lation. In fact dear-bought experience has forced upon us the truth, that the best government is that which is least seen and least felt. Legislators are commonly very busy, very ignorant and very conceited meddlers, and their besettings in is over-legislation.

Such are the arguments which a friend to existing circumstances, in Great-Britain, night very fairly use in defence of things as they are. There are, however, considerations not destitute of weight, in opposition to the prevalence of overgrown fortunes in a community :

1st. They are apt to create that worst and meanest of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of wealth. The aristocracy of hereditary birth is often accompanied by a sense of honour, and of duty toward the public interest, arising from the presumption that titles and dignities were conferred in return for high achievements and public services. To be sure the stimulous arising from these considerations is apt to be counteracted by so many paralysing circumstances, that the public have ceased to depend on its influence; but how much more revolting is the superiority claimed for the mere possession of superfluous riches, by persons seldom superior to their neighbours in any useful talent or qualification beyond the demands of a counting-house. But the rich have a well understood clanship of wealth with each other, and an influence over legislation too manifest in many cases to be denied. The taxed articles of Great-Britain and of the United States will furnish proof of its operation, as in the case of low-priced woollens and cottons.

2dly. Furnishing in abundance the means, they furnish the temptation seldom unindulged, of extravagant and luxurious expenditure on articles of useless ornament or sensual indulgence; the habit of sensual indulgence is apt to be carried to a vicious extent, weakening or destroying domestic comforts and domestic virtues, and introducing a lax morality that does infinite harm by its example to the other classes of society which would otherwise have remained uncontaminated. In the novel which we have placed at the head of this article, the female virtue of chastity seems to be of little consideration in fashionable society; and if we recur to the facts of real life in Great-Britain, among the wealthy and luxurious class, we find the picture of fiction true to the reality. In the life of Lord Byron, prefixed to the large octavo edition of his works, an extract is given of one of his letters as follows: "A curious thing happened to me 'shortly after the honey-moon, which was very awkward at 'the time, but has since amused me much. It so happened 'that three married women were on a wedding visit to my wife

' (and in the same room at the same time) whom I had known to be all birds of the same nest. Fancy the scene of confu'sion that ensued"-and, in a paragraph of the same page, it is stated, that on Lady Byron's breaking open his writing-desk, she found a letter from a married lady to Lord Byron, with whom his Lordship had been connected, which the rigid virtue of Lady Byron induced her to transmit to the husband. We do not find now, many suits in Doctor's Commons founded on this breach of domestic morality, for these transitory liaisons are too common to be treated as a serious cause of complaint, where both parties are so much at liberty to follow their own propensities. The most intolerable of the evils of life is ennui; and where there is no serious business to occupy the time that would otherwise hang heavy on hand, pleasure is converted into a business-a regular serious occupation; and when the moderate and allowable pleasures pall upon the over-gratified sense, the stimulus of vice is called in aid to keep up the zest.

3dly. In countries where great wealth is the passport to great consideration, and necessary as a very first ingredient in fashionably society, all the pursuits of honest industry as a means of living, operate as exclusions from the ranks of fashion. Those who are idle and useless, are alone held in estimation; a gentleman, by popular definition, is one who has nothing to do but follow his pleasures; those whose hours are laboriously and usefully employed, are considered as inferiors. To young people in particular, this prevailing sentiment is a very injurious one; for it makes such of them as are weak-minded ashamed of pursuits that are truly honourable and virtuous; pursuits that are useful equally to themselves and to others. Nor can it be possible that public opinion should be otherwise than debased and degraded, where wealth alone takes rank of, and supersedes talent, knowledge, virtue and industry, as a title to the respect of society. Is there no reason to fear the prevalence of this state of things among ourselves? Good society, in the fashionble sense of the term, is at present constituted in France, with little or no reference to the wealth of the persons who compose it. But talent is sure to find its honourable place.

4thly. Knowledge is power. But so is wealth. It can purchase the services of talent, and energy, and knowledge. It is powerful for good; equally so for evil. Unfortunately it is too often tempted to exert itself in the latter direction. It has frequently to put itself in opposition to some of the great interests of the community, and to counteract the measures of self-p -preservation that the other classes reasonably insist on. To men observant of political tactics, the instances and proofs will readily

occur.

In Great-Britain, they constitute an endless warfare, not unknown among ourselves. For there is a natural tendency every where and always on the part of wealth and power, to throw the national burthens as much as possible on the middling classes and the poor; which honest politicians, (for there are such) find great difficulty to counteract.

5thly. Another very serious evil attends the accumulation of enormous wealth, and that is the great increase of drones in the hive; the prodigious demand for idle and worthless non-producers-masters and servants and horses for pleasure. We have heard of a late Dutchess of Northumberland, who was regularly, and always waited on at dinner by eighteen tall, handsome, well-made, well-dressed, well-powdered gentlemen, as footmen; such being the required qualifications of the servants whose duty it was to present themselves to her Grace's presence. To be sure, in a country like Great-Britain in its present state, over-populated in consequence of the mistakes, as well as the dishonesty, of former administrations, and their deplorable barbarous ignorance of political economy, which no present knowledge can suddenly rectify, such an employment of spare hands may be of public utility; but who can look at three liveried footmen behind a carriage, with the master lolling withinside, without feeling that both the one and the other are degraded human beings? It is not good for human nature, that such abject inferiority should be hourly witnessed in strong contrast in the streets of a metropolis. The more general diffusion of knowledge half a century hence, will, it is to be hoped, tend to lessen this enormous distance between one freeman and another.

