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dinal had given orders to the bishops, and especially to Dr..Sampson, dean of the king's chapel, to use their utmost exertions, in impeding the circulation of the book, and more particularly in preventing its coming into the king's hands. Dr. Sampson caught Mr. Zouch in the act of reading it, seized it, and delivered it to the Cardinal.

"In the mean time the Lady Anne asketh her woman for the book. She on her knees told all the circumstances. The Lady Anne showed herself not sorry nor angry with either of the two. But said she, well, it shall be the dearest book that ever the dean or cardinal took away.' The noblewoman goes to the king, and upon her knees she desireth the king's help for her book. Upon the king's token the book was restored, and now bringing the book to him, she besought his Grace most tenderly to read it. The King did so,and delighted in the book, for (said he) this book is for me and all kings to read,' and in a little time, by the help of this virtuous lady, by the means aforesaid, had his eyes opened to the truth, to advance God's religion and glory, to abhor the Pope's doctrine, his lies, his pomp, and pride, to deliver his subjects out of the Egyptian darkness, the Babylonian bonds, that the Pope had brought his subjects under. And so contemning the threats of all the world, the power of princes, rebellions of his subjects at home, and the raging of so many and mighty potentates abroad; set forward a reformation in religion, beginning with the triple-crown'd head at first, and so came down to the members, bishops, abbots, priors, and such like." p. 440. Now it is plain, from the passage just quoted, and Wolsey's dying words, that he had been long apprised of the King's anti-papal prejects and as he could not possibly second them, he should have retired from office before the question of Catharine's divorce was agitated. But probably he thought that his personal safety depended upon his retaining office. But whether he thought so or not, the king's intentions required his dismissal.

We have gone more fully into this subject, because the leading feature of Henry's reign is the Reformation, with which Wolsey had no concern; and this excepted, we see no political measure of great moment in that reign.

The curious circumstance is, that a king so arbitrary in principle, should be the efficient means of bringing about an event, the most favourable to liberty. Wolsey saw it in this light, and it was unquestionably a prophecy, which came to pass in the reign Charles I. On his death bed, he says,

of

"And say furthermore, that I request his Grace, in God's name, that he have a vigilant eye to depress this new pernicious sect of Lutherans, that it do not increase within his dominions, through his negligence, in such a sort as that he shall be fain at length to put harness upon his back to subdue them; as the King of Bohemia did, who had good game, to see his rude commons (then inflicted with Wickliffe's heresies) to spoil and murder the spiritual men and religious persons of his realm; the which fled to the king and his nobles for succour, against their frantick rage; of whom they could get no help of defence or refuge, but [they] laughed them to scorn, having good game at their spoil and consumption, not regarding their duties, nor their own defence. And when these erroneous heretics had subdued all the clergy and spiritual persons, taking the spoil of and all other spiritual things, having no their riches, both of churches, monasteries, more to spoil, [they] caught such a courage of their former liberty, that then they disdained their prince and sovereign lord, with all the noble personages, and the head governors of the country, and began to fall in hand with the temporal lords to slay and spoil them, without pity or mercy, most cruelly. Insomuch that the king and other his nobles were constrained to put harness upon their backs, to resist the ungodly powers of those traitorous hereticks, and to defend their lives and liberties, who pitched a field royal against them; in which field these traitors so stoutly encountered the party of them was so cruel and vehement, that in fine they were victors, and slew the king, the lords, and all the gentlemen of the realm, leaving not one person that bare the name or part of a gentleman alive. p. 390.”

Wolsey says, that this insurrection, and that of the Wickliffites in the reigns of Rich. II. and Hen. V. were "plain precedents," and most certain it is, that Monarchy cannot subsist without an Established Church, acting in subordi nation, and that the multitude have ever made religion a cloak for degrading their superiors.

We have been arraigned, (as we have before observed,) for having been unjust to Wolsey; but in our judgment, we see nothing so great as to vindicate a political life of him par ex

cellence. A work like the present, fitted to show the romantic feature of his story, his extraordinary elevation, his splendid mode of living, the peculiar manners of his age, and the interesting tragedy of his last days, is (we think) a display of the subject in better taste. A political life of Lord Burleigh would be a very proper thing, and one merely personal a great error of judgment; but before him, we do not know, that there ever existed in this country a great statesman properly so called.-Cardinal Beaufort has indeed been so named, but history says very little of him, and of others nothing at all, unless it be of their misrule and misfortunes. Why therefore are we expected to laud political merits of which history is silent indeed of which it brings no attestations before the reign of Elizabeth. In the earlier times, ministers were estimated, at the highest, only as judges are now -the great business of the nation was conducted upon military principles; and chiefly by the king himself and military men. Wolsey encouraged learning, but that merit he only shared with Henry himself, who found it very useful in his own support against the Pope.

