cisely opposite circumstances. Neither did the water account for the fact.

At length the density of the population was taken into consideration, and it was observed that in the 8th and 12th arrondissements the mean space allotted to each individual was, for the 8th, 48 square metres, and for the 12th, 36; while the mean space for each man in the 7th and 4th arrondissements was 10 and 6 square metres. The seventh and fourth arrondissements, therefore, should have been the most unhealthy, if density of population was the cause of the difference in the ratio of mortality; and yet it will be seen in the above table that these are precisely the two in which the ratio is among the least, while in the eighth and twelfth it is the greatest.

M. Villermé then found, that if the comparative indigence of the different districts was taken into the account, the mortality (with a single exception, that of the eleventh) was greatest among the poorest. Those districts were reckoned the poorest, in which the greatest number of untaxed lodgings were found.

If the districts are arranged in the order of the greatness of the mortality in each, so that the most unhealthy is placed first, the next second, and so on; and if also in another column they are placed in the order of the degrees of indigence, the poorest first, the next so second, the following table will enable the reader to make the comparison, and verify the statement of M. Villermé.

It is not easy to say on what the exception of the eleventh district depends, but the facts on the whole bear out M. Villermé in his statement that the poorest are those who suffer most from disease. By saying that they suffer most, however, we do not mean to assert that the distribution of Providence is so unequal, that they who have engrossed the goods of the earth are also they who are the least afflicted. It is most true that mortality is greatest among the poor; to them life is short, but to the rich death is long, and accompanied by all the anxieties and cares which high stations,

more extended sympathies, and greater constitutional excitements naturally produce. Among barbarous nations and the poor of civilized ones, acute diseases produce the mortality. Among the better classes of civilized nations chronic maladies abound. There is one appalling fact which we must adduce in support of our assertion, that mortality is greatest among those who suffer the greatest privations; we allude to the mortality among slaves. In America, it was observed that a very large importation of slaves speedily required renewal, so much did the deaths predominate over the births. According to Hufeland, "Art of Prolonging Life," p. 165, one-sixth of the negroes perished in the West Indies annually," a result which is only paralleled," he adds, “by the ravages of the most inveterate pestilence." The births among the free negroes of Martinique and Guadaloupe were four in a hundred, among the slaves two in a hundred.

The ratio of deaths of the free negroes in our troops is three and one-third in a hundred, while that among the slaves is seventeen in a hundred, or about five times as many. (Berard, p. 63.)

If any argument were wanting to crush this iniquitous traffic in life, this surely were conclusive. The liberty of an animal is conjoined with no high motives. In the desert or the forest his greatest gratification is to minister to his gross appetites, and that place has the most charms for him where his prey is the most plentiful. Learn his propensities and supply his wants, and he lives as long, and is as free, in his cell as he was in his cave. Excite new tastes by giving him food which in a state of nature he could not obtain, and you make him an attached and willing dependent. But who shall supply to the slave the home, the friends, the parents, and all the associations of his early years? Palaces may shelter him, but they have not the pleasant shade of the solitary palm in the desert. Living waters may flow for him, but like the captive of old, he will sit by the waters, even of a Babylon, and weep

"When he thinks of thee, O Zion!"

Much has been said of the ameliorated condition of our slaves in the West Indies. But the best mode of verifying these assertions would be to examine into the ratio of mortality among them at present, and compare it with that of former years, and also with that of the free negroes and the free inhabitants of the islands. If the slave is as happy or happier, as some would make us behieve, than the free negro, we may rest assured, cæteris paribus, that the rate of deaths and births will be at least equal in the two classes. But should these rates be materially different, they will furnish the best guage we know of the quantum of misery endured or benefit derived.

We have scarcely touched upon the exercise of intellect, the

necessary result of civilization, as a mean of prolonging life; and yet nothing tends more to procure sound health and quiet days than a due activity in the functions of the brain. Hufeland, in the work already cited, says, there is no instance of longevity in a professed idler. The truth is, that he who is occupied on subjects requiring thought, has not leisure to be intemperate. But independent of the protection which mental occupation gives against excess of all sorts, still there is much truth in the assertion, "qu'on meurt de bêtise." From all consistent analogy we must infer that the most important organ of the body, the brain, must have a great influence in the vitality of the frame. If any other organ ceases to perform its function, it immediately decays, and the constitution sympathises more or less with the local injury; if a limb is not used the muscles shrink, and the bone becomes soft; so that no axiom in physiology is clearer, than that the performance of the function of an organ is necessary to the health of that organ. So much for the theory of the thing. But facts show that they who have exercised their brains have usually attained to a good old age. Of one hundred and fiftytwo savans taken at hazard, one half from the Academy of Belles Lettres, the other from that of Sciences of Paris, it was found that the sum of years lived among them was 10,511, or about sixtynine years to each man. And M. Brunaud has shown in his Hygiène des Gens des lettres," that literary men have, in all climates and times, usually been long-lived. So true is it that knowledge is a blessing, and the propagation of it a duty. Even among brutes, Fred. Cuvier has remarked that the stupidest are the least amenable to kindness, and he instances the males of the whole class of ruminants, while the tiger and the hyæna, raised in the scale of intellect, will come to be caressed by the hands of their keeper. Had our limits permitted, we might have compared the civilization of modern with those of ancient kingdoms. But the reader may, if he be so inclined, visit the British Museum or any other collection of antiquities, look on the utensils of domestic economy among the Greeks and Romans, and compare them with those of his own country; or, if he will turn over the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, for learned and amusing accounts of ancient times and customs, and then compare these with "Beckman's History of Inventions," we think he will come to the same conclusion with M. Berard, that a workman of London with his week's wages is surrounded with, and can probably command more solid comforts than the noblest Roman in the Augustan age, or the most luxurious Greek in the age of Pericles.

