turer, and the enthusiasm in favour of his mere name, which ennobled the deaths of many of his followers. That there were a few of the chieftains who were actuated by these generous feelings, may be admitted, as well as that their people followed them with regardless devotion. But we see no grounds for believing, as it has been the fashion to do, that this was the motive of all, or even of many, of those who engaged in the undertaking. On the contrary, it is abundantly clear, that the great majority were directed by principles just as selfish, and by views just as personal, as ever guided men in the most prudent of their political proceedings. When the first rebellion broke out, it was really a matter of doubt (at least so it was thought in the North) which way the scale of success would turn; and therefore the accession to the Pretender may be accounted for, without the necessity of assigning to his adherents any unusual portion of pure loyalty or compassion. They were severely punished, however, after they failed; and a distinction was kept up by forfeitures and otherwise, between them and the rest of the community. The prospect of a new rebellion was to these, as to all discontented or ambitious people, a source of valuable hope; because it opened up a scene in which they could scarcely lose, but might gain almost to the full measure, even of their first extravagant expectations. They accordingly rushed into it when the opportunity came; and we suspect that it will be found, upon examination, that the rebel hordes were almost uniformly led on by men who were either rankling under the stings of former punishment, or who had become enemies of Government, because their claims, on account of former fidelity, were, as they thought, disregarded; or who were impatient for any occasion of relieving, by military enterprise, the dulness of a lawful civil life. Forbes, in announcing in his letters each new accession to Charles, invariably explains it upon some such causes as these. We are far from meaning to insinuate that the operation of such causes was unnatural; or imply any particular depravity in the many whom they influenced; we only intend to state, that they detract mightily from the affectionate devotion to which the Highland attachment. to Charles is often ascribed, and convert this ideal gallantry into plain ordinary political selfishness or ambition.

But, from the romance of the story, we are sorry to be obliged to add, that a still deeper deduction must be made. The great object of about forty of the most active years of Forbes's life was to obtain a correct knowledge of the state of the sentiments of his countrymen with respect to the Stuarts; and, considering his great prudence and opportunities, it is hardly possible to conceive that he should have been much mistaken, unless by supposing that direct hypocrisy was practised. Yet it is cer

tain, from these letters, that he believed, and assured Government that he personally knew, that there was no considerable man in the Highlands who would join the Pretender. He expressly founds this opinion upon the fact, that so many considerable families have lately uttered their sentiments.' Yet a very few weeks unfolded the long practised duplicity of which he had been the dupe. Traitors walked forth from families which he had cherished, and whose loyalty he had attested; and went over to an enemy, whose ranks he saw filled by men to whose fidelity he would have sworn, the moment before, with as much confidence as his country would at any time have sworn to his. The true moral character of this conduct cannot be better evinced than by the fact, that it both surprised and shocked Forbes himself. He was not a man who either construed doubtful behaviour harshly, or expressed his abhorrence of guilt too severely; yet it is clear, that upon every desertion to the invader, he felt the very pang of which a good man is conscious, on witnessing a base action performed by a friend. The excuse for this perfidy, which the poetry of a later age has discovered in romantic enthusiasm for an unfortunate Prince, never seems to have occurred to him. He explains it all, by tracing it back, in almost every instance, to personal ambition, resentment or hope. There were certainly some noble acts of compassion and disinterestedness performed towards the Pretender after the affair was over; but these were the offspring of individual humanity, excited by very singular situations, and must by no means be mistaken for the political views or principles on which he was originally joined. In some cases, no doubt, his cause was espoused from hereditary and personal love; but, to suppose that this was the predominant passion, is to forget human nature, and to forget that the period least favourable to steady virtue is when the simplicity of barbarism is lost, and the regulated honour of civilized life not yet attained.

There are a great number of subordinate matters glanced at in this volume, which our limits do not permit us to point out; but their variety and vivacity exhibits a very animated picture of the age. We have been more struck than we used to be, by the singular imbecility of all the military characters to whom the country was entrusted in those dangerous times. They uniformly seem to have rushed up to the Highland army as to a mob, and then to have started back with untimely horror at the sight of the new and savage army; while the confusion of all the ordinary modes and departments of the public service completely perplexed their understandings, and converted experience itself into a source of vexation and blunder. Poor Cope has long been famous in song; but we cannot help thinking with

Forbes, that he was among the best of them; and that it ill became the Duke of Cumberland's officers (p. 281), who were present at Falkirk, to make observations on what happened at Preston.' This battle of Falkirk (if battle it can be called) was fought on the royal side by a General Hawley, who used to boast, that he would make two regiments of horse ride over the rebel army. Before he left Edinburgh for the combat, he erected two gallowses for the execution of the prisoners he was to take;-but he was shamefully beaten, and never recovered the story of the gibbets. There is an excellent letter (p. 270) from a Mr Corse, who seems to have been a Professor in the University of Glasgow, to the President, giving an account of this affair. He was serving as a volunteer in the Glasgow Regiment; and his bulletin is a most picturesque account of every thing ludicrous that can happen in serious warfare with undisciplined troops. General Wightman gives an account of the 'scuffle' at Preston, almost equally lively (p. 224.) He talks of the Edinburgh Riff-Raff Volunteers.'

