequent hurry of the arrangements, arose in this way : a rich relative who lived in the country had formed a plan for coming by surprise, with his whole family, upon Mr. Goodchild. But Mr. Goodchild had acci- dentally received a hint of his intention by some side-wind, and had determined to turn the tables on his rich relation by surprising him with a masquerade. "0 heavens! what barbarity!" said Mr. Tempest, as towards evening he saw from his windows young and old trooping to the fete. " What barbarity ! There 's hardly a scoundrel in the place but is asked ; and I — I, John Tempest, that am to marry the jewel of the house, must be content to witness the preparations and to hear the sound of their festivities from the solitude of my den.'' THE KING OJ? HAYTI. 371 CHAPTER XIII. Questions and Commands. As night drew on, more and more company continued to pour in. The windows being very bright, and the cur- tains not drawn, no motion of the party could escape our advocate. What pleased him better than all the splendor which he saw, was the melancholy countenance of the kind-hearted girl, as she stood at the centre window and looked over at him. This melancholy countenance and these looks, directed at himself, were occasioned, as he soon became aware, by a proposal which had been made to play at questions and commands. This game, in fact, soon began. "Thunder and lightning!" said Mr. Tempest, discovering what it was, " is this to be endured ? " If the mere possibility of such an issue had alarmed him, how much more sensible was his affliction when he saw, as a matter of fact laid visibly before his bodily eyes, that every fool and coxcomb availed himself of the privi- lege of the game to give to Ida, his own destined bride, kisses * without let or hindrance ; " whilst I," said he, " I, John Tempest, have never yet been blessed with one." But if the sight of such liberties taken with his blooming Ida placed him on the brink of desperation, much more desperate did he become when that sight was shut out by that "consummate villain" (as he chose to style him) the footman, who at this moment took it into his head, or was ordered, to let down the curtains. Behind the curtains, — ah ! ye gods, what scenes might not pass ! " This must be put a stop to," said Mr. Tempest, taking * The reader must remember that the scene is laid in Germany. This, and other instances of grossierete, have been purposely retained, in illustration of German manners. 372 THE KING OF HAYTI. his hat and cane, and walking into the street. Ay; but how ? This was a question he could not answer. "Wan- dering, therefore, up and down the streets until it had become quite dark, he returned at length to the point from which he had set out, and found that one nuisance at least — viz. the kissing — had ceased, and had given place to a concert. For Ida's musical talents and fine voice were well known, and she was generally called the little Cata- lani. She was now singing, and a crowd of persons had collected under the window to hear her, who seemed, by their looks, to curse every passer-by for the disturbance he made. Mr. Tempest crept on tiptoe to join the crowd of listen- ers, and was enraptured by the sweet tones of Ida's voice. After the conclusion of the air, and when the usual hub- bub of enchanting ! divine ! &c. had rung out its peal, the by-standers outside began to talk of the masquerade. In the crowd were some of those who had been invited ; and one amongst them was flattering himself that nobody would recognize him before he should unmasque. CHAP TEE XIV. The Death' s-Head Masque. Thus much information Mr. Tempest drew from this casual conversation, that he found it would not be required of the masquers to announce their names to any person on their arrival. Upon this hint he grounded a plan for taking a part in the masqued ball. By good luck he was already provided with a black domino against the winter masquerades at the public rooms ; this domino was so contrived that the head of the wearer was hidden under the cloak, in which an imperceptible opening was made for the eyes ; the real head thus became a pair of shoul- THE KING OF HATTI. 