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That of Ireland we may assume at L.50,000,000,-making appointments of commercial life, greatly impair the physi in the whole for the United Kingdom L.300,000,000. Of cal powers.-Ibid. this sum more than one-sixth is drawn directly by Government. But that is not the whole. The local taxes amount to a very large sum. The poor's rates in England exceed L.8,000,000. Other local taxes and contributions probably amount to L.10,000,000 more. Then, as we have already explained, the higher and richer classes are exempted in a great measure from contributing their proper share of the national taxation. When these different circumstances are taken into view, it will hardly be disputed that onethird part of every man's income, in the middle and lower classes of society, is taken away by the tax collector. Every man who works nine hours a-day is employed during three of these hours to enable him to pay his taxes.-Tait's Magazine.

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THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S POLICY.-His Grace's habit was never to encourage discussion, or to indulge himself in argument. It was the general observation in the Peninsula that on dining at head-quarters nothing was ever learnt, but that the whole conversation was trifling-a display either of dandy. ism or buffoonery from the aides-de-camp, or "the gentleman's This system was understood to have been adopted upon a principle of military prudence that no indiscreet remarks should be made, no false interpretations drawn from any casual observation which might escape the commander-in chief. When Sir Thomas Picton arrived at head-quarters, it always produced a sensation; and, as he was a highly intellectual person, an amiable young officer of the guards, who played the part of a very amusing buffo, was always sent for as a check to all serious conversation. Force has always been his means, servility his attendant. While in command in Paris, his table never feasted any of the enlightened men of Europe; the conversation was ever frivolous, a noise with empty words. At Cambrai, the same system was pursued-no one ever presumed to contradict his Grace, or to propose any subject of interest as a matter of conversation.-From a sketch of the Duke. HEALTH OF SHOPKEEPERS. They are generally temperate in their diet. They injure health, not by direct attacks, not by the introduction of injurious agents, but by witholding the pabulum of life-a due supply of that pure fluid, which nature designed as food for the constitution. Be it remembered that man subsists upon the air, more than upon his meat and drink. Numerous instances

might be adduced of persons existing for months and years on a very scanty supply of aliment, but it is notorious that no one can exist for an hour without a copious supply of air. The atmosphere which shopkeepers breathe is contaminated and adulterated; air, with its vital principles so diminished, that it cannot fully decarbonize the blood, nor fully excite the nervous system. Hence shopkeepers are pale, dyspeptic, and subject to affections of the head. They often drag on a sickly existence, die before the proper end of human life, and leave a progeny like themselves. Thackrah's Effects of Arts and Trades.

Cuvier

THE MERCHANT AND MANUFACTURER.Of the causes of disease, anxiety of mind is one of the most frequent and important. When we walk the streets of large commercial towns, we can scarcely fail to remark the hurried gait and care-worn features of the well-dressed passengers. Some young men, indeed, we may see, with counteances possessing natural cheerfulness and colour; but these appearances rarely survive the age of manhood. closes an eloquent description of animal existence and change, with the conclusion that "Life is a state of force." What he would urge in a physical view, we may more strongly urge in a moral. Civilization has changed our character of mind as well as of body. We live in a state of unnatural excitement ;-unnatural, because it is partial, irregular, and excessive. Our muscles waste for want of action, our nervous system is worn out by excess of action. Vital energy is drawn from the operations for which nature designed it, and devoted to operations which nature never contemplated. If we cannot adopt the doctrine of a foreign philosopher, "That a thinking man is a depraved animal," we may without hesitation affirm, "That inordinate application of mind, the cares, anxieties, and dis

ULTIMATE EFFECTS OF STEAM CONVEYANCE.— There seems little doubt that steam-carriages and rail-roads will, in less than fifty years, have entirely superseded the present means of conveyance. The obvious consequence is, the greater rapidity of travelling, as well as greater secu rity; but there are others of an important character. The diminution of the cost of carriage will equalize the value of land and its produce in every part of the country; no one will go into Wales for economy, for prices will be as low at Hampstead. The capital is considered to have a market extending in a circle round it, whose radius is from fifty to sixty miles; the circle will be multiplied in some directions sevenfold, so that the wen will cease to be a curse. The general produce of the country will also be greatly increased by the easy conveyance of appropriate manures; and all those heaps of articles, of which it is often remarked they are not worth carriage, will suddenly rise into great value. Treasures will start up under the feet of some men. A fishery, perhaps, that was not worth L.3, may become worth L.3000. In steam conveyance, the safety of the passenger is the only limit of speed; what, then, will be the rate of travelling for a cargo that runs no risk? mackerel, for instance: we may expect mackerel from Brighton in an hour, the cart returns with a load of sugar, salt, soot, or slate, in the same time. Farmers, who are the most timid of God's people, and about the most short-sighted, cry out that horses will cease to be wanted; that is very dubious they may be in still greater demand

but should draught horses cease to be, what then? fewer oats will be wanted, and more wheat may be grown for men, or more turnips for sheep.-New Monthly Mag.

