those upon conveyances, upon probates, and a part only of the legacy duty; the whole of these amount to 5 millions, including the stamps on law proceedings, which are money duties; of this sum, certainly not 4 millions were ad valorem. Of the land and assessed taxes, only the House tax falls properly within this description, and it yielded less than 1 million. At the very utmost, then, of the enormous sum levied upon the country, only between seven and eight millions were placed beyond the reach of the change effected in the currency, leaving above 46 millions within the full scope of its operation; so that each million became in reality twelve or thirteen hundred thousand pounds. Those who only allowed the change to be four or five per cent., would have estimated this alteration as equal to a rise of at least two millions; but the general opinion (which the event has confirmed) put it much higher; and there can be no doubt that the people have been paying nearer ten millions more than they did upon the same old taxes, while the currency was depreciated. Such was the precise moment chosen for the imposition of three millions of new taxes, by those financial scourges, the patrons of extravagance and sinking funds, and their supporters, the representatives of the people. The cruel operation at that very time going on so rapidly, of increasing the old duties, could not satisfy these remorseless calculators; and they must invent new burthens while events were going forward, the effects of which they could only so far foresee, as to be sure that they must render the old ones unbearable.

Nor let it be deemed the smallest impeachment of these remarks, that the total revenue raised by means of the taxes, old and new, did not increase, as was expected by the authors of the additional duties. Comparing the revenue of the United Kingdom for the years 1818 and 1820, there is a falling off to a trifling amount in the net produce; and in the revenue of Great Britain, there is an increase of less than 900,000l., although the new duties should have raised it above three millions. But when a country is taxed so heavily, and the pressure is so general over almost all articles, the increase of the revenue in one branch, is very apt to be attended with a falling off in others; and so it seems to have happened since the war taxes were taken off in 1816. Thus the Excise fell off above three millions in 1817; but the Customs, Assessed Taxes and Stamps, increased nearly two millions. In 1818, the Excise rose above three millions, and the progress of the other branches was stopt; the Customs indeed fell off. When the new duties raised the Excise, the other branches fell off. But if there is any connexion between the augmentation of one branch

and the decline of another-if a tax on one article, which men either cannot or will not dispense with, diminishes the consumption of others which they can or chuse to go without, the worst possible consequence is produced; the comforts of the consumer are assailed; the trade of the grower, manufacturer and trader, is injured, a certain loss arises from the expenses of the change, and no gain accrues to the revenue of the State. The new taxes may therefore have been injurious to the whole community in a much higher proportion than they benefited the revenue. It is also very certain, that if the market of the commodities on which they fell was a declining market, their pressure would be very unequally distributed; a considerable portion of them falling upon the grower or manufacturer, and resting there. This must have happened to a great extent in the malt-tax, the history of which affords a very instructive lesson to the financier.

At the beginning of the war, the duty upon malt was 10s. 6d. a quarter; and the consumption about 34 millions of quarters; for the average of five years, ending 1799, was 3,560,000 quarters. After the duty had been raised to 34s. 8d., the average of five years' consumption was three millions: 16s. were taken off in 1816, and 9s. 4d. added again in 1819; making the present duty 28s.; in the currency, too, of 1792, and therefore fully more than the war malt-tax was when the currency was depreciated. Now the population, between 1801 and 1821, has increased from 10,471,000 to 14,069,000; consequently, since the beginning of the war, it cannot have increased less than four millions, or in the proportion of five to seven. In something like the same proportion, ought the consumption of malt to have increased, which would have made it now very near five millions of quarters; instead of which, it is less than three millions, or has actually fallen off above a seventh, instead of increasing two-fifths. It should be borne in mind, that the malt tax is not the only one which barley pays. The beer duty and the spirit duty fall upon it in other stages of manufacture; and in Great Britain, no less than 12,755,000l. are now levied by these three imposts. If the part which belongs to spirits be deducted, and we only take that which belongs to malt and beer, above eight millions are thus raised.

Before quitting this subject, we must state, somewhat more particularly, the actual pressure of the taxes; because, though nothing can be more certain than the augmentation of this pressure, occasioned by the change in the value of the currency, men's minds, deceived by the sound of the figures, are apt to overlook it; and cannot, without some effort, bring themselves

to perceive it fully. We shall first exhibit, in the convenient form of a Table, the variations in the value of the currency, and the nominal and real amount of the Revenue at the different periods. It is constructed from the accounts contained in the Report of the Committee of 1819, and from the foregoing Tables.

TABLE VI.-CURRENCY in which TAXES were Paid, in Twelve Years ending 1821.