373 ders, and upon this was placed a false head, which, when lifted up, exposed a white skull with eyeless sockets, and grinning, with a set of brilliantly white teeth, at the curi- ous spectator. Having settled his scheme, Mr. Tempest withdrew to his own lodgings, in order to make preparations for its execution. CHAPTER XV. It's only I. The company at Mr. Goodchild's consisted of two di- visions : No. 1, embracing the elder or more fashionable persons, and those who were nearly connected with the family, had been invited to tea, supper, and a masqued ball; No. 2, the younger and less distinguished persons, had been invited to the ball only. This arrangement, which proceeded from the penurious disposition of Mr. Goodchild, had on this occasion the hearty approbation of Mr. Tempest. About eleven o'clock, therefore, when a great part of the guests in the second division had already arrived, he ordered a sedan-chair to be fetched ; and then, causing himself to be carried up and down through several streets, that nobody might discover from what house the gigantic domino had issued, he repaired to the house of Mr. Goodchild. His extraordinary stature excited so much the more astonishment amongst the party-colored mob of masquers, because he kept himself wholly aloof from all the rest, and paced up and down with haughty strides. His demeanor and air had in it something terrific to everybody except to Ida, to whom he had whispered as he passed her alone in an anteroom, " Don't be alarmed ; it 's only I ; " at the same time giving her a billet, in which he requested a few 32 374 THE KING OF HAYTI. moments' conversation with her at any time in the course of the evening. Some persons, however, had observed him speaking to Ida ; and therefore, on her return to the great saloon, she was pressed on all sides to tell what she knew of the mysterious giant. She, good heavens!, how should she know anything of him? "What had he said, then?" That, too, she could as little answer. He spoke, she said, in such a low, hollow, and unintelligible tone, that she was quite alarmed, and heard nothing of what he uttered. The company now betrayed more and more anxiety in reference to the unknown masque, so that Ida had no chance for answering his billet, or granting the request which it contained. Mr. Tempest now began to regret much that he had not selected an ordinary masque, in which he might have conversed at his ease, without being so remarkably pointed out to the public attention. CHAPTER XVI. Suspicions. The murmurs about the tall domino grew louder and louder, and gathered more and more about him. He began to hear doubts plainly expressed, whether he was actually invited. The master of the house protested, that, so far from having any such giant amongst his acquaint- ance, he had never seen such a giant except in show- booths. This mention of booths gave a very unfortunate direction to the suspicions already abroad against the poor advocate ; for at that time there was a giant in the town who was exhibiting himself for money, and Mr. Goodchild began to surmise that this man, either with a view to the increasing his knowledge of men and man- ners, or for his recreation after the tedium of standing to THE KING OF HAYTI. 375 be gazed at through a whole day's length, had possibly- smuggled himself as a contraband article into his masqued ball. CHAPTER XVII. Difficulties increased. The worthy host set to work very deliberately to count his guests, and it turned out that there was actually just one masque more than there should be. Upon this he stepped into the middle of the company, and spoke as follows : " Most respectable and respected masques, under existing circumstances, and for certain weighty causes me thereto moving (this phrase Mr. Goodchild had bor- rowed from his lawyer), I have to request that you will all and several, one after another, communicate your names to me by whispering them into my ear." Well did Mr. Tempest perceive what were the existing circumstances, and what the reasons thereto moving, which had led to this measure ; and very gladly he would have withdrawn himself from this vexatious examination by marching off; but it did not escape him that a couple of sentinels were already posted at the door. CHAPTER XVIII. Panic. More than one half of the guests had already com- municated their names to Mr. Goodchild, and stood wait- in" in the utmost impatience for the examination of the giant. But the giant, on his part, was so little eager to gratify them by passing before others, that at length, when all the rest had gone through their probation honorably, he remained the last man, and thus was, ipso 376 THE KING OF HAYTI. facto, condemned as the supernumerary man before his trial commenced. The company was now divided into two great classes, — those who had a marriage garment, and the unfortunate giant who had none. So much was clear ; but, to make further discoveries, the host now stepped up to him hastily and said, " Your name, if you please ? " The masque stood as mute, as tall, and as immovable as the gable end of a house. "Your name?" repeated Mr. Goodchild ; " I '11 trouble you for your name ? " No answer coming, a cold shivering seized upon Mr. Good- child. In fact, at this moment a story came across him from his childish years, that, when Dr. Faustus was played, it had sometimes happened that