been a willow twig, he rubbed his hands with a mighty chuckle, and cried, with the voice of a Stentor, " Dang it, I have it!"

"Hark'ye, man!" continued he, addressing Peter, who had sat pensively on one side of his friend, whilst Smoker reposed on the other— "Hark'ye, man! you shall quarrel with me, and you shall make your will. Send Lawyer Davis to me to-night; for we must see that it shall be only a will, and not a conveyance or a deed of gift; and you shall also take to your bed. Send Thomson, the apothecary, along with Davis: they're good fellows, both; and will rejoice in humbugging Miss Judith. And then you shall insist on Jacob's marrying Judith, and shall give her five hundred pounds down,--that's a fair fortune, as times go; I don't want to cheat the woman;-besides, it's worth anything to be quit of her; and then they shall marry. Marriages are made in heaven, as my mistress says; and if that couple don't torment each other's heart out, my name's not Stephen. And when they are fairly gone off on their bridal excursion,-to Windsor, maybe; aye, Mistress Judith used to want to see the Castle-off with them to Windsor from the church door;-and then for another will, and another wedding-hey, Peter !-and a handsome marriage-settlement upon little Lucy. We'll get her and her grandmother to my house to-morrow, and my wife will see to the finery. Off with you, man! Don't stand there, between laughing and crying; but get home, and set about it. And mind you don't forget to send Thomson and Lawyer Davis to me this very evening.?

And home went Stephen, chuckling; and, as he said, it was done,aye, within a fortnight from that very day; and the two couples were severally as happy and as unhappy as their several qualities could make them-Mr. and Mrs. Jones finding so much employment in plaguing each other, that the good poulterer and his pretty wife, and Stephen, and the hamlet of Sunham, were rid of them altogether.

GREAT ruler of the rule!
Measureless man of measure!

Science's dearest living treasure!

Wholesale match-maker between bricks and mortar,
And founder of albeit unclassed-a school,
Where principles yet unacknowledged taught are!
Sticker of stucco, Mentor of cement!

Lord of the ladder that has Fame at the end on't!
Hero of upward bent,

Whose genius still is shown in the ascendant!

Hark'ye, my architect! Oh, list

To English praise-not plaster of Paris-hist!

Let them!

'Twill fret them.

Give them but grins

For, well thou knowest, "let him laugh that wins!"
Nay,

Should they persist to say

That angry Gwilt

Half smothered thee in literary quilt *,

And vainly thou didst then

Try to retaliate with a counter-pen—
Psha! pish! their sallies

Are but malice.

Let not such efforts discompose thy state:
Envy, my Wilkins, must attend the great!
Sneerers, perchance, may hint that thy chief glories
Rest but on stories;

And would-be rivals may nickname thee, too,
A jobbing undertaker, who

Would bury from our view

St. Martin's porch.

Thine answer is to leave them in the lurch!
What dost thou care?

Boldly thou buildest where none others dare!
In thy peculiar mind we see
Scruples subside to a mere sediment;
And out of what would be

* The "Literary Gazette," although strictly a sheet, is here termed by poetic license a quilt.

How doubly sweet to recollect that "gallery,"
In chinking chime
Doth rhyme

With" salary!"

Egregious Wilkins! surely long shall stand
That future fabric of thy cunning hand;
For how can we refuse

To deem that stable which is built upon a Mews?
If any doubt it,

Let them ask thee about it,

Let them ask thee;

And thou at once wilt candidly assure 'em
That 'twill outlast the future's self, and be
A "Monumentum paulo-post-futurum !"

Important Wilkins! thou shalt make

As little in his fame

As name;

And when

poor Wren

Thou comest forth in pompous power, lo!
Let Jones, discomfited, cry" In I go !"
And as for Vanbrugh,

Pooh!

Thy genius its distilled contempt shall spirt on
All modern claims that would thy lustre sully;
Shall make Nash, Soane, and Co. seem artizans of folly,
And Burton
Melancholy !

To speak thy merits, thou canst call

The groaning echoes of St. George's Hospital:
And is there not the splendid London U-

niversity, to make thee deathless, too?

Then march thou on, exempt from doubt or fears,
Despite the envious crowd's irreverent jeers.
Go, Wilkins, go, and, 'mid the nation's raillery,
Erect thy front, and raise the " National Gallery !"
Some may declare the act "constructive treason,"
A scaffold-sacrifice of sense and reason:
Others in coarser fashion may revile it,
And worst of hodiernal humbugs style it:

But thou shalt sneer at all such foes: the sorest

A fool to brave thy power-and the mildest

Will melt to acquiescence, when thou buildest!

Or, at the very worst,

If the town-storm should burst,

Thou hast a refuge in the "Woods and Forests!"

D.

THE FINANCIAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BY R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN*.

PART FIRST.

THE historic scroll of nations is pregnant with this remarkable truth -Political revolutions have their origin in oppressive or unequal taxation! To illustrate the axiom by example would be superogatory; every page of past events is a lesson, and the feelings of the present are a warning to future generations. It is singular, however, notwithstanding the obvious, and, indeed, indispensable utility of financial science, how little it is understood, or has been attended to, in England; particularly among a commercial people, naturally eager for gain, attached to liberty, and peculiarly tenacious of the rights of private property. The apathy of bygone years is now being superseded by an earnest desire to examine minutely this highly important branch of our social system, on the right administration of which the happiness or misery of a nation is so intimately dependent; consequently it is necessary that the public mind should be possessed of a clear, and, as far as possible, brief elucidation of facts, in order that a sound judgment may be formed on a subject interesting in the strongest manner to the weal of every individual in a free state.

Within the brief space necessarily allotted to an article in a periodical, it would be impossible to demonstrate at one view the complicated nature of the British financial system. Happily, however, the subject is properly divisible into several distinct branches, each of which, although forming a separate topic for consideration, becomes in the aggregate a sectional whole.

In soliciting public attention to the following series, the writer would beg it to be understood that no political principles are mixed up with his financial statements; he is disposed to believe that whether Whig, Tory, or Radical be in the ascendant, an anxiety for the benefit of their common country is the predominant motive for action, and the slightest knowledge of human nature would impel to the belief that the rich can never derive the full benefit and enjoyment of wealth, so long as the mass of human beings, who are the main stay of that wealth, are sinking and perishing from want. To expose, therefore, the evils of the existing system of finance, and to propound for consideration a better, because a juster system, is a benefit to the rich as well as to the poor, the immediate advantages being greater (while the permanent fruits are equal) to the former than to the latter; and as regards the governing and the governed, it must be equally obvious that, in the present pounds, shillings, and pence age, no party can long hope to hold the reins of authority but by the adoption and execution of sound financial principles.

Financial science may be divided into two great heads-TAXATION and EXPENDITURE ;-the first being the money, or money's worth, paid by every individual in the state, according to the amount of his property, for the protection afforded him by Government; and the second, the

* Author of "Taxation of the British Empire," &c. &c.

outlay of that money by the Executive in providing for personal security and private rights. The preliminary questions, then, on the first great head for consideration are-the amount of taxation, whence derived, and by whom paid. Reserving details and fractional divisions of sums paid into the Exchequer for subsequent pages, the following table will be sufficiently explicit for this prefatory part of the subject.

Taxation of the United Kingdom in 1832; whence derived, and incidence thereof.

Total Amount of Taxation £. 50,000,000 11,530,000 25,440,000 13,030,000

and Incidence

Nov.-VOL. XXXIX, NO, CLV.

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