ART. VIII-1. Reise durch Schweden, Norwegen, Lapland, Finnland, und Ingermannland, in den Jahren 1817, 1818, und 1820. Von Friedrich Wilhelm von Schubert, der Theologie Doctor und Professor in der Königl. Preuss. Universität zu Greifswald. 3 vols. 8vo. Leipsig. 1823.

2. Notices sur la Literature et les beaux Arts en Suède. Par Marianne Ehrenström. 8vo. Stockholm. 1826.

THAT we have had enough and to spare of travels and voyages in all possible shapes, is, generally speaking, undeniable; and it is but fair to admit that Sweden and the adjacent countries have, within the last twenty years, had their due allotment of descriptive quartos and octavos; still there are some interesting characteristics of these countries, which, up to the present day, have been almost entirely overlooked in the English works. If we consider for a moment the topic of literature in the first place, and apply to any one among the learned of our own country; let us try, for example, among professors nodding under their laurels in the plenitude of wisdom, or among hard-working studious aspirants, in the bosoms of our two Alma Matres, and put the question, what author now resident at Stockholm, Upsala, or Lund, he considers most praiseworthy, and the odds are enormous, that, in the answers we should receive, our learned professor or aspirant would betray a complete unconsciousness that these universities had any character highly eminent to boast of since the times of Rudbeck and Linnæus. Let us try the same question at the modern Athens, or any of the other universities of the sister kingdom, and we are confident of the same result.

Joking apart, the continued and utter neglect of Swedish authors in England, though naturally enough to be accounted for, is yet scarcely justifiable. The degree of ignorance regarding their existence is perhaps not so great as we have here suggested; yet we may decidedly affirm that, of "the reading public," not even one in a thousand has ever thought about the matter, while among our critics it would prove exceedingly difficult to find an individual competent to give a fair estimate of the publications, such as they are, that have appeared at Stockholm within the last twenty years. This at present we ourselves cannot venture to undertake, for translated specimens would be absolutely requisite, and the stock of materiel on our shelves is not yet sufficient to admit of our making a fair and equitable selection. Besides, we have a book of travels on our table, to which, after a few more preliminary remarks, we shall principally direct our reader's attention.

Unquestionably, if the three ponderous octavos now before us had merely treated the same topics with our own travellers, who have successively followed each others steps for the last twelve years, over the same ground, from Dr. Clarke to Captain Jones inclusive, we should not have felt much inclination to undertake the labour of wading through Dr. Schubert's production, for fear of incurring the reproach, that as Sweden, Norway, Lapland, and all the other northern kingdoms, have been described hundred times, they consequently can afford nothing sufficiently curious, new and important to require farther investigation. We certainly do not consider such minute analysis as Mr. Schubert presents of northern statistics, in every possible branch, as an absolute desideratum, for the details are more curious than useful to an inhabitant of England. We take a special interest in Sweden, however, for a reason known to but few of our readers, viz. that since the year 1786, and still more since 1810, there has been a stirring spirit among her literary characters, who, within that short space of time, have achieved so much in various departments, that we may not only expect farther improvement, but also entertain hopes that Swedish authors will one day or another be acknowledged over Europe as highly deserving of respect and

attention.

On this account, as we have hinted above, we are the more disposed to notice the present work, though the industrious author himself is by no means a bibliographer. But from a natural association of ideas, we read willingly statistical and other details relating to a people, from whose literature we trust to draw before long specimens that will prove both useful and entertaining.

Already several essays have been devoted to this subject in France; but without referring to them, at present, we may observe, that ever since the year 1739, when Charles XII. established that academy, of which Linnæus was the chief ornament, scientific pursuits have been followed up both at Stockholm and Upsala, with great perseverance and assiduity. Of late years, not only has natural history as before been zealously cultivated, but in the departments of chemistry, natural philosophy in all its branches, mathematics, &c. many characters of high respectability have appeared, among whom we may reckon Berzelius, Accrell, Broling, Cronstadt, Engeström, Garney, Hedinberg, Hedin, Hermelin, Hielm, Hisinger, Hallström, C. T. Lidbeck, Nordwall, Retzius, Rubers, Skioldebrand, and Swedenstierna, who have all either published scientific works, or contributed to periodicals. That their labours are little known out of their own country is assuredly no proof that they are unworthy of regard.

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