VERSES BY AN OLD POET.

In going to my naked bed, as one that would have slept,
I heard a wife sing to her child, that long before had wept
She sighed sore, and sung full sweet, to bring her babe to rest,
That would not cease, but cried still, in sucking at her breast.
She was full weary of her watch, and grieved with her child;
She rocked it, she rated it, till that on her it smiled;
Then kissed she her little babe, and swore by God above,
The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.

BESIDES appearing in WEEKLY NUMBERS, the SCHOOLMASTER will be published in MONTHLY PARTS, which, stitched in a neat cover, will contain as much letter-press, of good execution, as any of the large Monthly Periodicals: A Table of Contents will be given at the end of the year; when, at the weekly cost of three-halfpence, a handsome volume of 832 pages, super-royal size, may be bound up, containing much matter worthy of preservation.

PART I. for August, containing the first four Numbers, with JOHN STONE'S MONTHLY REGISTER, may now be had of the Book

sellers, and dealers in cheap Periodicals.

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THE

AND

EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE.

THE SCHOOLMASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM.

No. 6.-VOL. I. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCE.

JEREMY BENTHAM.

ciple seems to have been benevolence, joined with an intense love of justice; and as soon as a very moderate income was opened to him, he retired to amend those proceedings he had learned only to lament over. It is not meant that he shut himself up, and lived like a hermit; on the contrary, he loved society, and admitted many to his tablebut only such as he himself solicited, and never in number above two or three at a time. In this manner, singly, at his hospitable board, have sat a succession of the greatest men in Europe, for thirty years. He husbanded his time with the most avaricious care; and it was only during the period devoted to refection and relaxation that he saw any body; this was during and after his dinner hour, which was as late as seven or eight o'clock.

THE year 1832 will long be memorable for the disappearance of the greatest among those spirits "that had on earth been sojourning,”—GOETHE, BENTHAM, CUVIER, and—by an eclipse as total as death, and far more mournful-WALTER SCOTT. In the same season, CRABBE, the poet, whose worth we seem only to appreciate in his loss, has been gathered home, a ripe sheaf; WORDSWORTH, declined into the vale of years, is, in approaching blindness, completing his resemblance to MILTON, in life as in spirit. To the condition of COLERIDGE, if we may judge of him from his latest published effusion, it is painful to advert. In the words of one gone but a little before, and worthy to twinkle as a lesser star even in this glorious constellation-" They" Mr Bentham," observes the True Sun, in an arhave gone out, one by one, like evening lights."Though some of our readers will scruple to place Mr. BENTHAM in this lofty category, and though many of them can know of him only as a name, his own disciples, who are now neither few nor inconsiderable persons, will scarcely be contented with the rank we have assigned their venerable apostle, who still remains, with the generality of persons, more glorified in their zeal, than in his own character and pretensions. Mr. Bentham is understood to be the founder of a sect in philosophy, or in morals and legislation, the name signifies the less, as in a few significant and easily intelligible words, his creed, the basis, the object of his system, is defined, to be

THE GREATEST POSSIBLE HAPPINESS OF THE GREAT

EST NUMBER.

The principles of this, THE UTILITARIAN SYSTEM, Mr. Bentham has been expounding to the world for a half century, from the calm obscurity of philosophic retirement. It is now perhaps better understood over the continent of Europe than in Britain. Mr. Bentham, who was born, lived, and at a very advanced age, lately died in London, belonged to two great epochs in literature and in politics. He was bred a barrister, but early renounced the law as a profession. Its intricacies, delays, and injustice, observes the New Monthly Magazine, "soon disgusted one, whose vital prin

