ART. 41.

Inquiry into the Caafes and Remedies of the late and prefent Scarcity, and High Price of Provifions. In a Letter to the Right Hon. Earl Spencer, K. G. Firft Lord of the Admiralty, &c. &c. Sc. 8vo. 71 PP. 25. Wright. 1800.

In this enquiry, the author begins by fetching light from the experience of past times. There has been no famine (he fays) in this country, for more than 350 years, though frequent inftances of fcarcity and dearth. Famines were frequent before the Norman Conqueft; and fince, till near the end of the Plantagenet race of kings. It appears, that famines never occurred, except after bad feafons; and that the evil was, probably, fometimes augmented by impolitic inftitutions and regulations; fuch as, a prohibition againft tranfporting corn from one part of the country to another; and (in one inftance) a limitation of the price of provifions, to which fome hiftorians afcribe the famine of the following year.

An enquiry is then inftituted, into the circumftances which expofed former ages (particularly the 14th century) to famine, and its ufual concomitant, peltilence.

1. The low ftate of agriculture: "It appears that, in the 13th and 14th centuries, corn fold for more than three times as much as the fame weight of butchers meat.". P. 5.

"A more feanty production, in proportion to the number and neceffities of the confumers, owing to the more fimple manners of the times." P. 6." The quantity of grain employed, in latter times, in brewing, diftilling, feeding of hotfes, and other articles of unneceffary confumption, becomes a fort of difpofeable furplus; fo that, in times of fcarcity, great part of it may be turned into the channels of neceffity. It is evident, then, however paradoxical it may at first fight appear, that luxury, or what by fome may be called wafte, is one of the refources against famine.' P. 7. However expedient and commendable, therefore, it may be, in times of scarcity, to make retrenchments in articles of luxury, it would be highly inpolitic and dangerous to make fuch retrenchments perpetual." P. 7.

3. The want of internal and foreign commerce; which precludes all relief, in cafe of fcarcity, from one feafon to another, and from one country, and one kingdom, to another.

From thefe remarks on paft times, the author proceeds to," inquire into the caufes of the prefent fcarcity, and high price of provi

fions." P. 12.

The ift. and grand caufe, feems to have been the cold and rainy fummer and autumn, and the fcanty and ill-gotten crop of 1799. Having affigned this fingle caufe, the author digreffes fo far, and fo long, on various topics, that it is much easier to say that he prefents to us many ingenious and useful reflections, concerning farmers, merchants, dealers, &c. than to give an abstract of them. He next ftates, but does not ftrongly infift upon, fome fubordinate and fecondary caufes of the fcarcity; as, the depreciation of money; the war; (which he maintains does not increafe the confumption one 36th part) agriculture not keeping pace with population and manufactures; the profe

cution of foreftallers; and the affize of bread: on which laft topic we find a few short, but good hints.

We come now to the remedies of fcarcity; of which the firft is, an extended cultivation; the next, an increafed culture of potatoes. But as these are only remote recourfes, it is propofed to relieve the prefent diftrefs by importation; abolition of the affize; ftaying profecutions of foreftallers; enforcing the ftale-bread aft; ftopping the distilleries, and the manufacture of starch and hair-powder; and rejecting all expectation of a maximum of price: moft of which things the legiflature has actually done,

We have given a fomewhat extended account of this tract; having found in it many juft (if not always novel) arguments; and (what is extremely defirable in this feafon of agitation) a careful abftinence from all intemperate fpeculations and language.

ART. 42. A Sermon, preached at St. Julian's Shrewsbury, on Sunday, December 14, 1800, on reading his Majefty's Proclamation for limiting the Ufe of Bread. By Samuel Butler, M. A. Head-Mafter of Shrewsbury School, and late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 12mo. 32 pp. 1s. Eddowes, Shrewsbury; Longinan and Rees,

London. 1800.

