Crown was content to make a reduction of its revenue, to a pittance of 12 per cent. The war, which excluded the Continental nations from the market of China, by protecting the monopoly in another way, enabled the government to raise the duties to the enormous amount of 96 per cent. The opening of the Chinese market to the Continental nations once more, will probably give us another lesson. The Dutch have, last year, wisely relinquished the system of conducting the Chinese trade by a monopoly company, and introduced a perfect freedom both in the direct and carrying trade, the effects of which, it requires little sagacity to predict, will bring certain and inevitable embarrassment to the Revenue, even if the nation should be taxed in another and more pernicious shape, by an increase of our myrmidons of Customhouse and Excise officers. It may be worth while shortly to compare the China trade of Britain on the present vitious system, with what it might be under an enlightened system of commercial policy. It now gives occupation to about 18,000 tons of shipping, available for no other purpose, and to 2000 seamen-takes off a million worth of the staple commodities of England-and contributes three millions and a half to the revenue. The present importations of the East India Company are averaged at twenty-five millions of pounds of tea per annum, which we are accustomed stupidly to wonder at for its great amount, but which ought rather to excite our astonishment for its smalness, when we reflect, that tea has become an article of almost universal demand, if not indeed, with the better classes, a necessary of life. Twenty-five millions of pounds of tea, meted out to the inhabitants of the united kingdoms, will be found to amount to no more than the sixteenth part of an ounce a day to each individual. At the very moderate estimate of half an ounce a day for each individual, the consumption would, on the contrary, amount nearly to 196 millions, which would give employment to 141,000 tons of shipping, and 16,000 seamen; while the necessary result would be, an exportation of our manufactures to the extent of more than eleven millions, instead of a million and half,—a mere pittance among 150 millions of people! To obtain this amount of consumption, we suppose that both price and tax are each reduced to one half their present amount; and, even in this event, the revenue will still be about 14 millions, or nearly 4 times its present amount. But, dropping all speculative views of this question, it may be worth while to bring under one view a statement of the actual losses which the industry or revenues of the nation suffer from the continuance of the existing abuses. They may be stated as follow Difference between freightage of East India Com- Ten thousand pounds Sterling given to commander To difference between monopoly and fair price on To difference between monopoly and fair price on green teas at 37 per cent., is L. 252,000 180,000 120,000 1,232,640 555,560 So that, independent of the loss of revenue by the diminished consumption, the nation is actually taxed and made to pay a sum of nearly two millions and a half, which might have formed a portion of the national revenue in times of distress, without inflicting any additional burden upon the people, instead of being dissipated in supporting the jobbing and profusion of the present system. If we take the amount of this annual loss as a fair average for all the years of the last charter, as well as of the hopeful period of the present, it will be seen, by an easy calculation, that the total waste amounts to the enormous sum of 283 millions. Some persons taking a narrow view of this question, and others interested in countenancing the error, conclude that the losses incurred by our East Indian connexion, are not losses incurred by the nation, but by the East India Company. It would be a mere waste of time, however, to enter into any serious refutation of this folly. It would be just as wise to speak of a loss to the Victualling or Navy Offices, without injury to the nation, as of a loss to the East India Company without any to the publick. The East India Company is but a clumsy and costly machine for administering the political concerns of the British possessions in India, and for managing the British trade in that region. Their commercial dividend, if it deserve the name, is guaranteed by a solemn act of the Legislature. They receive ten and a half per cent., and can receive neither more nor less. In short, the India funds differ in no respect but in name from the funded debts of the nation. The most gambling speculator in the kingdom would not lend the East India Company a farthing, did he not feel that the public was tacitly, if not avowedly a guarantee for the payment. This is at bottom felt in every case; and the consequence is, that India stock is as little fluctuating as any other branch of the public funds. It is now generally understood, that the East India Company's exclusive privileges will not again be renewed in any shape, and therefore the time will come, when the question, cleared from the confusion of forms and language, will be distinctly understood by all. When this period arrives, the nation will find itself burthened with every shilling of the Indian debt; and there will then be an end to the illusion of placing the losses of the nation to the profit and loss account of the East India Company. We have spent so much time in discussing the great commercial and practical questions that are suggested by Mr Ellis's book, that we really cannot say any thing of the book itself. It is the work, unquestionably, of a man of talent and accomplishments; but it is hastily and unequally written; and the state of durance, anxiety, and discontent, in which the author was kept during the whole expedition, certainly was not well calculated either to give him the best means of information, or the happiest use of his understanding. He has candidly confessed, indeed, that he felt his mind and spirits influenced by the surrounding atmo'sphere of dulness and constraint;' and perhaps his readers and critics might be excused for confessing, that they have occasionally been conscious of a sympathetic sensation in perusing his work. There are some blunders and mistakes in it; but it bears, on the whole, traces