We repeat then that the life of Wolsey is, in our judgment, a biographical romance. Here we have it written by a confidential attendant, in a most picturesque form-indeed it is a dramatick exhibition, in which Wolsey himself, not the author under his name, is the chief actor. For when the latter ensues, let us remember the following words of Blair: "characters are generally considered, as professed exhibitions of fine writing; and an historian who seeks to shine in them, is frequently in danger of carrying refinement to excess, from a desire of appearing very profound and penetrating. He brings together so many contrasts, and subtle oppositions of qualities, that we are rather dazzled with sparkling expressions, than entertained with any clear conception of a human character. A writer who would characterise in an instructive and masterly manner, should be simple in his style, and should avoid all quaintness and affectation; at the same time not contenting himself with giving in general outlines only, but descending into peculiarities, which mark a character in its most strong and distinctive features."

We have therefore to observe, in conclusion, that the life of Wolsey before us has the first of claims from its simplicity and genuineness. Merely as a book it is exceedingly interesting. Mr. Singer has both edited and illustrated it in an unexceptionable form, from references often to very recondite black letter works, so that it is a good picture in a good frame. We shall anxiously expect Buck's History of Richard the Third, announced by Mr. Singer as preparing for publication.

87. An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy, delivered before the University of Oxford on the 6th of December, 1826. By Nassau William Senior, of Magdalen College Oxford, A. M. Professor of Political Economy, 8vo. pp. 39.

THAT there is a political economy we are willing to believe, and we think, that it may be discovered by means of Mr. Malthus's doctrine of population, and that he may have the glory of founding one; for we are of opinion, that the operative principle. upon the state of society, as a whole, is established by Providence to be that of the population, and that what is now called political economy does not include numerous phenomena, cannot solve others, and is in fact little more than a pedantic grammar of scholastic disquisitions about labour, rent, and wages. The principle of wealth only (our readers will recollect the well-being of Wales and the poor agricultural counties) may be made injurious to the population, if only exchanged for foreign luxuries. For instance, when Dean Swift put the following case let a landholder in Ireland export several head of cattle to France, and receive in return a hogshead of claret. It is drunk out by himself and his friends; and the people are impoverished by their natural resource, the product of the soil, being withheld from their consumption. A country may be very rich, and the people be very poor, merely because Providence goes one way, and artificial circumstances another; and we do not call that a valuable political art, which unlike navigation, mechanicks, and many other arts, Providence stultifies by counter-action.-Evelyn says, that our ancestors always kept a large table, in order that the farmers might be enabled to pay their rents, and the

people be supported; and Adam Smith (not aware of the consequences, as affecting his own system) says, that foreign luxuries have sadly deteriorated the comfortable maintenance of the people-look at the poor agricultura counties-the labourer is stout and healthy, and knows not want. Is there a chapter in Adam Smith upon population in any other view, than that its increase is a blessing? whereas it may and does (in the case of Ireland, and many parts of England) amount to an absolute curse. We repeat, that the laws of Providence and the laws of political economy (as now professed) are diametrically opposite in most important respects; and that therefore the latter cannot, nor ought not, to have any more than an empirical character, because it is not a science supported by experiment. In the discussions about Ireland,political economy neither has done, nor can do any thing. We very well know the imputations, which will be ascribed to our stupidity for not feeling the value of such wonderful things, as political economy has discovered, but our answer is, that it is no more than the old scholastic mode of quibbling disquisition, applied to rent, value, labour, wages, and so forth; and that, not being the system upon which Providence acts, MR. MALTHUS ALONE can be the founder of a real and genuine political economy which, when understood, will be found to have a practical benefit, because both England and Ireland actually show that production may increase, and pauperism increase also. The reason is obvious, the augmentation of the one two-fold, makes the other augment four-fold; and thus political economy, upon its own principle of indefinitely augmenting production,does, in the very process, generate a counteraction ten times more hurtful than the benefit is advantageous. According to the laws of Providence, wherever the products of the soil are exported for foreign luxuries, the population should be proportionably diminished, according to the greater quantity of the things exported, but this is of course impracticable. Now by political economy, as at present professed, we see only a narrow object; and moreover, we think that the said political economy has actually no more to do with the grand universal well-being of