amongst the stage devils there was suddenly observed to be one too many, and the supernumerary one was found to be no spurious devil, but a true, sound, and legitimate devil. For the third time, while his teeth chattered, he said, "Your name, if you please?" " I have none," said Mr. Tempest, in so hollow a voice, that the heart of the worthy merchant sunk down in a moment to his knee-buckles, and an ice-wind of panic began to blow pretty freshly through the whole company. " Your face, then, if you please, sir ? " stammered out Mr. Goodchild. Very slowly and unwillingly the masque, being thus importunately besieged, proceeded to comply ; but scarcely had he unmasqued and exposed the death's head, when every soul ran out of the room with an outcry of horror. The masque sprang after them, bounding like a grey- hound, and his grinning skull nodding as he moved. This he did under pretence of pursuing them, but in fact to take advantage of the general panic for making his exit. THE KING OF HAYTI. 377 CHAPTER XIX. The Parting Kiss. — Miss GoodcMLd in the Arms of Death. In an anteroom, now totally deserted, Death was met by Ida, who said to him, — " Ah ! for God's sake make your escape. Oh ! if you did but know what anxiety I have suffered on account of your strange conceit." Here she paused, and spite of her anxiety she could not for- bear smiling at the thought of the sudden coup-de-thedtre by which Mr. Tempest had turned the tables upon every soul that had previously been enjoying his panic. In the twinkling of an eye he had inflicted a far deeper panic upon them, and she herself had been passed by the whole herd of fugitives, — tall and short, corpulent and lanky, halt and lame, young and old, — all spinning away with equal energy before the face of the supernumerary guest. Death, in return, told Ida how he had been an eyewitness to the game of questions and commands, and to the letting down of the curtains. This spectacle (he acknowledged) had so tortured him, that he could stand it no longer, and he had sworn within himself that he would have a kiss as well as other persons ; and further, that he would go and fetch it himself from the midst of the masquerade, though not expecting to have been detected as the extra passenger or nip.* And surely, when a whole company had tasted the ambrosia of her lips, Miss Goodchild would not be so unkind as to dismiss him alone without that happiness. No, Miss Goodchild was not so unkind; and Death was just in the act of applying his lips to the rosy mouth of Ida, when old Goodchild came peeping in at the door * In England, passengers who are taken up on stage-coaches by the collusion of the guard and coachman, without the knowledge of the proprietors, are called nips. 32* 378 THE KING OF HA.YTI. to see if the coast was clear of the dreadful masque, and behind him was a train of guests, all stepping gently and on tiptoe from an adjoining corridor. Every soul was petrified with astonishment on seeing the young, warm-breathing Ida on such close and appar- ently friendly terms with the black gigantic Death, whose skull was grinning just right above the youthful pair, and surmounting them like a crest. At this sight all became plain, and the courage of the company, which had so re- cently sunk below the freezing point, suddenly rose at once above boiling heat. Mr. Goodchild levelled a blow at the Death's head which had caused him so much pain and agitation; and Mr. Tempest, seeing that no better course remained, made off for the front door ; and thus the uninvited masque, who had so lately chased and eject- ed the whole body of the invited ones, was in turn chased and ejected by them. The festivities had been too violently interrupted to be now resumed ; the guests took leave, and the weeping Ida was banished to a close confinement in her own room. CHAPTER XX. Here ends our episode. It was on the very morning after this fracas that Mr. Whelp waited upon Mr. Good- child, to report to him the universal opinion of the world upon the bust of the late stamp-distributor, his brother ; and upon that opinion to ground an appeal to his justice. A worse season for his visit he could not possibly have chosen. Mr. Goodchild stormed, and said, — "The case had been tried and disposed of; and he must insist on being troubled with no further explanations." And so far did his anger make him forget the common courtesies of life, that he never asked the proprietor of the china- THE KING OF HAYTI. 