A short Dedication (rather too antithetical for our tafte) is very honourable to Thomas Exton, Efq. as an active friend to the poor; a character, of which this kingdom now affords examples, at least as numerous and fplendid, as any ever exhibited in any nation, or in any age. Difcourfing on Luke xii, 24, "Confider the ravens," &c. the preacher fets before his hearers fuch motives for religious cheerfuloefs, as may tend to diffipate the gloom of melancholy, and restore them to peace of mind. Adverting to a former difcourfe, concerning the infinite mercy of God, and our own unworthinefs, he justly obferves, "that whatever caufe for dejection we can have on the latter ground, we have ftill more abundant reafon for hope and exultation on the former." P. 6. He then proceeds to fhow, " why it is our duty to endeavour that we may attain this cheerfulness, and to offer fuch ⚫ practical confiderations, refulting from the fubject, as are applicable to our prefent ftate." P. 7. Having well defcribed the nature of true cheerfulness, he, ift, proves that it is a duty which we owe to God; 2ndly, he deduces motives for cheerful refignation to God's will, from the relation in which we ftand to him, as Chriftians, and as his children; 3dly, he shows, that " defpondency under the difpenfations of Provi dence, is not only wicked and unreasonable, but it is the very means to make thofe afflictions heavier, at which we repine." P.12. 4thly, Cheerfulness is shown to be a duty, which we owe to our families, and to fociety at large. This topic leads to the confideration," how we may beft alleviate the prefent evil." P. 14. At pp. 17, &c. much good and found advice, concerning the prefent dearth, is offered to the poor. Had we ftood at the writer's elbow when he finished this Sermon, we should have advised him to draw his pen over the last five lines; and fhould then have congratulated him, on having completed a very well-timed and useful difcourfe.

ART.

ART. 43. Thoughts on the prefent Prices of Provifions, their Caufer, and Remedies; addreffed to all Ranks of People. By an independent Gentleman. 8vo. 87 pp. Reynolds, Oxford-Street. 1800.

The principal caufe here affigned, is not any actual Scarcity, but the avarice and extortion of farmers; and the grand fpecific propofed is a maximum, to be fixed by jultices of the peace. This is the most injudicious and unfatisfactory tract, which we have fo far met with, on the Scarcity.

ART. 44. Abort Enquiry into the Nature of Monopoly and Foreftalling. A Third Edition, with confiderable Additions. By Edward Morris, Ff. Barrister at Law. 8vo. 54 PP. 19. Cadell and Davies.

1800.

We commended this tract very ftrongly, on its firft appearance, at p. 62, of the 9th volume of our Review; and we with again to fix the public attention upon it, as containing a very concife, argumentative, and temperate difcuffion of thofe fubjects, which our prefent vifitation of Scarcity has rendered fo highly interefting.

ART. 45. An Investigation of the Caufe of the prefent High Price of Provifions. By the Author of the Effay on the Principle of Population. Second Edition. 8vo. 28 pp. 15. Johnfon. 1800.

The author of this pamphlet fufpects, that the principal caufe of the high price of provifions, in proportion to the actual degree of fcarcity, has hitherto efcaped detection: (p. 1.) and that this is no other, than the attempt, in moft parts of the kingdom, to increase the parish allowances in proportion to the price of corn, combined with the riches of the country, which have enabled it to proceed as far as it has done in this attempt." P. 4. At pp. 5.8, 7, this opinion is fupported by a fuppofition, rather ingenious than fatisfactory. As far as our information enables us to fpeak, we queftion the fact of this general increafe, in the proportion here flated. A crop of wheat in 1800, deficient by one third, fucceeding a crop ftill more deficient, at leaft in quality, with the very increafed ufe of fine bread, will account for high prices much more forcibly. We agree, that “in an article (p. 14) which is in fo many hands as corn is, in this country, monopoly, to any pernicious extent, may fately be pronounced impoffible." Yet, in particular districts, of which the produce is fčanty, and the accefs to it difficult, we apprehend that this monopoly may exift long enough, to enrich a few, and to flarve the rest of the inhabitants., Differing in opinion, as we do in many points, from this writer, yet we readily acknowledge, that his tract is one of thofe which deferve much attention at the prefent juncture.

ART. 46. The Cafe of the Farmers, at the prefent important Crifis, flated by a Hertfordshire Farmer. Svo. 20 pp. 6d. Law. 18eo. Among the pernicious tendencies of many of the Agricultural Surveys lately publifhed, one has repeatedly been noticed by us; namely,