All these general considerations, are undoubtedly arguments sufficiently valid, for the governors of every reasonable community to repress as much as possible, the tendency of wealth to enormous accumulation; and while giving full swing to the exertions of every kind of superiority conferred by talent, acquirement, activity, energy and persevering industry, to cherish by all allowable artificial regulations, that equality among the members of a community so productive of personal independence, and of reasonable feelings among the citizens toward each other. It is impossible not to allow weight to the reasons in favour of accumulated riches, and primogeniture, arising from a regard to the interests of our posterity, and the permanent improvements that so much enrich and embellish a country as we witness in the island of Great-Britain; and if the result of the abolition of primogeniture, would be a neglect of such useful expenditure for the slight and transitory improvements that would last only the life time of him who made them, because if ex

pensive improvements were accumulated he would not know who might enjoy them-we would hesitate considerably before we acknowledged the public expedience of our own system on this continent. But among us, with whom every man is more or less compelled to labour with his head or with his hands to procure a comfortable subsistence, there is hardly one instance where enlightened foresight, real knowledge of the business which a man follows, and persevering industry, fails to procure the ample means even of luxurious indulgence. While writing this page, we observe in the newspaper of the morning, now before us, a paragraph, stating that a Mr. Appleton, of Massachusetts, is in the semi-annual receipt of 50,000 dollars, as dividend from his investments in the manufacturing establishments of that State. Such a man is an estimable member of the community, and deserves what he earns. But if a private citizen among us, by dint of prudent investment and foresight, can obtain an income of 100,000 dollars, what obstacle is there to his embarking in improvements as solid as the national interest can reasonably require, for his own sake, and for his own gratification, even if he had no family or relations who would benefit by them at his decease? Cannot such a man afford a good library, or good collections of natural history, or of the arts?

In Great-Britain, beautiful and delightful as the country dwellings of the nobility and gentry are, they are for the most part on a scale of luxurious expense and ostentation, far beyond the requirements of comfort, approaching to, without much encroaching on, luxury. If the whole country were covered with improvements to which, in point of substantial comfort combined with unostentatious elegance, nothing should be left to be desired, it would be a state of things which every patriot must approve; but palaces are offensive to the eye of a republican; nor is it a gratifying sight to behold the chateau of the noble, looking down in ostentatious magnificence, on the humble chaumiere beneath it. True happiness requires every degree of substantial comfort that art can devise, but ostentatious magnificence furnishes but a transitory gratification even to the possessor. When the charm of novelty is over, the pleasure is When a traveller passes through a country, and is compelled to observe that the characteristics of private establishments are comfort universally, and elegance occasionally, while expense and splendour and magnificence appear only in public works and public edifices, he will be compelled also to approve what he observes.

over.

The most effectual check to the accumulation of wealth, is the system we have adopted in the United States of the aboli

tion of primogeniture. This may lessen the amount of individual riches, but it tends greatly to increase the wealth of the nation. It makes it necessary for every man to become actively an useful and productive citizen; it increases the mass of energy, industry, and talent in the community. It tends to make laborious exertion honourable; and it introduces a desire and a taste for comfort, without permitting the general indulgence of extravagance. It introduces an honest and a natural distribution of property; and although its advantages upon the whole are purchased at the expense of some that we are compelled to renounce, the balance of industry and of honesty, are decidedly in its favour, and it must, therefore, be right as a system.

But the abolition of primogeniture is not a measure that can of itself exonerate the poor from burthens which the present state of society throws upon them. It is impossible to abolish poverty: but it may be lessened, and lightened, and reduced to comparative poverty only, by the regulations of society. Taxes are direct, on lands, or income, or persons; or indirect, on the articles of consumption, where the tax is involved in the price: this last is the favourite mode of taxation, where an ignorant community willingly becomes the prey of a wily government. It is the favourite mode of taxation in the United States; no credit to the discernment of the people, or the honesty of their rulers. Of all taxes, an income-tax is the fairest. Had the income tax of Great-Britain continued till this day, the system would have been perfect. But the people would not bear it, because they are not yet wise enough or honest enough to meet fair disclosures full in the face. There is among them a conventional determination in favour of fraudulent appearance. Perhaps the same reasons would operate in the United States, and we are inclined to believe so. But the case of the income tax will answer to illustrate our theory, for we do not hold ourselves bound to devise a system of financial detail: there are persons appointed for the purpose, who are paid for doing this, when it is required to be done. It is in detail, their business, therefore, and not ours. We treat of principles only, no taxes, whether direct or indirect, ought to fall upon persons who earn less than 750 dollars per annum. Perhaps a 1000 would be the better number. An income of 2000 dollars ought to contribute more than double the amount laid upon an income of 1000 dollars; for the possessor can bear it better. An income of 5000 dollars ought to pay more than double the sum paid by an income of 2500 dollars for the same reason: and so on to an income of 100,000 dollars annually, which might be taxed 333