shall come out.' In short, to use the words of a judicious and elegant panegyrist in the Literary Gazette, "we cannot help strongly advising such as may see this notice, and do not yet subscribe, not to pass by this opportunity of drawing into their family, at a price comparatively trifling, (when it is recollected that the price of the old edition, small paper, had got up to 751.) what might serve as an invaluable heir-loom to their posterity's posterity!"

We are not disposed to enter at length into a consideration of the original criticisms which the editors have inserted; but we cannot forbear from noticing the most extraordinary confession which they have made, in a defence of themselves against the remarks of Mr. Hermann. In concluding, the Editors would remark, that all the 'criticisms in their work are to be considered as autoschediastic,' (a much nicer word than extemporaneous, or off-hand,) because, as 'soon as they are finished, they are despatched to the press, and that 'very little opportunity is afforded to them of correcting those er'rors, and supplying those defects, which a leisurely and careful re'vision could not fail to discover.' A pretty consolation to the purchasers of a work, in which, if in any, extreme care and accuracy are required, to be told, that the editors are sensible that there are errors and defects in their remarks, but that they have no time to revise them! If they cannot find leisure to consider their own observations, much less can it be in their power to weigh and compare the discordant opinions of other critics, and to pronounce a decisive judgment upon those questions of philology which the student expects to find authoritatively settled in a work of this nature.Yet they tell us, that they are criticised with the same severity, as if they had expressly undertaken, what they did not undertake, 'to give a perfect Lexicon; as if they possessed, what they do not 'possess, unlimited resources in books and money; as if they could 'command, what they cannot command, all the time requisite for the undertaking; as if they had secured, what they have not se'cured, subscribers disposed, one and all, to wait with silent pa'tience the slow progress of the work.' A most extraordinary apology! If the Editors had undertaken to give a perfect Lexicon, we should have set them down as arrogant and ignorant pretenders. But they certainly did undertake to give a Lexicon as nearly perfect as the circumstances of the case would admit of; and we defy them to say that they have done this, or any thing like it. They did possess unlimited resources in books; not in their own libraries perhaps, but in the public repositories of literature. It is never a valid excuse for any scholar to say, that he did not consult this or that book. The answer is, he ought to have done so; and if we are told that this would have demanded a greater expenditure of time and money; we reply, that we would rather wait longer, and

pay more, for a good book, than have a bad one immediately at less expense.

***

We must not omit to remark, that the editors manifest a commendable impartiality in their quotations from contemporary scholars, although they are disposed to speak in somewhat exalted terms of their own decrees. Mr. E. H. Barker is generally understood to be the chief, if not the sole, conductor of the present work; and we could therefore have dispensed with such expressions 'vide omnino nos in Classical Recreations'-' Recte E. H. Barker in Epistola Critica ad Thomam Gaisford,'- Errasse virum doctissimum ostendit E. H. Barker,'-Porsoni errorem notavit E. H. Barker.'

Our general opinion of the new Thesaurus may be collected from the foregoing remarks, the length of which is only to be justified by the consideration, that the reputation of our country for classical learning is materially involved in this great undertaking: a still more important consideration is, that it effectually precludes all hope of a more perfect and useful Thesaurus. New editions of Stephens had been for some years preparing in Germany and France, which have since been relinquished; and the materials collected for them poured, as Mr. Dibdin elegantly expresses it, in his Bibliomania," almost voluntarily, as well as absolutely, into the capacious reservoir of A. J. Valpy." The present editors have spared no expense; their research has been indefatigable, and their own reading very extensive; but they should have taken time and advice. We are told that they have, for their director and guide, the first and most accomplished scholar in the kingdom.' That the eminent scholar, here alluded to, was consulted in the first instance, and gave his sanction to the undertaking, we have no reason to doubt; but we venture to assert, from the opinion which we entertain of his profound learning and chastised judgment, that he neither does nor can approve of the execution of the work. It is quite clear that he is neither their director nor their guide, because Mr. Barker himself acknowledges that the work is autoschediastic,' and that he has not time to revise even his own observations. Dibdin, with his usual felicity of phrase, talks of the editors, as having "intrusted to their conduct a monument more lasting than brass" more lasting indeed it is likely to be, as we have already shown; and we should not be surprised if it were to outlast not only the brass, but the gold, as well as the lives of the subscribers.