As these letters are from all sorts of persons, and upon all sorts of subjects, they occasionally let out more of the truth, than their authors probably intended should ever see the light. There are various Lords and Lairds who make but a shabby figure in this Collection. But our great pride and consolation is in the ever clear honour, and open heart, of him to whom they address themselves. For Duncan Forbes no descendant will ever have to blush, or to feel ashamed: And the perusal of this book will prove, that Scotland, even since she ceased to be a separate kingdom, has had at least one statesman whose principles were as pure as his understanding was enlightened, and whose concern for his country was not so much as suspected to be quickened by any regard to his own power or emolument.

ART. VI. An Inquiry into the Causes of the High Prices of Corn and Labour; the Depressions of our Foreign Exchanges and High Prices of Bullion during the late War; and Considerations of the Measures to be adopted for relieving our Farming Interest from the unprecedented Difficulties to which they are now reduced; with relative Tables and Remarks. By ROBERT WILSON Esq. Edinburgh, Constable & Co. London, Longman & Co. 1815.

T HE very unsatisfactory state in which the commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the country have been left by the series of wars which we have lately concluded, affords ab

undant matter for reflection, not only as to the policy of these wars, but as to the more immediate causes which have contributed to produce the present unprecedented stagnation in almost every branch of our industry. There can be no doubt, that all the evils of which we complain have their origin in war. They are the natural consequences of that system of vexation and violence which has too fatally prevailed in the world for the last thirty years, under which the resources of national prosperity have been squandered with a prodigality with which no process of peaceful industry could possibly keep pace; and which, now that it has been succeeded by a period of doubtful and gloomy tranquillity, has left Europe, in general, in a state of comparative poverty and distress. The rude shocks to which our commerce was exposed during the late wars, from the effects of which it has not yet recovered, account sufficiently for the embarrassments of the mercantile classes. But the sudden and unlooked-for depression of agriculture, the general depreciation of its produce, and the derangement in consequence of the established relations between the landlord and the tenant;-this is a subject, which, while it is of the highest practical importance, leads to questions of more difficult solution. A fall in the price of any commodity, implies either that its own value has fallen, or that the value of the money with which it is purchased has risen. An inquiry, therefore, into the causes of the present low prices of agricultural produce, necessarily leads to a consideration of the state of our currency, with all the recent fluctuations in the price of bullion, and the state of the exchange and to discuss all these complex matters with the requisite clearness, simplicity and precision, is a task, certainly, not unworthy of the most comprehensive talents.

This task has accordingly been undertaken by Mr Wilson, the author of the work before us, which, he states, is intended as an illustration of certain opinions submitted by him to the public in the year 1811, with a view of combating the fallacious notions then so generally prevailing, of a depreciation of our paper currency. Having, at that time, as he himself informs us,' attributed the high price of bullion to its true cause,' and recent experience having confirmed all his opinions, he now resumes the subject, for the purpose of assisting the agricultural classes in their present critical situation, and in justice also (he continues) to the endeavours which he made, on the occasion above alluded to, to open the eyes of his countrymen, and to dispel the prevalent delusion. Such views are undoubtedly laudable in the extreme; and we can only lament that, in the present case, the author's capacity to do good does not seem to keep pace with his inclination. The embarrassments of the

farmers arise from the very obvious circumstance of their rents being out of all proportion greater than they are able to pay; and all that we learn from Mr Wilson on the subject, appears to be, that their condition would be vastly improved if these heavy rents were reduced. Mr Wilson's work being also intended as an antidote to the pernicious doctrines of the Bullion Committee, we naturally expected to find the arguments contained in their memorable Report most elaborately controverted-we expected to find an array of opposite reasons-and some attempt, at least, to shake the principle upon which the Committee founded their hypothesis. But, so far from any such display of argument as we had a right to look for, considering the pretensions with which the work is introduced, we find Mr Wilson relying chiefly on his own confident assertions--we find his statements vague, inconclusive, and full of inconsistencies-and his arguments frequently conducted to a most triumphant conclusion, by the easy process of assuming what he ought to prove; and all this delivered in a tone of the most extraordinary dogmatism and assurance-such as would certainly be unbecoming even in one who had written with originality and precision on the subject.

Mr Wilson commences his work with an inquiry into the causes of that gradual rise admitted on all hands to have taken place in the price of corn during the last 50 years, and of the more remarkable fluctuations which it has lately experienced in this country. In any investigation of this sort, it seems necessary to establish as a preliminary point, whether these variations of price have arisen from a variation in the value of the corn, or from a variation in the value of the money with which corn has been purchased-as all the facts with which we are acquainted, may be accounted for by the one supposition as well as by the other. If the money with which corn has been purchased during the period in question, has fallen in its value, a greater quantity of it would of course be necessary to purchase the same quantity of corn, in the same manner as if corn had risen in its value, and the value of money had in the mean time remained the same. Though Mr Wilson, however, sets out with a statement of Dr Smith's views respecting the invariable value of corn, and though he himself considers it, on this account, as the only proper standard for measuring the value of the precious metals, he never seems, in the course of his subsequent speculations, to advert to this important principle; but proceeds to reason as if corn were equally liable to vary in its value with other commodities. Connecting the question apparently of a general rise in the price of corn, with the controversy to which the state of our paper currency has lately given