379 works to sit down. Mr. Whelp, on his part, no less aston- ished and irritated at such treatment, inquired of the foot- man, what was the matter with his master ; and the foot- man, who was going away, and was reckless of conse- quences, repeated the whole history of the preceding night with fits of laughter ; and added, that the sport was not yet over, for that this morning a brisk correspondence had commenced between his master and Mr. Tempest, — which, by the effect produced on the manners of both, seemed by no means of the gentlest nature. CHAPTER XXI. The King of Hayti. This account was particularly agreeable to Mr Whelp. Concluding that, under the present circumstances, Mr. Tempest would naturally be an excellent counsellor against Mr. Goodchild, he hastened over to his apartments ; and said that, his last effort to bring the merchant over the way to any reasonable temper of mind having utterly failed, he had now another scheme. But first of all he wished to have the professional opinion of Mr. Tempest, whether he should lay himself open to an action if he took the following course to reimburse himself the expenses of the three dozen of busts: — He had been told by some Englishman, whose name he could not at this moment call to mind, that the bust of the stamp-master was a most striking likeness of Christophe, the black King of Hayti : now this being the case, what he proposed to do was to wash over the late stamp-distributor with a black varnish, and to export one dozen and a half of the distributor on speculation to St. Domingo, keeping the rest for home consumption. When Mr. Tempest heard this plan stated, in spite of 380 THE KING OF HATTI. his own disturbance of mind at the adventures of the last night, he could not forbear laughing heartily at the con- ceit; for he well knew what was the real scheme which lurked under this pretended exportation to St. Domingo. Some little time back, Mr. Goodchild had addressed to the German people, through the General Advertiser, this ques- tion : — " How or whence it came about that, in so many- newspapers of late days, mention had been made of a kingdom of Hayti, when it was notorious to everybody that the island in question was properly called St. Do- mingo?" He therefore exhorted all editors of political journals to return to more correct principles. On the same occasion he had allowed himself many very disre- spectful expressions against " a certain black fellow who pretended to be King of Hayti ; " so that it might readily be judged that it would not be a matter of indifference to him if his late brother the stamp-master were sold under the name of King of Hayti. The barrister's opinion was, that as the heir of the bespeaker had solemnly deposed to the non-resemblance of the busts, and had on this ground found means to liber- ate himself from all obligation to take them or to pay for them, those busts had reverted in full property to the china-works. However, he advised Mr. Whelp to blacken only one of them for the present, to place it in the same window where one had stood before, and then to await the issue. CHAPTER XXII. A week after this, the bust of the stamp-distributor, with the hair and face blackened, was placed in the window ; and below it was written, in gilt letters, "His most excellent Majesty, the King of Hayti." THE KING OF HATTI. 381 This manoeuvre operated with the very best effect. The passers-by all remembered to have seen the very same face a short time ago as the face of a white man ; and they all remembered to whom the face belonged. The laughing, therefore, never ceased from morning to night before the window of the china-works. Now Mr. Goodchild received very early intelligence of what was going on, possibly through some persons specially commissioned by Mr. Whelp to trouble him with the news ; and straightway he trotted off to the china-works, • — not, to be sure, with any view of joining the laughers, but, on the contrary, to attack Mr. "Whelp, and to demand the destruction of the bust. However, all his remonstrances were to no purpose ; and the more anger he betrayed, so much the more did it encourage his antagonist. Mr. Goodchild hurried home in a great passion, and wrote a note to the borough-reeve, with a pressing request that he would favor him with his company to supper that evening, to taste some genuine bottled London porter. This visit, however, did not lead to those happy results which Mr. Goodchild had anticipated. True it was that he showed his discretion in not beginning to speak of the busts until the bottled porter had produced its legitimate effects upon the spirits of the borough-reeve : the worship- ful man was in a considerable state of elevation ; but for all that he would not predict any favorable issue to the action against Mr. Whelp which his host was meditating. He shrugged his shoulders, and said that, on the former occasion, when Mr. Goodchild had urged the bench to pro- nounce for the non-resemblance of the busts, they had gone further, in order to gratify him, than they could altogether answer to their consciences ; but really, to come now and call upon the same bench to pronounce for the resemblance of the same identical busts, was altogether inadmissible. 