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Despair has made him filent, and he falls
From his loved hawthorn, of its berry fpoil'd
A wafted skeleton, fhot through and through
By the near aiming fportfman. Lovely bird!
So end thy forrows, and fo ends thy fong.
Never again in the ftill fummer's eve,
Or early dawn of purple-vefted morn
Shalt thou be heard, or folitary fong
Whistle contented from the watery bough,
What time the fun flings o'er the dewy earth
An unexpected beam, tringing with flame
The cloud immenfe, whofe fr.ower-fhedding folds
Have all day dwelt upon a deluged world.
No, thy fweet pipe is mute, it fings no more.

66

High on the topmoft branches of the elm
In fable converfation fits the flock

Of focial ftarlings, the withdrawing beam
Enjoying, fupperlefs, of hafty day.

Half ftarved, and petrified, the pigeon mopes
With bloated plumage on the dove-house tile,
And feems forgetful of his amorous coo
And note of love profound. No more he starts
With loud applauding wing from his hufh'd cove,
Nor fweeps with fwift career the fnowy down.

"But most of all fubdued, or fearful leaft
Of man's fociety, with ruddy breaft
Against the window beats, fagacious bird,
The robin. At the door half opened left,
Or by the gale unlatch'd, or narrow pafs
Of air-admitting cafement, or (to him
Sufficient port) the fplintered aperture
Of attic pane demolished, with a flirt
Enters the fledged intruder. He has left
His haunt divine, the wood-house and the barn,
A feathery mendicant made bold by want,
And every little action asks aloud,
Alms the most indigent might well afford,
A drop of water and a crumb of bread.
'Timid and fleek upon the floor he hops,
His every feather clutch'd, all ear, all eye,
And, fpringing fwift at the first found he hears,
Thumps for difmiffion on the healthy pane.
Sweet beggar, no. Impenetrable glafs
Has clos'd around thee its transparent cage,
Efcape denying. Satisfy thy need,

And, having fed, be free. Beneath my chair
Sit budge, a feathery bunch; upon its ftaves
Polish thy clattering beak; with head revers'd
Drefs every plume that decks thy plain furtout,
And either pinion of thy lender wing;
With bridled bill thy ruddy bofom fmooth,

And,

And, all performed, delight me, if you wilt,
With a faint fample of contented fong,
Concife and sweet. Then flit around the room,
Cheerful though filent, feizing with an air
Each crumb diminutive which the last meal
Drop'd unperceiv'd, and the religious broom
Unconscious left upon the woven floor,
Or which the hand of charity lets fall

Not grudging. Banquet here, and fleep to night,
And, when thy morning meal is finish'd, fly;
Nothing unwelcome it thou dare return,

And daily feek the hofpitable feaft

Strewed to invite thee on the casement ledge." P. 119.

The Fourth Book is employed in the reprefentation of the Pleasures of the Favourite Village during Spring; the general Appearance of Nature; the Pleafures of Travelling at this Seafon; the Song of Birds; the Appearance of the Swallow; the Garden, with fuch other pleafing fubjects as Nature pourtrays, and this particular feafon infpires. The author, in this portion of his work, feems to rife with his fubject, and is peculiarly animated and impreffive. The following paffage, among innumerable others, is alike charming for its fimplicity and truth.

"Now yields the flock to the bard's curious eye
Peculiar pleasures. Often let me mark
The fullen ewe's authoritative stamp
Where'er the sheep-dog paffes. Let me fmile
At her deluded fenfe, what time her lamb,
By the bleak feason flain, his welted coat
Yields to the flayer, and the ravish'd twin
Of fome fond mother in the coarse disguise
Appears loofe-coated, and ufurps his dug.
Dull fool! how ill perceives thy ftupid eye
The palpable impofture! Let me hear
The morning uproar of the fleecy folk,
What time, vociferous, their tardy march
With baying curs impatient their rude lord
To the green pafture urges. Loud enquires
The bleating mother for her funder'd lamb,
As loud complaining for his mother loft.
With quick infallible perception fhe,
Amid the mingled outcry, hears distinct
His flender shrill entreaty. He remote,
With nicety that fhames our groffer fenfe,
Her voice acknowledges, and through the crowd
Winds his infulted way. She, provident,
Her milky treasures for his lip referves,
Butting intruders with a frown away.
At length he finds her, and with bended knees,

Emblem

Emblem of innocence and filial grace,

His plenteous meal receives, and bleats no more." P.151. Dr. Hurdis fhows himself, beyond all difpute, to be a very accurate and difcerning obferver of the fcenes of Nature. The great diftinction of this publication, feems rather to be eafe and fimplicity than force and energy. It is a very pleafing performance; and though, from its very nature, it cannot have the charm of novelty, it will revive and reinvigorate, in every lover of rural beauty, those ideas which time cannot obliterate, nor the bustle of the world deftroy; which, while any portion of memory, any fpark of fenfibility remains, cannot fail to excite a penfive complacency, intimately connected with innocence, with virtue, and with happiness.

ART. X. An Effay on the Principles of Population, as it affects the future Improvement of Society. With Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers. 8vo. 396 pp. 6s. 1798.

