de Montlosier say, we had no remarkable political institution which we had not copied from his country.

But the reader would be deprived of the most ludicrous part of M. Dupin's proposition, if he did not recollect these words: 'Autant l'Angleterre est en avance aujourdhui, autant, il y a cinquante années, elle étoit en arrière de la France.' Now we do not think that, at any period of the world, there existed so great a disparity between nations, calling themselves civilized, and standing nearly in the same rank in society, as exists, at this moment, between England and the nations which surround her, and which may be called her rivals in social improvement. The Greeks had no contemporary competitors in industry or intellect. The Romans filled the entire world with their preponderance, and every other national name was effaced by theirs, as long as the earth was covered by barbarians. But what the ancients never could have suspected, what the moderns never saw, is the degree of superiority which England has attained over all who have started in the same career-to say nothing of the prospects which she has opened for herself in times to come, and of which she begins to taste already the future in the present.

When M. Dupin's work upon this country appeared in France, it gave a picture of things as they then were; neither do we deny that the author has shown considerable industry and skill in collecting observations upon our arts, our arsenals and our establishments in general. We have been told that, while actually visiting these places, he never took a note, or even committed to paper a numerical statement, a measurement, or a calculation, trusting entirely to a very tenacious and faithful memory upon these points. Now, we believe him fully capable of judging the length, breadth and thickness of any object submitted to his inspection; of remembering its dimensions; of catching, at a single glance, the calibre of a gun, the weight of a ball. We admit his eyes to be very scales and compasses; and, with the exception of some bombast and some ambitious paragraphs, we think he has told his tale well. But more than this we cannot grant. The moment that he steps out of the domain of physics, and treats his readers with moral observations, he becomes another man. We find in him all the littleness, all the misconceptions, all the errors respecting the character of the British nation, to which it is the curse of his countrymen to be chained; and which tend to prolong the stagnation of France, and to perpetuate the complacent dreams of perfection in which lethargic vanity has plunged her. Instead of recognizing with pleasure, the active and intelligent engineer, who spirits up his nation to new efforts, by recounting the deeds of a rival, we see a person, who, by touching upon subjects to which

he is incompetent, brings himself down to the level of the many French travellers and commentators who have been blundering upon us for the last ten years; to the level, for instance, if not of General Pillet, at least of Dr. Pichot. More than any of them he reminds us of the astronomer, to whose unremitting question the heavens loudly cry out divine intelligence and power, yet, who says in his heart, Tush, there is no God.' M. Dupin sees and feels all that is wonderful in our fleets and armies, all that is miraculous in our industry; yet, when he seeks the causes of the prosperity which astonishes him, he but half admits superior intellect to be one; and, as to virtue, he almost refuses it to the people whom he owns to be thus constantly occupied, and frequently insinuates that his own countrymen are franker, honester, more disinterested, more moral than they. But where do men learn their virtues? Is it in the lap of luxury, where neither thought nor action ever are awakened? The first sin of man was committed in Eden; and the world before the flood was a garden in perpetual spring. Is it from violence? then hordes of Tartars are meeker than Moravian brothers; and the soldiers of Brennus were nobler than the Roman senators whom they murdered. No: the parent of all virtue is moderate want; not the want which makes men mad and desperate, but that which makes them active and rational. Had M. Dupin known any thing of human nature, he would have known that the nation which has made the most of itself, whose prosperity is the greatest in proportion to its original means, which has made the most strenuous and the most constant efforts, whose power is not ephemeral, whose splendour is not tinsel, must also be the most moral. Had he understood mankind, he would have perceived the impossibility of being corrupt and bad, at the very moment of the noblest exertions; and he might have given two additional volumes much more valuable than the preceding ones; and added a 4me partie, sur la force morale de l'Angleterre.' This would have been a fair corollary of his former volumes, and would have been just as astonishing. But he must have studied us deeper than he did; he must have used more than his eyes to learn us thoroughly; for though we raise a mighty hue and cry about our faults, we make no display of our virtues-while others gild their vices as they do their clocks, and both are polished as their mirrors.

M. Dupin's account of England relates principally to the years 1816, 17, 18, 19; although the parts published since that time make communications of a later date. Yet such has been the development of British intellect since his travels were begun, that it has absolutely outrun the rapidity of the press; and the most recent work upon three of the great branches of English prosperity

prosperity is now, in many points, become antiquated. This is no fault of M. Dupin. Many persons have been surprized that the most exact and ample account of our present means should be the work of a foreigner, and not of an Englishman. But it is precisely from a foreigner that such an account is to be expected. All that struck him with amazement is too much in our daily habits to stimulate us to write. All that he came to study among us, for the benefit of his country, is too familiar to occupy our pens; and it is only a foreigner who will embody his thoughts in describing it. Among the crowds who practise the useful arts, how few there are who write upon them; and men rarely publish the travels they have made in their own countries.

Let us admit that France had some claim to be called superior to England half a century ago; it must be confessed that the merit of this island, in having made the progress which, in that case, she must have made in fifty years, is extreme, and amply repays the delay. England ought not to be superior to France; she ought to be-not perhaps a province of that rich kingdom, a dependant on the French crown-a feudatory-but at least her inferior in strength and in riches. Let us hear the account which M. Dupin himself gives of the comparative means of both countries; for it is, perhaps, the only accurate part of his whole

statement.