Mr.

[From the Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1820.]

ART. VII. Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By ADAM SEYBERT. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818.

THIS is a book of character, and authority; but it is a very large book; and therefore we think we shall do an acceptable service to our readers, by presenting them with a short epitome of its contents, observing the same order which has been chosen by the author. The whole, we conceive, will form a pretty complete picture of America, and teach us how to appreciate that country, either as a powerful enemy or a profitable friend. The first subject with which Mr. Seybert begins, is the population of the United States.

Population. As representatives and direct taxes are apportioned among the different States, in proportion to their numbers, it is provided for in the American Constitution, that there shall be an actual enumeration of the people every ten years. It is the duty of the marshals in each State to number the inhabitants of their respective districts and a correct copy of the lists, containing the names of the persons returned, must be set up in a public place within each district, before they are transmitted to the Secretary of State :-they are then laid before Congress by the President. Under this act, three census, or enumerations of the people, have been already laid before Congress-for the years 1790, 1800, and 1810. In the year 1790, the population of America was 3,921,326 persons, of whom 697,697 were slaves. In 1800, the numbers were 5,319,762, of which 896,849 were slaves. In 1810, the numbers were 7,239,903, of whom 1,191,364 were slaves; so that at the rate at which free population has proceeded between 1790 and 1810, it doubles itself, in the United States, in a very little more than 22 years. The slave population, according to its rate of proceeding in the same time, would be doubled in about years. The increase of the slave population in this statement is owing to the importation of negroes between 1800 and 1808, especially in 1806 and 1807, from the expected prohibition against importation. The number of slaves was also increased by the acquisitions of territory in Louisiana, where they constituted nearly half the population. From 1801 to 1811, the inhabitants of Great Britain acquired an augmentation of 14 per cent.; the Americans within the same period, were augmented 36 per cent.

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Emigration seems to be of very little importance to the United States. In the year 1817, by far the most considerable year of emigration, there arrived in ten of the principal ports of America, from the Old World, 22,000 persons as passengers. The number of emigrants, from 1790 to 1810, is not supposed to have exceeded 6000 per annum. None of the separate States have been retrograde during these three enumerations, though some have been nearly stationary. The most remarkable increase is that of NewVOL. I.

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York, which has risen from 340,120 in the year 1790, to 959,049 in the year 1810. The emigration from the Eastern to the Western States is calculated at 60,000 persons per annum. In all the American enumerations, the males uniformly predominate in the proportion of about 100 to 92. We are better off in Great Britain and Ireland-where the women were to the men, by the census of 1811, as 110 to 100. The density of population in the United States, is less than 4 persons to a square mile; that of Holland, in 1803, was 275 to the square mile; that of England and Wales, 169. So that the fifteen provinces, which formed the Union in 1810, would contain, if they were as thickly peopled as Holland, 135 millions souls.