a tendency to exafperate the minds of farmers against their landlords, for refufing to grant long leafes. Here is a farmer, or rather (we fufpect) a fate-reformer, who has read the Surveys attentively, and has been duly improved by them. Moft curious is the exordium of this tract: The afflicted and oppreffed African has found advocates: . but the oppreffed and infulted farmers of this ifland are left to their fate: oppreffion will make a man mad; and that the farmers of England are oppreffed, must be admitted-a fet of men whofe hands are bound, and whofe feet are in fetters,manacted flaves,-doomed to a ftate of humiliating abjectnefs to the will of another, that degrades the dignity of the human mind." The Surveys are appealed to, in proof of this: and not without reafon; for fuch are, in many cafes, the intimations" contained in them. But in what confits all this oppreffion? Why, in the refufal of land-owners to grant long leafes, upon liberal terms; and in degrading, unneceffary, and illiberal reftriftions," In cafes where leafes are granted, they generally run for five, feven, or nine years endurance only: nineteen years, or twenty-one, may be confidered as the maximum,' And pray, honeft farmer, for how much longer time, would you infift upon a landlord's reigning to you his eftate; which you would probably re-leaf, by fome device or other, before half of the term should expire? When the London feditiousfocieties, in the fummer of 1798, had their emiffaries at work throughout the villages of the kingdom, one tract of this fort for the ufe of farmers, another of the fame ftamp for their labourers, and a third for the poor in general, (all which might have been extracted from the County Surveys) would have operated ftron ly towards a general tranf fer of landed, and all other property, from the old to new matters.

ART, 47, An Addrefs to the good Senfe and Gandour of the People, in Behalf of the Dealers in Corn: with fame fews Obfervations on a late Trial for Regrating: by Sir Thomas Turton, Bart. The Second Edis tions with a Pofifcript. 8vo. 189 pp. 35. 6d. Egerton, &c. 1800. A very eloquent harangue in defence of farmers, corn-dealers, monopolizers, atque id genus omne. There is fuch a profufion of words in this oration, that we cannot eafily pick out the matter from among them. But the purport of the whole is to fhow, that combinations of farmers to hoard their corn, or of dealers to monopolize it, are utterly impracticable; that the general profits of the latter are overrated; and that they who keep back corn from the market, during the early months after harvelt, are, in fact, whatever may be their intention, real benéfactors to the public: fince, by producing a remporary fcarcity, and confequently high prices, they compel the people to economy in the ufe of corn; and thus prevent, during the latter months, an actual famine. Though we are not prepared to aflent to all which is here urged in favour of thefe gentry, yet we acknowledge that they have found, in this worthy Baronet, a very acute, entertaining, and able advocare,

PHI

PHILOSOPHY.

ART. 48. An Account of the Irides, or Corona, which appear around, and contiguous to the Bodies of the Sun, Moon, and other luminous Objects. 8vo. 46 pp. Is. 6d. Cadell and Davies. 1799.

Four principal forts of Irides, or Corona, fuch as are frequently formed in the clouds and vapours of the atmosphere, round the bodies of the fun, moon, &c. are mentioned in this short effay; namely, 1. Thof which confift of many coloured circles contiguous to the bodies of the fun and moon; 2. The Iris of 45° in diameter, which has the fun or moon in its centre; 3. and 4. The two rainbows, whose diameters are about 84° and 100°, and which appear opposite to the luminous body that produces them.

With refpect to the explanation of thofe phænomena, this author (of whofe name we know only the initials. viz. G. W. J. which are figned at the end of the tract) obferves that the principles, upon which the first depends, have been discovered only within thefe few years; and for those principles he refers the reader to a work entitled New Obfervations concerning the Inflections of Light, which, we have fome reafon to believe, was written by himself; and of which due notice has been taken in a former number of the British Critic,

The fecond, he thinks, has not been fatisfactorily explained; but he allows that ione fuccessful approaches have been made towards an explanation of the other two; namely, of the primary and fecondary rainbows.

This defcription of these appearances is followed by a statement of their various breadths, which were meafured by means of a fextant.

The general refult of many obfervations and measurements was, that oft fequently the breadth of the first order was rather more than forty-five minutes, or once and a half the breadth of the moon's difc; the fecond not fo broad; the third lefs broad than the second; and the fourth lefs broad than any."

Several pages of this tract are employed in refuting Sir I. Newton's attempt to explain the phænomena in queftion, after which," the only true principles of explanation" he fays" are to be found among thofe new obfervations concerning the inflections of light before referred to." Thefe he proceeds further to ftate in pp. 30, 33.

In the fequel, the above-mentioned explanation is illuftrated by referring to a diagram in a plate fubjoined to the tract. To this are added feveral particulars, and collateral obfervations, refpecting the fame phænomena.

MISCELLANIES,

ART. 49. The Cambrian Regifter, for the Year 1796. Vol. II. 8vo. 575 PP. 95. E. and T. Williams, 11, Strand. 1799. This work has fomething of the form, and fomething of the tar diness of an Annual Register, yet why it should be annual, it is not

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