tion were laid, and the waves were stilled, that commerce would venture to hoist her sails. But now, how is the aspect of things changed? all Europe pressing forward to outstrip us in the course on one side the German Zollverein and Russian exclusion,* hostile American tariffs upon the other; laboratories of Chemistry, colleges for Civil Engineering, and schools of design springing up all over central Europe. Let it not be said, in reply, that we do not feel the effects of such causes; they are as yet but a little while in operation. The motion of the avalanche, in the commencement of its course, is imperceptibly slow; wide-spread desolation shall tell what it is at the end. But the fact is not so. What stronger proof can be given of the enormous pressure brought to bear upon the springs of our manufacturing industry, than the yielding to the demand for the repeal of the corn laws, by those who politically and personally had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain by the concession? Even their most bitter opponents must grant, that they have been influenced by the conviction however erroneous-that it was hopeless to struggle any longer against the force of an overpowering necessity. And however some may assert, that this

* In an article lately published in the St. Petersburgh Gazette, from its tone apparently official, after alluding to the change in the commercial policy of England, the writer discusses at some length the means, that now, more than ever, must be resorted to for the purpose of excluding British manufactures from the Continent, and among other subsidiary contrivances, lays particular stress upon the necessity of giving great "attention to every foreign and really improving manufacturing invention, its introduction and appropriation, to the utmost possible extent, throughout the land; as also, the animation, promotion, and spread of the mechanical and chemical sciences and arts of design, and their ornamental and refining application to the processes of manufactures."

strain might have been successfully withstood, all must allow, that in sacrificing party, friends, consistency, and power, they were actuated by no low, petty, or instinctive regards to self, but have plunged into the gulf of political annihilation, immolating themselves for the salvation of their country. To pronounce any opinion here, upon the measure itself, would be foreign from the object of this essay. The subject is here introduced, merely as affording an argument, to show that the pressure is not imaginary, nor the danger overrated; and the argument becomes all but overwhelming, when the position and circumstances of the author of the measure are taken into account. Raised to that icy summit of human greatness, where the hope of farther elevation warms not, the excitement from the toil and dangers of the ascent now passed away, looking down in cold abstraction upon the clouds and storms of party feuds and private interests, commanding an unbroken view of that wide horizon hidden from the eyes of those who stand on the plain below, no keen, no subtle exercise of malignant ingenuity, whetted by disappointment, can for him suggest any reasonable motive of action, which shall not imply a total abnegation of self, nor any inducement to such a course, but that loftiest of all, -the fulfilment of duty, upheld by the consciousness of rectitude.

We have now cast aside the heavy armour of protection, to wage that great commercial conflict in which we are engaged, with limbs unfettered and with motions free; whether, in so doing, we shall be found to have

fatally exposed ourselves to the shafts of the enemy, time alone can show. But, however this may be, one thing is certain, that we shall require all those aids which the discoveries of modern science have placed within our reach, all that force of cultivated intellect which education in its most perfect form can bestow, all that perseverance and indomitable energy which moral training, founded upon religion, can alone create, -to bear us victorious through that mighty struggle (and not the less mighty because peaceful) in which is involved the destiny of our empire. For we know of no instance where commerce has again revisited the abodes she has once forsaken. The sun will not shine in the evening where it shone in the morning; nor will "the shadow which has gone down on the dial go backward," as a sign of returning health and vigour, to a people hastening to decay; or to prolong the day of prosperity for a nation whose glories are departing.

To those who, raised above the passing feelings, the petty motives, and the little jealousies of the hour, send their thoughts into the uncertain future, - anxious truly, but not dismayed by the reflection that the onward progress of mankind has been, once and again, in the history of human advancement, checked and thrown back upon itself, to all such, it must be a matter of deep solicitude, whether we shall afford another instance to verify the apophthegm of Polybius, that all empires having attained to eminence speedily decay; or whether that high destiny and glorious

*

* POLYBIUS, lib. vi. exc. iii. cap. 2.

mission is not rather for us alone reserved, to spread the blessings of civilization, the fruits of an ennobled

humanity, -to give light to them that sit in darkness, to guide their feet into the way of peace.

THE END.

WAREING WEBB, LIVERPOOL.

The following Works, by the same Author,

MAY BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS:

TANGENTIAL COORDINATES; or, the Application of a New Analytical Method to the Theory of Curves and Curved Surfaces. 8vo.

The RECTIFICATION and QUADRATURE of the SPHERICAL CONIC SECTIONS. 8vo.

In the Press, and shortly will be published,

A GEOMETRICAL TREATISE on the CONIC SECTIONS; together with the Theory of POLES and RECIPROCAL POLARS, geometrically considered.