society than nouns, pronouns, and participles; the true bearing of the thing turns fupon the number of the people per square mile, and the natural and acquired resources of the country to maintain them. Suppose three hundred souls upon every square mile, and the income of the country, not sixpence anuually per head-let a gentleman of ample property live to see two hundred great great grandchildren descend from him-large as may be his wealth, and lofty as may be his pride, some of those great grand children must be taylors or starve; in the same manner, the increase of pauperism implies merely the increase of poor people who cannot support themselves, the poor treading upon the heels of the rich; and why does that happen, but because the family is too large for the means—it is by no means a difficult thing to know what numbers a country of a given dimension ought to have, taking its ability to maintain more or less, according to its commerce, into the calculation. Rent will rise proportionably to the demands of the population for food, and labour will be at the same time depreciated by competition. Look at Irelandlook at the Northern Counties, the FACT stares us in the face; and under full vision of it, cómes the present political economy, neglecting statistics, and recommending, as a cure for all evils, metaphysical discussions about rent and labour; whereas there is no remedy for poverty but increase of means. Wretched philosophers we

know that we shall be deemed-be it so-we are of the school of Bacon, not of Aristotle; and we do not value that philosophy a straw which is not supported by experiment.

Differing as we do from our author in respect to the nominal science (which it is his duty to support), we are nevertheless called upon to say, that he is master of his subject, according to its principles, and that he is logical in his argument, and luminous in his illustration.

88. Death's Doings. Second Edition, with considerable Additions.

work, in its original state, was given at OUR opinion of this entertaining Its enlargement has been effected,, some length in a previous Number.

perhaps with superior merit as to the etchings, and with not inferior literary: strength. We still think that the com-> mentary was unnecessarily elaborate, and that some illustrations might have been well spared with advantage to the volume. Among the very best contributions to the present edition, are those of Mr. Carrington and Mis. Hemans; the latter certainly the most powerful and the most beautiful female writer of the present day. "The Gamester," and "Childe the Hunter," by the Poet of Dartmoor, are fine compositions, but he will readily excuse us, if in the limited notice we can give to a second edition, we select the poem of his talented contemporary.

The etching it illustrates is an Angler intent upon his sport, while Death, with a casting net, is about to cut short both his pastime and his life. THE ANGLER.

Thou that hast lov'd so long and well

The vale's deep quiet streams,
Where the pure water-lilies dwell,

Shedding forth tender gleams;
And o'er the pool the May-fly's wing
Glances in golden eves of spring;
Oh! lone and lovely haunts are thine,

Soft, soft the river flows,
Wearing the shadow of thy pine,
The gloom of alder-boughs;
And in the midst, a richer hue,
One gliding vein of heaven's own blue!
And there but low sweet sounds are heard
The whisper of the reed,
The plashing trout, the rustling bird,
The scythe upon the mead;
Yet through the murmuring osiers near,
There steals a step which mortals fear.

"Tis not the stag that comes to lave,
At noon, his panting breast;

"Tis not the bittern, by the wave

Seeking her sedgy nest;

The air is fill'd with summer's breath,

89. The Military Sketch Book. Reminiscences of Seventeen Years in the Service, Abroad and at Home. By an Officer of the Line. 2 vols 8vo. Colburn.

THERE is some agreeable reading in these volumes; they are inferior, perhaps, to their prototype, the Naval Sketch Book, yet still evidently the production of an amiable and a sensible man. They abound with such characteristic traits of kind professional feeling, such wholesome and judicious advice to young officers administered in so good a spirit, that they deserve to be very generally popular, and we shall be much mistaken if It will be. they do not become so. evident to most readers, that profes sional men are the only proper narrators of the professional events that interest us. We never read, for instance, an account of a criminal trial from a female pen (and Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Opie have each attempted such a scene), without being struck by the ignorance of the most common terms and usages of the Court, with which they abound. Such anomalies in Law, such solecisms in practice, such a want of acquaintance with the ordinary formalities observable on such occasions, that all the illusion to which we had surrendered ourselves is dissipated and lost. It was impossible not to have read the Naval Sketch Book without feeling the charm of its perfect keeping-a charm which equally belongs to the present work. We dislike the mess-table chat the most, and though we have given the tribute of a tear to some passages, we beg to vindicate our womanly practice, by stating that the sentimental stories had no part nor lot in our sensibilities, for we like them the least. We will try our readers with one of those descriptions which touched us to the quick-first premis

The young flowers laugh—yet, look! 'tis ing that the regiment has been pa

Death!