Sonnet in a late Number of Blackwood

66

ticle written probably by Leigh Hunt, was an old man, with venerable white locks, social and cheerful, robust in body, and promising a still longer life; but it is always impossible to say, in highly intellectual men, how far the spirit of life is kept up by the mere vivacity of the brain, and subject to abrupt extinction from causes of accident or weather. His appearance, both in the amplitude of his look, the flow of his reverend hair, and the habitual benevolence of his smile, had a striking likeness to Franklin; and, on a hasty glance, the busts of the two might be confounded. He had all the practical wisdom of one of the sages of good sense; took exercise as long as he could, both abroad and at home; indulged in reasonable appetite; and, notwithstanding the mechanical-mindedness with which his Utilitarianism has been charged, and the suspicious jokes he could crack against fancy and the poets, could quote his passages out of Virgil, 'like a proper Eton boy.' He also played upon the or. gan, which looked the more poetical in him, because he possessed, on the border of his garden, a house in which Milton had lived, and had set up a bust against it in honour of the great bard, himself an organ-player. Emperors, as well as other Princes, have sought to do him honour, but he was too wise to encourage their advances beyond what was good for mankind. The Emperor Alexander, who was afraid of his legislation, sent him a diamond ring, which the philosopher, to his immortal

honour, returned, saying (or something to that effect) that his object was not to receive rings from Princes, but to do good to the world."

Such was the philosopher, the sum of whose doctrines we now give in his own words:

THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY.

By the principle of utility, is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to pro. mote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.

and wrong, and others of that stamp, have a meaning when otherwise, they have none.

When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility, it is with reasons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself. His arguments, if they prove any thing, prove, not that the principle is wrong, but that according to the applications he supposes to be made of it, it is misapplied. Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.

To disprove the propriety of it by arguments is impossible; but, from the causes that have been mentioned, or from some confused or partial view of it, a man may happen to be disposed not to relish it. Where this is the case, if he thinks the settling of his opinions on such a subject worth the trouble, let him take the following steps, and at length perhaps he may come to reconcile himself to it.

By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing); or (what comes again to the same thing,) to prevent the 1. Let him settle with himself, whether he would happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness wish to discard this principle altogether; if so, let to the party whose interest is considered: if that him consider what it is that all his reasonings, (in party be the community in general, then the hap-matters of politics especially,) can amount to? piness of the community; if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.

The interest of the community is one of most general expressions that occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this: The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what? the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

2. If he would, let him settle with himself, whether he would judge and act without any principle, or whether there is any other he would judge and act by?

3. If there be, let him examine and satisfy himself, whether the principle he thinks he has found is really any separate intelligible principle; or whether it be not a mere principle in words, a kind of phrase, which at bottom expresses neither more nor less than the mere averment of his own unfounded sentiments; that is, what in another person he might be apt to call caprice?

It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest 4. If he is inclined to think that his own approof the individual. A thing is said to promote the bation or disapprobation, annexed to the idea of an interest, or to be for the interest of an individual, act, without any regard to its consequences, is a when it tends to add to the sum total of his plea-sufficient foundation for him to judge and act upon, sures; or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains.

An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, of utility (meaning with respect to the community at large), when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.

A measure of government, (which is but a particular kind of action, performed by a particular person or persons), may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it has to diminish it.

let him ask himself, whether his sentiment is to be a standard of right and wrong with respect to every other man, or whether every man's sentiment has the same privilege of being a standard to itself?

5. In the first case, let him ask himself, whether his principle is not despotical, and hostile to all

the rest of the human race?

6. In the second case, whether it is not anarchical; and whether at this rate there are not as many different standards of right and wrong as there are men? And whether, even to the same man, the same thing which is right to-day may not (without the least change in its nature,) be wrong to-morrow? and whether the same thing is Of an action that is conformable to the principle not right and wrong in the same place at the same of utility, one may always say, either that it is one time? and in either case, whether all argument is that ought to be done, or at least that it is not not an end? and whether, when two men have said, one that ought not to be done. -One may say also," I like this," and "I do not like it," they can that it is right it should be done; at least, that it (upon such a principle) have any thing more to is not wrong it should be done: that it is a right action; at least, that it is not a wrong action. When thus interpreted, the words ought, and right,

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7. If he should have said to himself, No: for that the sentiment which he proposes as a stand

ard must be grounded on reflection; let him say | son, the historian. And this was to lead to many on what particulars the reflection is to turn? If happy ones in Shetland; for it brought a letter to on particulars having relation to the utility of the act, then let him say, whether this is not deserting his own principle, and borrowing assistance from that very one in opposition to which he sets it up: Or, if not on those particulars, on what other particulars?

8. If he should be for compounding the matter, and adopting his own principle in part, and the principle of utility in part, let him say how far he will adopt it?

9. When he has settled with himself where he will stop, then let him ask himself, how he justifies to himself the adopting it so far? and why he will not adopt it any further?