Notre territoire est plus vaste, notre climat plus beau, notre sol plus fertile. Une immense frontière et deux mers ouvrent leurs débouchés aux produits des entrailles et de la superficie de notre terre. Mais nous manquons encore, pour arriver à ces limites, de communications intérieures assez nombreuses, assez aisées, assez économiques.'

And just before,

'Ni l'ardeur et l'activité, ni la science et le génie ne manquent à notre heureux pays, &c.'

Now it is perfectly true, that the territory of these islands is not more than the half of the territory of France; and moreover-what M. Dupin has not mentioned-it has the incalculable disadvantage of not forming one whole, but of being divided into two unequal portions by a broad sea. It is true our climate, not merely when we compare the Highlands of Scotland with Provence and Languedoc, but when we take an average of the two conntries, is much less propitious to vegetable productions. True it is also, that the average of our soil, even comprizing Ireland, is less fertile. How then can it be expected that we should vie with France; that, according to the common principles of national prosperity, we should be able to enter into competition with an empire so much more gifted by nature, so much more extensive; and struggle with superior soil and climate, which, in the due ratio of po

pulation,

pulation, ought to be improved by twice as much ardour, activity, science, and genius'?

The sources of national prosperity can be but two-fold; physical and moral. Now, supposing the former to be equal in two nations, one of which has risen much above the other, the latter must be proportionally greater in that which has become preeminent. But how much more excessive must it not be, when physical means are smaller! To raise these islands to the level of France, more than twice as much mind was indispensably necessary; and every degree of superiority which they have reached, was attained by a portion of intellect more than twice as great. How many these degrees, how many these portions may be, it may not be easy to determine. They must be measured by every national concern collectively; by liberty, by wealth, by poetry, by philosophy; by all that has been effected in war or in peace. Some of these topics we have at various times discussed; that which we have now considered leaves a prodigious balance in favour of England; at least four times as great as it ought to be in reason of the means. Now a nation which, in industry, in commercial activity, so easily reducible into the shape of a debtor and creditor account, can prove itself to be four times as great as she ought to be, at the very moment when she is charged with inferiority, may allow us to laugh when we hear her grumbling— as she is very apt to do-at every little scratch she receives, in the midst of the most plethoric health that ever visited human society.

The prospects which are now opening to England almost exceed the boundaries of thought; and can be measured by no standard found in history. It is not by conquest that her empire is to be extended, neither is the power towards which she is advancing to be steeped in blood. The destiny which the present æra foretels her is to be fulfilled by promoting happiness, and she will grow prosperous as mankind become civilized. It is by introducing comforts into uncultivated regions; by making savage man familiar with the blessings which the utmost reach of mind has discovered; by helping youthful nations into maturity, and by extending the pale of social intercourse, that the wisest, the most moral, and consequently the freest of nations is to fill up the career which is now before her. Instead of making distant shores resound with her great artillery, she will bless them with the produce of her still greater engines of peace; and her triumphs shall be illuminated, not by flaming cities, but by the nightly blaze which issues from her mighty fabrics of prosperity and happiness. These are the labours which suit the people that brought back peace to Europe; and it is a just recompense that the strongest

in war should be the foremost in industry. When this ceases to be, civilization will have become retrograde.

Although it may not be very easy to give a just estimate of the means which England possesses, at this moment-means which are entirely of her own creation-to accomplish these ends; and to increase her own prosperity, as well as the happiness of mankind; yet the object is so vast, so much beyond what any former period of the world could have imagined, that we cannot resist the gratification of stating one or two particulars which, taken with the due restrictions, may yet give some notion of the stupendous power which is now at her disposal.

Now

One of the first of these is furnished by M. Dupin, who, however little we incline to admire his speculations upon moral questions, may be admitted as evidence in estimating physical forces. All the world is more or less acquainted with those immense masses, the pyramids of Egypt, which were considered among the wonders of antiquity. The materials of which the largest of them is constructed, were dug out of the earth at a considerable depth; and at no small distance from their present situation. They cover more than eleven English acres; and are piled up to the height of about 700 feet. According to M. Dupin's calculation, their volume is equal to about 4,000,000 of cubic metres; their weight is 10,400,000 tons; which raised to the height of eleven metres from the bottom of the quarries to the surface of the earth, and of forty-nine more as their mean elevation above the basis; in all sixty metres above their original levelgive 624,000,000 tons raised to the height of one metre. the steam-engines employed in England are equal to the force of 320,000 horses (1820), and can raise 862,800,000 tons to the height of one metre in twenty-four hours. But 624,000,000 tons being less than three-fourths of this quantity, it follows, that the steam-engines of England could have raised the materials of which the great pyramid is constructed out of the quarries, could have conveyed them to their present place, and heaped them up in their present form, in less than three-fourths of one day, that is to say, in less than eighteen hours. According to Diodorus Siculus, this building employed 360,000 workmen; according to Herodotus, 100,000 workmen during twenty years. Whichever of these estimates be nearest the truth, it is certain that one of the most powerful monarchies of remote antiquity applied its whole disposable resources in the construction. Therefore the mechanical power of British steam-engines was, in 1820-and it has much increased since that time-to that of the Egyptian monarch Cheops, inversely as the times necessary to each to perform the same task; that is to say, as twenty years to eighteen

hours,