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raded to witness the infliction of military punishment-the morning cold and foggy-the men sullen-the women of the regiment in silent groupes at the barrack windows. Two soldiers were to receive three hundred lashes! One of them, a Corporal of previous good character, had been seduced into the commission of a crime; it is to him that we would confine our attention. The Colonel thus addressed him:

"You are the last man in the regiment I could have expected to find in this situa

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An offer was now made to him to volunteer into an African corps, and thus avoid the punishment.

"No, Sir,' replied the man, I've been a long time in the regiment, and I'll not give up for three hundred lashes; not that I care about going to Africa; I deserve my punishment, and I'll bear it, but I'll not quit the regiment yet, Colonel.' This sentiment, uttered in a subdued and manly tone, was applauded by a smile of satisfaction from both officers and men, but most of all by the old Colonel, who took the greatest pains to show the contrary; but all would not do, he felt flattered that the man preferred a flogging to quitting him and his regiment."

The prisoner is tied up-the three drummers stand beside the triangle. The first taking three steps forward, applied the lash to the soldier's back— "one"-again he struck-" two:"

"Again and again, until twenty-five were called. Then came a second drummer, and he performed his twenty-five. Then came a third, a stronger and heavier striker; he brought the blood out upon the right shoulder blade, which perceiving, he struck lower, but the Surgeon ordered him to strike again upon the bleeding part. I thought this was cruel, but I learnt after from the Surgeon himself that it gave much less pain to continue the blows as directed,. than to strike upon the untouched skin.

"The poor fellow bore his flagellation without a word. At the first ten or twelve

blows he never moved a muscle, but about the twenty-fifth he clenched his teeth and winged a little from the lash. During the second twenty-five, the parts became blue and thickened-and before the fiftieth blow

was struck, we could hear a smothered groan from the poor sufferer, evidently caused by his efforts to stifle the natural exclamations of acute pain. The third striker, as I said, brought the blood. The Colonel directed a look at the Drummer, which augured nothing advantageous to his interest, and on the fifth of his twenty-five, cried out to him, Halt, Sir, you know as much about using the cat as you do of your sticks'," &c. We will not prolong the scene-the

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man is now taken down, and when about to be removed, the Colonel addressed him thus:

"Your punishment, Sir, is at an end; you may thank the Surgeon's opinion for this was only a pretext). I have only to abbeing taken down so soon (every body knew serve to you, that as you have always been previous to this fault a good man, I would the future, and I promise to hold your proyou to conduct yourself well for motion open to you as before.

recommend

"The poor fellow replied that he would do so, and burst into tears, which he strove in vain to hide. Wonder not that the hard cheek of a Soldier was thus moistened with

tear-the heart was within his bosom, and these tears came from it. The lash could not force oue from his burning eyelid, but the word of kindness, the breath of tender feeling from his respected Colonel, dissolved the stern Soldier into the grateful and contrite Penitent."

It is thus that one touch of nature is worth volumes of sentiment, and it is in these beautiful touches that the excellence of these volumes consists; and by these, the amiable feelings of the writer are exhibited. The recollections of Walcheren are full of such, and exhibit in most pathetic contrast the gallantry of heroes, and the tenderness of women.

We have said enough to recommend the Military Sketch Book to every class of readers. The young Soldier cannot read it, we think, without improvement, nor the Citizen without a deep feeling of gratitude to those who bleed and suffer, that he may be safe.

90. Allen's History and Antiquities of Lambeth. (Concluded from our volume for 1825, p. 148.)

WHO was the original founder of Lambeth Palace, is lost in obscurity. The proprietrix in the time of Edward the Confessor was the Countess Goda, sister of King Edward the Confessor, and the archiepiscopal residence is presumed to stand upon the site of her palace. But here are difficulties. The well-known Royal residence at Kennington is made the site of Hardicanute's palace; but in Domesday book, Kennington and Lambeth are distinct manors, and the former was held by Teodric the goldsmith of Edward the Confessor and the Conqueror. This is unfavourable to the identity of Lambeth and Kennington, as to appellation, and the Chroniclers name Lam

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