We may now remark, that although this Table gives the comparative amount of the taxes in the currency in which they were actually paid each year, and at par, it is, for obvious reasons, necessary to take an average of years, where there were such fluctuations in the depreciation of the currency within the space of a few months. Let us then take the two most expensive periods of the war; the three years 1810, 1811 and 1812, and the three years 1813, 1814 and 1815. The average depreciation in the former period was 213, and in the latter 28. The average nominal amount of taxes in the two periods was, in round numbers, 74 millions and 844 millions respectively; but their real amount, at par, was only 58 and 60 respectively. Therefore the country has been paying, during the last year, a larger amount of taxes, by half a million, than it did during the most wasteful and oppressive period of the late war; and a larger amount, by nearly three millions, than it did dur

ing the period next to that in point of expenditure. Nothing can more truly illustrate the effects of the return to cash payments than this statement. The measure may have been wise; it may have been inevitable; but it has had the effect of augmenting the pressure of the public burthens to a larger amount than the removal of the war taxes relieved the country in 1816. When we speak of the return to cash payments, we of course do not allude merely to the measures of 1819, but the whole operation begun in 1815, of reducing discounts, and thus lowering the market to the mint price of gold.

Now, the great practical question is, Whether the country ought to be burthened, in the sixth year of peace, with a load of taxes somewhat greater than was levied during the most expensive years of a war wholly unexampled in profusion? That our establishments should be reduced to a far lower scale, no man, be his political opinions what they may, now ventures seriously to deny. That the higher salaries of publick functionaries must be diminished, and that many of their places must be dispensed with, is admitted on all hands.

More difference of opinion may exist with respect to the military establishment; but the impossibility of carrying on the government, without relieving the people by substantial retrenchments, will in all probability decide this question. The Sinking Fund is clung to with greater pertinacity, because it is supposed necessary to maintain the publick credit. Yet, in its origin, less, by nearly a million and a half, was appropriated to the redemption of the debt, than is now allotted for that purpose, making allowance for the different amounts of the debt at the two periods. No man denies that, if the resources of the country can bear it, a certain portion of the debt should yearly be paid off: But no man of ordinary sagacity now contends that the amassing money at compound interest, with this view, is either an economical or a rational project. If, instead of raising the interest of the redeemed debt, by continuing the taxes allotted to its charges, the money were left in the pockets of the people, an accumulation far more rapid would take place than any thing the powers of the boasted Fund can pretend to effect. But it is more than doubtful whether, in the present state of the country, any attempts should be made to pay off the debt; it seems a sounder, as well as a more merciful policy, to give the nation at length some breathing time-spatium requiemque dolori;-and, when a remission of the most oppressive taxes shall have rendered the others more productive, and recruited the financial resources of the State, by augmenting the wealth. of individuals, then will the time be for obtaining a clear sur

plus of revenue, which may be applied to the discharge of the debt, and, with each sum of the principal paid off, set free so much interest, and still further reduce so many taxes. This is the only kind of sinking fund which is founded upon intelligible principles, and calculated to secure its object upon economical terms.

ART. V. Sardanapalus, a Tragedy. The Two Foscari, a Tragedy. Cain, a Mystery. By LORD BYRON. 8vo. pp. 440. Murray, London, 1822.

IT must be a more difficult thing to write a good play-or even a good dramatic poem-than we had imagined. Not that we should, a priori, have imagined it to be very easy; but it is impossible not to be struck with the fact, that, in comparatively rude times, when the resources of the art had been less carefully considered, and Poetry certainly had not collected all her materials, success seems to have been more frequently, and far more easily obtained. From the middle of Elizabeth's reign till the end of James's, the drama formed by far the most brilliant and beautiful part of our poetry,-and indeed of our literature in general. From that period to the Revolution, it lost a part of its splendour and originality; but still continued to oc

Before the commencement of the present Session of Parliament, a ministerial pamphlet was published, called the State of the Nation,' and distinguished by a disregard of facts, which could hardly have been expected from the most inveterate habits of official assertion. The exposure which has frequently been made of its misstatements renders any detailed examination of them here quite superfluous. Indeed the reader can hardly, for a moment, be deceived by so clumsy a piece of fabrication. What, for instance, can be thought of a writer who gravely takes credit, on the part of the ministers, for all the retrenchments which have been forced upon them by their adversaries, and, in many instances, by votes of the House of Commons, parading these as if they had been voluntarily made upon a system of reduction and economy? Nor is it much less insulting to the common understanding of the publick, to praise the Government for those improvements in the commercial regulations of the country, which have been for years pressed upon them by their opponents, and as obstinately resisted by them, until, at last, it became impossible to avoid doing something, when as little has been done as was possible. In a literary point of view, the merits of the Tract are altogether upon a level with its fairness and candour.