382 THE KING OP HATTI. CHAPTER XXIII. Mr. Goodchild was on the brink of despair the whole night through; and when he rose in the morning, and put his head out of the window to inhale a little fresh air, what should be the very first thing that met him but a poisonous and mephitic blast from the window of his op- posite neighbor, which in like manner stood wide open : for his sharp sight easily detected that the young barrister, his enemy, instead of the gypsum bust of Ulpian which had hitherto presided over his library, had mounted the black china bust of the King of Hayti. Without a moment's delay Mr. Goodchild jumped into his clothes and hastened down to Mr. Whelp. His two principles of vitality, avarice and ambition, had struggled together throughout the night; but on the sight of his brother the stamp-master, thus posthumously varnished with lamp-black, and occupying so conspicuous a station in the library of his mortal enemy, ambition had gained a complete victory. He bought up, therefore, the whole thirty-five busts ; and understanding that the only black copy was in the possession of Mr. Tempest, he begged that, upon some pretext or other, Mr. Whelp would get it back into his hands, promising to pay all expenses out of his own purse. Mr. Whelp shook his head ; but promised to try what he could do, and went over without delay to the advocate's rooms. Meantime, the longer he stayed and made it evi- dent that the negotiation had met with obstacles, so much the larger were the drops of perspiration which stood upon Mr. Goodchild's forehead, as he paced up and down his room in torment. At last Mr. Whelp came over, but with bad news ; Mr. Tempest was resolute to part with the bust at no price. THE KING- OP HATTI. 383 CHAPTEE XXIV. Dictation. Mr. Goodchild, on hearing this intelligence, hastened to his daughter, who was still under close confinement, and, taking her hand, said : " Thoughtless girl, come and be- hold ! " Then, conducting her to his own room, and point- ing with his finger to Mr. Tempest's book-case, he said : " See there ! behold my poor deceased brother, the stamp- distributor, to what a situation is he reduced, — that, after death, he must play the part of a black fellow, styling himself King of Hayti. And is it with such a man, one who aims such deadly stabs at the honor and peace of our family, that you would form a clandestine connection ? I blush for you, inconsiderate child. However, sit down to my writing-desk, and this moment write what I shall dic- tate, verbatim et literatim; and in that case I shall again consider and treat you as my obedient daughter." Ida seated herself: her father laid a sheet of paper before her, put a pen into her hand, and dictated the following epistle, in. which he flattered himself that he had succeeded to a marvel in counterfeiting the natural style of a young lady of seventeen : — " Respectable and friendly Sir, — Since the unfortunate masquerade, I have not had one hour of peace. My ex- cellent and most judicious father has shut me up in my own apartments ; and, according to special information which I have had, it is within the limits of possibility that my confinement may last for a year and a day. Now, therefore, whereas credible intelligence has reached me that you have, by purchase from the china-manufactory of the city, possessed yourself of a bust claiming to be the representation of a black fellow, who (most absurdly!) 384 THE KING OF HATTI. styles himself King of Hayti ; and whereas, from certain weighty reasons him thereunto moving, my father has a desire to sequestrate into his own hands any bust or busts purporting to represent the said black fellow ; and where- as, further, my father has caused it to be notified to me, that immediately upon the receipt of the said bust, through any honorable application of mine to you, he will release me from arrest ; therefore, and on the aforesaid considera- tions, I, Ida Goodchild, spinster, do hereby make known my request to you, that, as a testimony of those friendly dispositions which you have expressed, or caused to be ex- pressed to me, you would, on duly weighing the premises, make over to me the bust aforesaid in consideration of certain moneys (as shall be hereafter settled) to be by me paid over unto you. Which request being granted and ratified, I shall, with all proper respect, acknowledge my- self your servant and well-wisher, Ida Goodchild, Manu propria." The two last words the poor child knew not how to write, and therefore her father wrote them for her, and said, the meaning of these words is, that the letter was written with your own hand ; upon which, in law, a great deal depends. He then folded up the letter, sealed it, and rang for a servant to carry it over to Mr. Tempest. " But not from me, do you hear, William ! Don't say it comes from me : and if Mr. Tempest should cross-examine you, be sure you say I know nothing of it." CHAPTER XXV Candor. " For the rest," said Mr. Goodchild, " never conceit that I shall lend any the more countenance, for all this, THE KING OF HAYTI. 