10. Admitting any other principle than the principle of utility to be a right principle, a principle that it is right for a man to pursue; admitting (what is not true) that the word right can have a meaning without reference to utility; let him say, whether there is any such thing as a motive that a man can have to pursue the dictates of it? If there is, let him say what that motive is, and how it is to be distinguished from those which enforce the dictates of utility? If not, then, lastly, let him say, what it is this other principle can be good for?

We have somewhere heard, or read, that Mr. Bentham wished he might be permitted to complete the one-half of his earthly pilgrimage five hundred years hence, that he might be enabled to contemplate the happy effects obtained for mankind by his doctrines; a very natural wish for the founder of a system, though too surely, could it have been accomplished, pregnant with deep disappointment. How many new systems will rise and fall within the next five hundred years! How small progress in eighteen hundred years have the principles of that Divine system made, which, once fairly acted on, should supersede, and make void and useless every other!

Mr. Hepburn, from a friend on his way to Athelstoneford to preach next day, who had fallen from his horse and injured himself, and now solicited, that if any preacher happened to be in the neighbourhood, such reverend person might be sent to officiate in his parish. In this emergency the unsuccessful Orkney solicitor was dispatched early on Sunday morning. His appearance in the pulpit drew forth the following letter, addressed by Sir Hew Dalrymple, to Sir Laurence Dundas :

DEAR SIR,

.

Dalzell, May 24, 1775.

*

Having spent a long life in pursuit of pleasure and health, I am now retired from the world in poverty, and with the gout; so joining with Solomon, that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," I go to church and say my prayers. little satisfaction in hoping, that you, wealthy voluptua I assure you, that most of us religious people reap some ries, have a fair chance of being damned to all eternity. Now, Sir, that doctrine being laid down, I wish to give you, my friend, a loop-hole to creep through. Going to church last Sunday as usual, I saw an unknown face in the pulpit, and rising up to prayers as others, I began to look round the church, to find out if there were any pretty girls there, when my attention was attracted by the foreign accent of the parson. I gave him my attention, and had my devotion awakened by the most pathetic prayer 1 ever heard. This made me all attention to the sermon. A finer discourse never came from the lips of a man. I returned in the afternoon, and heard the same preacher exceed his morning work, by the finest chain of reasoning, conveyed by the most eloquent expressions. I immediately thought of what Agrippa said to Paul,-" Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."-I sent to ask the man of God to honour my roof, and dine with me. I asked him of his country, and what not, and even asked him if his sermons were his own composition, which he affirmed they were. I assured him I believed it, for never man spoke or wrote so well. "My name is Dishington," said he; "I am assistant to an old L.50 a-year, out of which I am allowed L.20, for preaching, minister in the Orkneys, who enjoys a fruitful benefice of and instructing 1200 people who live in two separate islands; out of this I pay L.1 5s. a-year to the boatman who transports me from the one to the other. I should be happy if I could continue in that terrestrial paradise; but we have a great lord who has many little people soliciting him, for many little things that he can do, and that he cannot do;

A SHETLAND PARSON, OR GOOD LUCK and if my minister dies, his succession is too great a prize

AT LAST.

Is 1775, Mr. Andrew Dishington, the assistant of an old minister in the Orkneys, at a salary of £20 a-year, for which he preached in two islands, came up to Edinburgh to solicit the survivancy of his charge, the incumbent being old, and in bad health. The poor helper was disappointed. He had got his travel, or his sail, for his pains; but before going back to his family, he made a visit to an old familiar of early days, Mr. Hepburn, then the minister of Athelstoneford, East Lothian, and so friendly and good a man to poor probationers, that "his house was known to all the black-coat train." Saturday night came in Athelstone Manse. Many a happy "Saturday at e'en" must have brightened what has been successively the dwelling of Home, the author of "Douglas,” and of Robert

not to raise up many powerful rivals to baulk my hopes of preferment." I asked him if he possessed no other wealth. and she has blessed me with three children; and as we are "Yes," says he, " I married the prettiest girl in the island, both young, we may expect more. Besides, I am so beloved in the island, that I have all my peats brought home carriage free."-This is my story-now to the prayer of my pe tition. I never before envied you the possession of the Orkneys which I now do, only to provide for this eloquent, innocent apostle. The sun has refused your barren isles his kindly influence; do not deprive them of so pleasant a preacher; let not so great a treasure be for ever lost to that damned inhospitable country; for I assure you, were the Archbishop of Canterbury to hear him, or hear of him, he has but one weakness, that of preferring the Orkneys to all the earth. This way and no other you have a chance for salvation. Do this man good, and he will pray for you. This will be a better purchase than your Irish estate, or the

would not do less that make him an Archdeacon. The man

Orkneys."