The next head is that of Trade and Commerce.-In 1790, the Exports of the United States were above 19 millions dollars; in 1791, above 20 millions; in 1792, 26 millions; in 1793, 33 millions of dollars. Prior to 1795, there was no discrimination, in the American Treasury accounts, between the exportation of domestic, and the reexportation of foreign articles. In 1795, the aggregate value of the merchandise exported, was 67 millions dollars, of which the foreign produce re-exported, was 26 millions. In 1800, the total value of exports was 94 millions; in 1805, 101 millions; and in 1808, when they arrived at their maximum, 108 millions dollars. In the year 1809, from the effects of the French and English Orders in Council, the exports fell to 52 millions of dollars; in 1810, to 66 millions; in 1811, to 61 millions. In the first year of the war with England, to 38 millions; in the second to 27; in the year 1814, when peace was made, to 6 millions. So that the exports of the republic, in 6 years, had tumbled down from 108 to 6 millions of dollars: After the in the peace, years 1815-16-17, the exports rose to 52, 81, 87 millions dollars. In 1817, the exportation of cotton was 85 millions pounds. In 1815, the sugar made on the banks of the Mississippi, was 10 millions pounds. In 1792, when the wheat trade was at the maximum, a million and a half of bushels were exported. The proportions of the exports to Great Britain, Spain, France, Holland, and Portugal, on an average of 10 years, ending 1812, are as 27, 16, 13, 12, and 7; the actual value of exports to the dominions of Great Britain, in the three years ending 1804, were consecutively, in millions of dollars, 16, 17, 13.

Imports. In 1791, the imports of the United States were 19 millions; on an average of three consecutive years, ending 1804 inclusive, they were 68 millions; in 1806-7, they were 138 millions; and in 1815, 133 millions of dollars. The annual value of the imports, on an average of 3 years, ending 1804, was 75,000,000, of which the dominions of Great Britain furnished nearly one half. On an average of three years, ending in 1804, America imported from Great Britain to the amount of about 36 millions, and returned goods to the amount of about 23 millions. Certainly these are countries that have some better

employment for their time and energy, than cutting each other's throats, and may meet for more profitable purposes. The American imports from the dominions of Great Britain, before the great American war, amounted to about 3 millions sterling; soon after the war, to the same: From 1805 to 1811, both inclusive, the average annual exportation of Great Britain to all parts of the world, in real value, was about 43 millions sterling, of which one fifth, or near 9 millions, was sent to America.

Tonnage and Navigation.-Before the revolutionary war, the American tonnage, whether owned by British or American subjects, was about 127,000 tons; immediately after that war, 108,000. In 1789, it had amounted to 437,733 tons, of which 279,000 was American property. In 1790, the total was 605,825 of which 354,000 was American. In 1816, the tonnage, all American, was 1,300,000.

On an average of three years, from 1810 to 1812, both inclusive, the registered tonnage of the British empire was 2,459,000; or little more than double the American.

Lands.-All public lands are surveyed before they are offered for sale; and divided into townships of six miles square, which are subdivided into 36 sections of one mile square, containing each 640 acres. The following lands are excepted from the sales.-One thirty-sixth part of the lands, or a section of 640 acres in each township, is uniformly reserved for the support of schools ;-seven entire townships, containing each 23,000 acres, have been reserved in perpetuity for the support of learning;-all salt springs and lead mines are also reserved. The Mississippi, the Ohio, and all the navigable rivers and waters leading into either, or into the river St. Lawrence, remain common highways, and for ever free to all the citizens of the United States, without payment of any tax. All the other public lands, not thus excepted, are offered for public sale in quarter sections of 160 acres, at a price not less than 2 dollars per acre, and as much more as they will fetch by public auction. It was formerly the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to superintend the sale of lands. In 1812, an office denominated the General Land-Office, was instituted. The public lands sold prior to the opening of the land-offices, amounted to one million and a half of acres. The aggregate of the sales since the opening of the land-offices, N. W. of the river Ohio, to the end of September, 1817, amounted to 8,469,644 acres; and the purchase money to 18,000,000 dollars. The lands sold since the opening of the land-offices in the Mississippi territory, amount to 1,600,000 acres. The stock of unsold land on hand is calculated at 400,000,000 In the year 1817 there were sold above two millions acres. Post-Office. In 1789, the number of post-offices in the United States was 75; the amount of postage 38,000 dollars; the miles of post-road 1800. In 1817, the number of post-offices was 3459; the amount of postage 961,000 dollars; and the extent of post-roads 51,600 miles.

acres.

Revenue. The revenues of the United States are derived from the