The truth being, that God placed man in the garden expressly "to keep it and to dress it;" exhibiting thereby the necessity, even in Paradise, of an object and an occupation to the completeness of human felicity.

There is a good deal of happy wordcoinage issued by Mr. Bailey. He sometimes, however, passes a piece which we hesitate to admit as current. Festus, in an amorous mood, speaks of the gifts of nature as conferred for a sole purpose-that of administering to sensual gratification. "These ears," he says, were given me "to list my loved one's voice;"

"These lips to be divinized by her kiss."

The ear of taste revolts from the discordant novelty.

We shall end our short catalogue of objections with pointing to a metrical impropriety-for it can scarcely be called a solecism-which modern English writers are found very commonly to commit; we mean that of separating the syllables in which the two vowels i and o follow each other. Tennyson has frequently done it, at least in his earlier poems; and the practice is common in the "Cockney" as well as the "Yankee" school. It is wrong. No eminent or correct writer has ever countenanced it. We shall adduce two instances from the same page; and frequent examples

occur:

""Tis enough

That I believe thee always ;—but would know,

If not in me too curious to ask,
How came about these miracles ?"

And a little farther on

"This mastery Means but communion, the power to quit Life's little globule here, and coalesce With the great mass about us."

Enough, however, of this minute criticism. It is, after all, but analyzing the very small residuum left after the process of sublimation. The general thoughts, sentiments, and diction of the poets come off pure even after such tests, and flow into our hearts in their full refinement and strength. Admitting that some of the brightest of them (to use another of the author's own favourite images), are somewhat nebulous, and present no disk, still criticism itself must feel the power of the "starlight" it stands beneath, and in many instances acknowledge that the faintness or confusion arises rather from its own limited powers of vision, than from the want of grandeur and beauty above him. It should be borne in mind that our quotations have been made throughout rather to explain the story than illustrate its beauties; and no attempt has been made to marshal the array, so as to give an undue estimate of the general merits of the poem. Mr Bailey must be held the first of our living poets, as far as imagination is concerned. same causes, it is true, which, at a period more favourable to the reputation of a bard, precluded Shelley from popularity, have operated, and will operate, in the case of this author. The very richness of the imagery has concealed the presence of those great landmarks of human interest which are known and recognized by every one. The heart cannot force its way through so rank a vegetation of beauty. It becomes entangled; then fatigued; and ends by refusing its sympathy where it admits its homage to be due. Hence, we repeat, Mr. Bailey (at least as he stands connected with Festus), will never be popular; but he will always command the respect of the educated and refined scholar, and claim the admiration of those hearts which are strung to respond to the higher harmonies of the poetic nature.

The

What

RESOURCES of the kingdom? are they? Wherein do they consist? How far have they been efficiently developed? How far have they been squandered? To what extent can they supply the thirty millions of human beings who are dependant on them, with the necessaries and comforts, and luxuries of life, with all that the ordinance of God, or the caprice of man has pronounced to be indispensable? What and how great is their capability of further development, and what is the likelihood of their outstripping or keeping pace with, or falling short of, the wants and necessities which they are given to supply? These are at all times considerations of the utmost importance; but at the present season, when the condition of the country, its hopes, its prospects, its sufferings, is the allengrossing subject of every human heart, these considerations are pressed upon us with peculiar force. Not that we at all purpose now to re-enter upon the subject of the dread infliction with which it has pleased the Almighty to visit this land: in a recent number we expressed at great length, and with much consideration, our views as to the extent of the calamity, the means for alleviating its pressure, and the duties and responsibilities of the state. Having thus done so, having so far discharged our duty, we can have no inducement to recur to it again. The subject is a painful, an intensely painful one, it is one upon which men must feel too deeply to write or to talk unnecessarily. But the occasion may be a fitting one for calling the attention of our readers to the general and ordinary resources of the kingdom, to the means which the in

habitants of these countries have heretofore possessed, and (after the present visitation shall have passed away) will, we trust, henceforth possess, for satisfying their most urgent wants and desires; and for this purpose we have selected from the multitude of publications with which our table is crowded (increased ten-fold by the present emergency) two statistical works which have been published in the ordinary course, and have no special reference to the peculiar, and, we trust, temporary exigencies of our present condition.

lic as

Mr. M'Culloch is now long and favourably known to the British puba statistical writer; but unhappily for his own reputation, and for the cause of learning, he has become equally notorious as a pretender in the science of political economy. We would be at a loss to say whether he has done more of harm or of good in his generation-it would be as far from our power as from our inclination to deny that he has exhibited an unrivalled facility in bringing together, and in arranging, a countless multitude of statistical facts bearing on, or connected with, all the great interests of trade, commerce, navigation, finance, &c., in which these countries are so vitally interested. Witness the number of editions through which his admirable commercial dictionary (a book which should be in every one's possession) has already passed; witness the excellent publication now before us-his "Account of the British Empire"-which has already reached its third edition; and we are bound further to add, that the ease and brevity of his style, so admirably suited to the subjects with which he is dealing, is no whit inferior