The conclusion of Sir Hew's friendly letter is

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Crabbe the poet would have admired the management of the poor in Yell. There was, of course, no workhouse-those dens of human suffering or languishment being still unknown to rural Scotland. The poor of Mr. Dishington's flock were clothed from the kirk funds, and each had liberty to seek his awmous, his weekly or monthly dole, in an alloted district of the parish.

not quite in modern good taste. His application | very decent and genteel appearance on Sundays;" was successful. Sir Laurence wrote him :most of them could read pretty well, and many "Sir Hew, your man shall get the first vacancy; and to write; all the women spun wool, and knitted the show you that I am fixed in this matter, I will tell you that Shetland hose, once so famous; now so scarce. the Princess Amelia (sister of George III.) desired the favour This was a branch of industry their minister did not of me to give my first kirk to a young man of her recommendation. I told her I was sorry I was pre-engaged. patronize. The knitter's labours yielded only about She asked to whom? I replied, to you, and she said it was 14d per day; and for this wool was consumed, well, for that it was for your man she was applying." which, if manufactured into good cloth of all sorts, But Mr. Dishington's troubles were not yet might, says Mr. Dishington, 66 serve all ranks for over. He obtained the presentation of Mid and clothing, and put a stop to the pernicious rage South Yell, but so tardily, that he was in danger they have for foreign fopperies;" such, no doubt, of losing all benefit from it, the six months being as corduroys, printed shawls, hats, and coloured caabout expired from the death of the last incum-licoes; and certainly cotton frame-knit stockings. bent, and the right of presenting consequently lapsing to the presbytery. It was now the depth of winter, and at that season of the year there is usually no communication between Shetland and Orkney; but when the unlucky presentee had given up all for lost, a small vessel came into Papa Sound, in Orkney, very near the manse, where he then resided; and on inquiring, he rejoiced to hear that it was the Shetland packet on her way from Leith to Shetland. Here was a stroke of good fortune; for this packet has never been known, before nor after, to put into Orkney. Mr. Andrew lost no time in packing up his best black suit, and kissing his children; he made good his landing in time, and became the rejoicing pastor of South Yell, for ever confirmed in his belief of a special Providence, and as devoutly quoting Cicero as if he had achieved a fat Deanery in Lincolnshire. "Nec vero universo generi humano solum, sed etiam singulis, Deus consuli et provideri solet" -quoth good Mr. Andrew.

By 1790 the three original olive branches, the only plants that grow to any size in Orkney or Shetland, had increased to 10 in number, and the apostle's means had thriven with them. A manse and offices built at the original expense of L.50, had been repaired for him. A handsome augmentation left the miscellaneous stipend in the following hopeful way: Butter 178 lispunds; 70 lambs, and 5-12ths of a lamb, and four merks wool with each; 211 ling, and the of a ling; 503 cans, and a can of oil; and L.175 15s. Scots in money, and L.40 Scots for communion elements: altogether L.17, 17s. 7d. English money.

A SHETLAND FLOCK.

The primitive flock of this primitive pastor deserve a passing notice. Their condition is one which political economists, of a certain description, would condemn in the lump. They united the business of fishermen and cultivators, the arable land being divided into small portions. They married early; delved their little farms with the spade, and had no need, their minister tells, of any great stock of goods to begin life. All that was

required was a cow, a pot, a spade, a tusker, a buthie, fishing-rods, and a rug or blanket. Of course the wealthy might have half-a-dozen cows, and as many blankets. They had abundance of peats, and fish in immense quantities. Mr. Dishington says his parishioners of both sexes, made “a

THE OLD BEGGAR.

The aged man had placed his staff across
A broad smooth stone, and from a bag
All white with meal, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation.

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While on he creeps
From door to door, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,

Else unremembered, and so keep alive
The kindly mood in hearts, which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom, half-experience gives
Makes slow to feel.

Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets, and thinly-scattered villages,
The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work
Of reason.

Some there are

By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which, to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle; minds like these
In childhood, from the solitary Beggar
The helpless wanderer, have perchance received
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitude of love can do!)

The first mild touch of sympathy and thought,
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE WANDERING

BEGGAR.

The easy man

Who sits at his own door-and like the pear
Which overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred-all behold in him
A silent monitor, which, on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought
Of self-congratulation, to the heart of each
Recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions.
Man is dear to man;-the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life,

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