nishing reasons or pretences for diverting it from the payment of the public debts. The experience of past time is against the probability of its being regularly applied to this purpose for the time to come.

4thly, The moft capital defect of this plan is, that its operation is to cease as soon as a war begins. It is to cease at the time in which its operation begins to be most advantageous and beneficial for the proof of this obfervation, fee page 258, and page 17 of the Author's Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt; and Monthly Review, vol. xlv. page 353

With thefe unquestionable difadvantages, it is no wonder that the above plan has had no effect on public credit. It is the plan which has been purfued for 45 years, and to which we owe our prefent incumbrances. Certain it is, that nothing but a plan that fhall go on operating uniformly in war as well as in peace, or the establishment of a permanent fund that fhall never be diverted-Nothing, I fay, but this can do us any effential fervice; or, in our prefent circumftances, be much more than trifling with the difficulties and dangers of the public.' If fuch a fund were re-established, it would create a confidence in government fecurity; and, by the increasing fums which would be thrown annually into the public markets, and returned to the public creditors, the 3 per cents. would be foon raised to par, and, in fome time, probably above par. It is well known what an effect borrowing every year has in finking the funds. Paying every year would certainly have an equal contrary effect. The Author fuppofes, that in these circumftances the 3 per cents. would be raised to 110; and proceeds to fhew what advantages might be derived from hence towards diminishing and annihilating the public debts. Instead of reducing the intereft, which would only retard the operation of a fund appropriated to the extinction of the public debts, the measure he proposes is a reduction of the capital, attended with an advancement of intereft, in the following manner

The 3 per cents. being at 110, and, confequently, an immediate lofs of 10l. arifing to the proprietors from every ico L paid off, in order to prevent this lofs, they would probably confent to a deduction from their capital of double the fum, provided what remained was made irredeemable for fifteen years, and the fame intereft continued.' Such a measure, our Author fhews, would by no means be injurious to the proprietors. The only difference would be, that their capital would bear a new name, whilft their interest of 3 per cent. continued undiminished :

A measure, in fome refpects fimilar to this, has been propofed by Sir James Steuart. Principles of Political Oeconomy, vol. ii. p. 480. and

and as the stock is irredeemable for fifteen years, and then paid off gradually, 201. the payment of which is thus delayed, and which requires feveral years beyond the ftated period before it is completed, cannot, in prefent money, be worth much more than 10l. and therefore it would be reasonable in the proprictors of 100 l. ftock to give up 201. on fuch terms, in order to fave 101. in hand. And as this lofs is diftant and future, it would be much lefs regarded than in proportion to its true value to which it is added, that this lofs would be likely to fall on pofterity, or fome future purchafers of stock, and not on prefent creditors.

I have therefore, fays the Author, certainly kept within bounds, when I have reckoned that a reduction of 201. per cent. in the capital of 3 per cents. might be made, in the circumftances I have mentioned. Let then fuch a reduction be applied to fixty millions of the 3 per cents. This will leave much more than enough free for the operations of the fund; and by fuch management as that, which, in 1749, reduced 57 millions from an intereft of 4 per cent. to an intereft of 3 per cent. there is no reason to doubt but it might be accomplished in one year, or at least in two or three years, and the confequence would be, that a capital of fixty millions would be reduced to 48 millions; or that twelve millions of debt would be cancelled without expence or difficulty.

But this is not the only advantage which would arise from fuch a measure. At the end of the term I have mentioned, 48 millions would be redeemable debts, bearing 34 per cent. intereft. These would fell much above par; and a fecond reduction, on condition of irredeemablenefs for a fhorter term, might be applied to fuch a part of them as it might not be neceffary to leave free; and thus, by the fame means with the foregoing, feveral millions more might be annihilated. At the fame time the fund, which had hitherto been employed in discharging redeemable 3 per cents might be applied to the discharge of debts bearing 3 per cent. intereft, and therefore would, as proved in page 138, be accelerated in its operation. And at the end of the fecond term, it might be applied to debts bearing a still higher intereft, and therefore would be ftill more accelerated.--This feems to go to the very limit of poffibility on this fubject. -Money in a fund, never diverted, is improved at compound intereft; and, these being the very beft improvement of money poffible, there can be no method of difcharging debts so expeditious. But by the fcheme now explained, the operations of compound intereft itself would be aided. It would be eafy to fhew that, in 40 years, and without the aid of lotteries, a hundred millions of the 3 per cents. might, in this way, be discharged, with a

prefent

prefent annual furplus of † no more than 900,000l. to be increased in the year 1781 by 200,000l. t, which the public will. gain by the reduction of the confolidated 4 per cents. to 3 per cents. And this, without all doubt, is near twice as much as can be done in the fame time with the fame furplus, by any other equitable means.'-But we must not purfue this subject any farther.

The Poftfcript contains feveral curious facis and obfervations on the fubject of Population. It has been ufual to alledge the increase of tillage in this country as an argument against the fuppofed decrease of its inhabitants. Dr. Price has taken pains to fhew, that the caufes which confpire to produce depopulation among us may, for fome time, promote tillage. More bread (he fays) will be confumed, and, therefore, more corn grown; because there will be lefs ability of going to the price of other food.' And this accounts for the alarm which is occafioned by the rife of bread, though it is much cheaper than it was in the year 1697 (wheat was then at 31. a quarter) when even an exportation was allowed. Corn (it is obferved) was generally dearer during the whole laft century than it has been, at an average, for the last 40 years; but flesh meat was about half its prefent price. It appears by an Act of the 25th of Henry VIII. that beef, veal, pork, and mutton were the food of the poor, and their price was limited to about a halfpenny a pound. Beef and pork were fold in London at two pounds and a half and three pounds for a penny; and wheat at the fame time was at 7 s. and 8 s. a quarter, and bore the fame proportion to the price of flesh as it would bear now, were it at about 41. a quarter.