SOME writers, who have been eminently inftrumental in the

ruin which we fee now defolating the finest countries in Europe, have contributed their parts thereto, by exhibiting highly finished pictures of the happiness and perfection to which fociety might be brought by fchemes of their own; by the adoption of which, want and mifery would be removed from man. The fame end has been attempted here, and by the fame means, by Godwin and his followers. In this period, when the most extravagant opinions are found to gain multitudes of profelytes, and to produce evils which, at another feafon, it would be chimerical to apprehend from them, they are not to be paffed by with that inattention, to which a merited contempt would then consign them.

That wisdom and virtue would ameliorate the general state of mankind, we all own; but this is too scanty a canvas for delineating the beautiful ideas of thefe writers: they have difcovered that our fpecies has a noble quality, never perceived before-that is, perfe&ibility. The fyftem is this.

To attain the ftate of perfection, it is abfolutely neceffary to do away want and mifery; and, as these are generated by poverty and fubordination, the former will be deftroyed by the equalization of property, and the latter by the fubftitution of the law of reafon inftead of coercion; or the repression of crimes by punishments, that is, municipal law and thus man

would

would be placed in the road to the perfection of his nature, moral and organic.

For property being equalized, as fuppofed above, every man would be furnished with the neceffaries of lite, by the labor of a very thort part of every day; and philofophize during the remainder. Then the reign of reafon and univerfal philanthropy would be established, and the pretended expedience of that of coercion be completely done away. At that defirable period, if want might otherwife threaten fome more numerous family, in the beneficence of others, whofe members were fewer, and from their furplus, they would always be fecure of a fupply. On a particular point, of fome confequence indeed, the leading doctors of this fchool are not agreed; one sect maintaining that, in our state of moral perfection, the paffion between the fexes will become extinct; the other, that morals would become purified by fimply getting rid of their corrupt and degrading aufterity" on this head.

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On our organic perfe&tibility, there is another confiderable difference between them: the great master of one of these fects, Condorcet, maintains, that human life may be ultimately extended to a duration exceeding in length any flignable period; or become, as he terms it, indefinite. i ut although Condorcet was an eminent mathematician, yet Godwin, who is at the head of the Perfectionifts here, fufpects that, by fome error, either in his formula or procefs, he has affigned the effect of perfectibility too low; and he thinks there is a probability, that we may become abfolutely immortal. He holds alfo, that the degrading neceflity of fleep will be annihilated, when the fpecies arrives at the ultimate point of perfectibility.

We would not spare a line, to extract from the Effay before us the brain-fick reveries of the Academician or the Gallomanifte, if the defence of the best interefts of fociety did not on other accounts require, that they and their fupporters should meet the whole contempt that is their due.

The writer of this Eflay, whom we understand to be a Mr. Malthas*, fets himself seriously to refute this doctrine of perfectibility. He argues thus: a people to whom want of neceffaries is unknown, will at the least multiply with celerity, equal to that of the inhabitants of the ftates of North America, or will double their numbers in twenty-five years; and if,

* A tract of this author, on the High Price of Provifions, was noticed in our laft, p. 208.-The prefent work has been delayed by having been fubjected to the examination of a very skilful and profound judge, but too much occupied to command his time,

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by an equal divifion of property, the inhabitants of England, whom he estimates at feven millions, were to be placed in this flate, at the end of twenty-five years they would amount to fourteen of fifty, to twenty-eight; and of feventy-five, to fifty-lix millions; but the product of this country at prefent no more than fuffices its inhabitants: and if it be admitted that, by improvements of fkill, foil, and univerfal inclofure, in twenty-five years it might be doubled, and fuffice for fourteen millions, its augment, in the next equal period, would not be more than equal to that of the former, or fuffice for twentyone millions; nor, at the end of the third period, would there be in the kingdom food for more than twenty-eight millions, or half the number the inhabitants would increase to. Hence he concludes, that our population would be constantly augmented in a geometrical, and our product in an arithmetical progreflion only; and the former would foon arrive at a term when its proper increase must be stopped, or those who are born must perifh for want of food.

What he obferves of the first progreffion being geometrical, in the cafe he puts, is true, although he has founded it on authorities that will not fupport it*. But he has laid down as

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* The falubrity of a country being taken as conftant, its product increafing as the demand, and the age of marriage of the inhabitants the fame, the births therein in every year will be in a conftant multiple to the population at the beginning thereof; which calls: the number of deaths will also be a fixed multiple of s : let now the former multiple exceed the latter, and their difference be = n; this difference will be alfo fixed to the end of time; the fociety will be increafing; and its number having been s, the augment at the end of the first year will be ns and its number at the end of the term will be s+ns= sx1+n)'. The augment of the fecond year will be s xnx 1+n'; and its number at the end thereof s×+nxi ‡ n' or sx+'. In like manner the augment of the third year will be s xnx I + n2, and its final population s x + n2 + sx n ++ =sxin'. Here the population at the end of each year, forms a series of geometrical progreffionals. It is to be observed, that the fucceffive augments of population alfo form a series of fuch progreffionals, being in the years 1, 2, 3, 4, s n, s n × — n)', snx 1+n2, and s n x 1 + n3, respectively.

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2

Now if at the end of a certain number of years the population becomes ftationary in a certain part of the country, continuing progreffive at the old rate in the remainder, the augment of the next year will be less than it otherwife would have been, and the series of

augment

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