of the most conscientious integrity and fairness; and it has made some small additions to the particulars of our knowledge of this extraordinary people. We shall know the Chinese, we think, by and by. The progress made by Mr Morrison, and several other gentlemen, in the language of the country, will at last enable us to form a just estimate of their character and attainments. With the lights we already have, indeed, we think there is room for much edifying and original speculation on that curious question; and we are not without hopes of soon being able to present our readers with an article regarding it. At present, however, we must not approach it. ART. IX. Danie: with a new Italian Commentary. By G. BAGLIOLI. Paris, 1818. The Vision of Dante. Translated by the Reverend H. F. CARY, A. M. 3 vol. 18mo. London, 1818. M. BAGLIOLI's new work on Dante was announced, in 1816, by subscription, in large quarto, with magnificent pa per and characters. The subscription was, it seems, not encouraging; and, after two years' expectation, the author has published his work in a more modest form; which, indeed, we think the most fair, as well as the most prudent part. If the book be good, it will be useful to a greater number of readers. If it be bad, the buyers will have less cost to regret. Authors now seem desirous of placing their works under the protection of splendid printing, and to have the hope of being immortalized at least by the continuators of Mr Dibdin's Decameron. M. Baglioli's Dante will form three volumes in large octavo, of which the first is not yet completely printed; but we have now before us nine sheets of it, which contain the text of eight books of the Inferno, with the Commentary. This is not enough, perhaps, for a complete criticism of the work; but it sufficiently shows his method, and enables us to determine, that, if he has improved, he has not fundamentally changed the plan of his predecessors. This leads us to give a rapid sketch of the history of the commentators on Dante, and to inquire into the causes of the very little service which they have done to the poet or the reader. Perhaps our observations may suggest a new method of undertaking, with more advantage, a work which we think necessary, not only to Italy, but to other nations; because it is in the age of Dante, and principally from the influence of his genius, that we may date the commencement of the literary history of Europe. The poem of Dante is like an immense forest, venerable for its antiquity, and astonishing by the growth of trees which seem to have sprung up at once to their gigantic height by the force of nature, aided by some unknown art. It is a forest, curious from the extensive regions which it hides, but frightful from its darkness and its labyrinths. The first travellers who attempted to cross it have cpened a road. Those who followed have enlarged and enlightened it; but the road is still the same; and the greater part of this immense forest remains, after the Jabours of five centuries, involved in its primitive darkness. Readers, especially foreign readers, believe, on the faith of the commentators, that they have seen the whole; like the readers of n.odern travels, who fancy that they know a country from the descriptions of those who have run through it with a roadbock and a dictionary, and return home to publish their tour. It is said by Warburton in his Preface to Shakespeare, that the whole a critic can do for an author who deserves his ser⚫vices, is to correct the faulty text, to remark the peculiarities of language, to illustrate the obscure ailusions, and to explain the beauties and defects of sentiment or composition. ' Perhaps we may prove, in the sequel, that this observation cannot be universally adopted ;-but if it were sufficient in the case of all other poets, it is certain, that, by the most complete and successful application of it to the poem of Dante, a critic would perform only half his task. The first part which relates to the emendation of the text, has been happily enough executed in the native city of the poet, by the Academy della Crusca. That learned body, occupied in studying and purifying their language, naturally sought for its radical treasures in the age of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio. These academicians were almost all Florentines, and had abundant means of collecting various readings. The numerous libraries of Florence were supplied with MSS. of Dante's poem, of which they collated more than a hundred with the early editions. These various readings were discussed by them for the common interest-for the honour of the poet, the language, and the academy; by which means they avoided the obstinacy, the acrimony, and the puerile quarrels which the jealousy of individuals has spread among the commentators of Homer and Shakespeare. They thus spared the time of their readers, and saved literature from some ridicule. This academy was not always so wise. They dis honoured themselves in their hostility against Tasso. But in that case they were ambitious of giving laws to genius; a task for which an assembly of men is peculiarly unfitted. In their emendations of Dante, on the contrary, they needed only a calm and attentive examination, a free discussion, and a mature deliberation on questions purely verbal and grammatical. Academies are in general useful, where the object is only to arrange and preserve the stock of human knowledge. It can be increased only by men of genius-independent of rules and associations, and fearlessly pursuing glory at their own peril. But societies bound by institutions, often obliged to respect and sometimes to flatter governments and powerful individuals, can never display independence of mind, or possess the courage necessary for the exertion of genius. They may, under despotic governments, become instruments in the hands of tyrants for repressing the progress of mind, and narrowing the diffusion of knowledge. But to return to Dante. The Academy della Crusca have admitted the best of the various readings into their text, and have placed in the margin all that are probable. Their edition is known by the date of 1595. This edition has always been It is not improper to inform the general reader, that this edision is disgraced by typographical errors of every sort. It should |