About the year 1512, the nominal price of grain was near a feventh of its nominal price for the last 20 years. The price of a fat ox at the same time was 13 s. 4 d. of a lean ox, 8 s. of a weather, I s. 8 d. of a calf, I s. 8 d. of a hog, 2 s. And therefore the nominal price of meat was no more than about a fifteenth of its prefent price, and bore the fame proportion to the price of corn that it would now bear, were it half its prefent price.

+ About twenty millions would be difcharged without any difbursement of money, and the remainder would be difcharged by the accumulation of the fund applied for the first 25 years to the payment of debts bearing 3 per cent. intereft, and afterwards to debts bearing higher interefts.

In 1782 there will be another faving gained, from the reduction of four millions and a half, 31⁄2 per cent. annuities, 1758, to an interest of 3 per cent.

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Great care was taken to keep the price of flesh low for the poor; and this (fays our Author) was one of the reasons of the many proclamations publifhed by Queen Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. against eating flesh in Lent and on fifh days." From all these facts, and others pertinent to the fame purpose, which are here adduced, it plainly appears, that bread was then a much less neceffary article of fubfiftence than it is now; and therefore the variations in its price were lefs felt and regarded.

Among other evils which attend inclofures, and engroffing of farms, and which bear a very threatening afpect on the population of this country, our Author mentions the number of people that are reduced to the neceffity of labouring for others; a circumftance which has leffened the price of day-labour in comparison with what it was formerly: fo that there is too much reason to apprehend, if this practice is continued, that in time the whole kingdom will confift of only gentry and beggars, or of grandees and flaves. The nominal price of dayJabour (he obferves) is at prefent no more than about four times, or at moft five times higher than it was in the year 1514. But the price of corn is feven times, and of flesh meat and raiment about fifteen times higher;' and it does not appear that the price of labour bears now half the proportion to the expences of living that it did formerly. We fhall only remark, upon the whole, that it is become abfolutely neceffary to adopt fome effectual meafures for the relief of the lower claffes of people in this kingdom; more efpecially when it is confidered that, notwithstanding all the pernicious effects of depopulation among the poor, three-fourths of all the houfes in the kingdom are houses not having more than seven windows.'

ART. IX. Reafon triumphant over Fancy; exemplified in the fingular Adventures of Don Sylvio de Rofalva. A Hiftory in which every marvellous Event occurs naturally. Tranflated from the German Original of C. M. Weiland. 12mo. 3 Vols. 9s. Wilkie, &c.

1773.

TH

HIS foreign work is not to be claffed with the novels. which have fo much abounded in this country. The Author is an original, and his genius rifes confiderably above mediocrity. The hero of his romance is a young man whose understanding is perverted by tales of fairies, enchanters, &c. as Don Quixotte's was by thofe of chivalry. The following chapter will let the Reader into the Author's view, and give him fome idea of his manner * of writing.

See alfo his Socrates out of his Senfes; Rev. vol. xlvi. p. 625.

CHAP.

CHA P. XII.

The Author's Reflections.

Had it been in our power to write this hiftory half a dozen centuries ago, the whole chapter before us would have been fuperfluous. In former times that which we call the marvelfous was fo common, that people could not meet with any thing more extraordinary than natural events. But, in the prefent age, one would almoft think that a mode of thinking diametrically oppofite had taken the lead: infomuch that, perhaps, out of all the Readers of this hiftory, we can hardly Яatter ourfelves with finding one who would readily be perfuaded to think that every thing related in the foregoing chapter might have happened every day. Since the invention of microfcopes, invifible things have but little influence on human minds; and even a ghost himself would find it very difficult to perfuade people of his exiftence. In fhort, it would be in vain for us to pretend (fince nobody would believe us if we did) that there exifts fuch a fairy as Radiante, or that the blue butterfly has ever been a Princefs, or that a toothpick ever yet figured in the character of a green dwarf.

Our best way then, in fuch circumftances, is candidly to confefs, that we ourselves have as little faith in all that Don Silvio has been telling Pedrillo, as we have in the vifions of our pious country-woman Mary d'Agreda, or the tale of the Red Cap, or any other tale with which our good nurses fed us from the very cradle.

The truth, however, which we profefs throughout the whole of this hiftory, obliges us to obferve, that Don Sylvio, in his narrations, has neither advanced or afferted any thing which may not, in a certain fenfe, be as true and real as moit other stories drawn from the imaginary world. To understand this feeming paradox, we must remember there are two sorts of realities, which, in concreto, are not so easily distinguishable, as perhaps fome may imagine.

Now, as in fpite of all Egotifts in the world, there are things which really exift out of ourselves, fo there are in return others which exift only in our imagination. The former exist, though we do not know that they exift; the latter exift only fo far as we imagine them to exift. These things have no reality in themselves; but with him who takes them for real, they have the fame effect as if they were fo; and without depriving men, by this means, of a good fhare of that high opinion they entertain of themfelves, we may affert that thele matters are the main springs of most of the actions of mankind; that they are the fountain either of our happiness or of our mifery; the fource of our most deteftable vices, or of our most thining virtues.

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