385 to your connection with the young visionary. As soon as the bust is once in my hands, from that moment he and I are strangers, and shall know each other no more." Mr. Goodchild had not for a long time been in such spirits as he was after this most refined tour d'addresse in diplomacy (as he justly conceived it). "The style," said he, "cannot betray the secret: no, I flatter myself that I have hit that to a hair ; I defy any critic, the keenest, to distinguish it from the genuine light, sentimental billet- doux style of young ladies of seventeen. How should he learn then? William dares not tell him for his life. And the fellow, can never be such a brute' as to refuse the bust to a young lady whom he pretends to admire. Lord ! it makes me laugh to think what a long face he '11 show when he asks for permission to visit you upon the strength of this sacrifice ; and I, looking at him like a bull, shall say, "No, indeed, my good sir; as to the bust, what's that to me, my good sir ? What do I care for the bust, my good sir ? I believe it 's all broken to pieces with a sledge-ham- mer, or else you might have it back again for anything I care. Eh, Ida, my girl, won't that be droll ? Won't it be laughable to see what a long face he '11 cut ? " But, but — CHAPTEE XXVI. Won't it be laughable to see what a long face ihefelloio will cutf If Ida had any particular- wish to see how laughable a fellow looked under sueh circumstances, she had very soon that gratification ; for her father's under jaw dropped enor- mously on the return of the messenger. It did not per- haps require any great critical penetration to determine from what member of the family the letter proceeded: and independently of that, Mr. Tempest had (as the reader 33 386 THE KING OF HAYTI. knows) some little acquaintance with the epistolary style of Miss Goodchild. In his answer, therefore, he declined complying with the request ; but, to convince his beloved Ida that his refusal was designed, not for her, but for her father, he expressed himself as follows : — ""Madam, my truly respectable young friend, — It gives me great concern to be under the painful necessity of stat- ing that it is wholly out of my power to make over unto you the bust of his gracious majesty the King of Hayti, " in consideration " (as you express it) " of certain moneys to be by you paid over unto me." This, I repeat, is wholly impossible : seeing that I am now on the point of ratifying a treaty with an artist, in virtue of which three thousand copies are to be forthwith taken of the said bust on account of its distinguished excellence, and to be dispersed to my friends and others throughout Europe. With the greatest esteem, I remain your most obedient and devoted servant, John Tempest." CHAPTER XXVII. Unexpected Denouement. "Now, then," thought Mr. Goodchild, "the world is come to a pretty pass." The honor and credit of his name and family seemed to stand on the edge of a razor ; and, without staying for any further consideration, he shot over, like an arrow, to Mr. Tempest. Scarcely was he out of the house when in rushed the postman with a second note to Miss Goodchild, apologizing for the former, and explaining to her the particular pur- pose he had hi writing it. How well he succeeded in this was very soon made evident by the circumstance of her father's coming back THE KING OF HATTI. 387 with him, arm in arm. Mr. Tempest had so handsomely apologized for any offence he might have given, and with a tone of real feeling had rested his defence so entirely upon the excess of his admiration for Miss Goodchild, which had left him no longer master of his own actions or understanding, that her father felt touched and nattered, — forgave eveiything frankly, — and allowed him to hope, from his daughter's mouth, for the final ratification of his hopes. "But this one stipulation I must make, my good sir," said Mr. Goodchild, returning to his political anxieties, " that in future you must wholly renounce that black fel- low who styles himself (most absurdly !) the King of Hayti." " With all my heart," said Mr. Tempest, " Miss Goodchild will be cheaply purchased by renouncing The King of Hayti" THE END. wm. <*v S?f <\u Wf/tj. m w& tt Iffi : v« fepfe WJpS ■*&Wl ; > ^/;i J A * 9 ; tfl vV )U- »| H^/ ILL/* !: ■'* „ ■/' ' ,i'K