his thirdly is, in fact, reversed; and his fourthly is a truism of opposite and more forcible application to the use for which he has applied it. We can only account for these incongruities in the reasoning of our dear friend J. by supposing that his knowledge of trade and commerce is of a very verdant character.

R. S. speaks of limited liability benefiting one class at the expense of another; but he has failed to show us the truth of this assertion, because he has fled away from the domain of fact in his endeavour to illustrate. If a company limited commence an extremely hazardous trade, the creditor who gives them credit is an equally hazardous trader, and he is not justified in expecting certain returns. We affirm, with all due respect to our friend R. S., that such a private trader is a blockhead, and unworthy of the least pity or respect.

The rule mentioned by R. S. in his secondly, respecting the standard by which profits and losses are adjusted, is a curious specimen of trading dogma. If a man or a company realize profits, it is either added to capital or withdrawn; if they suffer losses, it is deducted from their capital, as long as there is any capital remaining. There is perfect justice in this, and we do not see how it is possible to do otherwise. R. S. would not, certainly, have the profits divided among the creditors instead of the shareholders ?

We contend that a premium is not placed on rash speculation by the principle of limited liability, because the legislature has wisely ordered that every facility shall be afforded to the trading creditor to know what risk he is likely to run in any dealings he may have with a limited company. And no principle is to be blamed for want of care, caution, and business tact in either companies or private trades.

Truefit," most certainly, has not fitted himself to the subject he has chosen to advocate, nor has he fitted the subject to himself; for he appears altogether at sea in his mazy wanderings after the thread of the argument, which as constantly eludes the Q. E. D. which so conspicuously adorn "his waspish style, and leave it stingless," in very deed and truth to the arguments of his opponents. It would fatigue the reader to pursue, in detail, "Truefit" in all his vagaries, because it would be a monotonous repetition, refutation of the same things replied to in our remarks contra J. and R. S. The reader will find the best argument in favour of limited liability by reading again the article of "Truefit," and thereby will he be convinced that Truefit ought truly to be spelt Misfit, so far as regards our present debate on the beneficial effects of limited liability in public companies.

It must not be supposed that we ignore the immense amount of rash speculation which every few years crops out, whether under the influence of the "last shilling and the last acre" liability, or the twenty shilling share limited liability scheme. This earth has always had a certain number of its denizens very properly called schemers, who every few years are prompted to extraordinary activity; these are admirably paired with a class called with equal

propriety dupes, and the two classes are alternately amused and annoyed by their active employment in the interesting game of flats and sharps,-one baits and the other is baited, the process equally pleasing up to a certain point, when it is found that one class is bitten and the other has bitten; it is a mere matter of grammar-a conjugation of the verb of substance-which, imperfectly committed to memory in early life, is constantly recurring at every stage, even to the sere and yellow leaf of old age.

Dear reader, we retire from the conflict; how we have comported ourselves in the arena, it is for you to decide. We trust, however, that your approval will be given with acclamation in favour of limited liability in public companies, and its beneficial effects on the community at large.

DELTA.

THE HISTORIAN.-No historian can be really great, who is not at once a poet and a moralist. It is because Lord Macaulay was not gifted with the higher faculty of either, that, notwithstanding his dramatic temper and admirable tact, he will fail to retain a first place in the ranks of English historians. Mr. Carlyle, uncouth as his handiwork appears when compared with that felicitous art, and that finished rhetoric, is an infinitely truer student of life, an infinitely more reliable observer of the past. The historian of the Commonwealth is to the historian of the Revolution as the "Iliad" of Homer to the "Iliad" of Pope. Lord Macaulay, though he wrote poems, was not a poet; Mr. Carlyle, though he has written none, is. The one paints with inimitable grace the face; the other, though in a somewhat rough way, dissects the heart. The one is superficially accurate and picturesque, the other is true to the core. The one stops outside, and, microscope in hand, examines with immense attention the coat; the other pierces into the life, noting the coat also as it passes, and finding something even there which had somehow eluded the eye of the other. For, in contrast with the accuracy of the imagination, the literalness of an unpoetic intellect, even within its own field, is always comparatively sterile and unexact. The poet and the moralist. The poet to explain the hearts of men and women; the moralist to explore their actions by the laws which God has established in His universe. And it cannot be doubted, I think, that the higher and purer the imagination is, the higher and purer is the truth which it reaches.—SHIBLEY,

The Essayist.

ARTIFICIALITY.

66

THERE is no unmixed good in this life. He who will climb the hill of honour must pay the cost in increased watchfulness and circumspection at every upward step, lest he lose his footing on the dazzling and slippery height, and be hurled headlong to its base: he who will be rich must rise early and work late, must take little rest, eat the bread of carefulness, and drink the waters of anxiety: he who would be famous must be content to battle with malice and envy; to see the finger of scorn pointed at him, or to hear some, while counting the leaves in his wreath, exclaim, Enough, or one too many." So is it with all pursuits. There is a spirit of compensation pervading terrestrial things. You may gather pearls, but you run the risk of being drowned in the attempt. Civilization has gradually spread over the earth till it is now nearly universal. In its onward career it has conferred numberless blessings, mental and physical, individual and social, upon the human race. But it has, at the same time, brought its evils, we will not say to make the balance true, because this would imply that the evil completely neutralized the good, and that therefore we can make no progress, a doctrine in which we do not believe; but as a set-off we may notice the lives shortened of their natural length in toiling for our conveniences and luxuries; sacrificed either in building for our pleasure, or in traversing the deep for our profit. We of the present day reap the results of past civilization. Do we, in our refined manners, our extended commerce, and our dazzling inventions, pay any com. pensation for this state of things? We think we do; and the penalty, charged in full, consists in the artificiality of our life and manners compared with bygone times, an artificiality which increases with our civilization. Artificiality is, we believe, a necessity; the natural result of civilization. In the savage state everything is open, natural, and undisguised. There is no circumlocution, or periphrasis, in telling one another their opinions of each other's conduct. When war is declared, it is war-literally, "war to the knife" when the calumet is smashed; but peace, while it lasts, is sacred. As civilization advances, this tendency to outspokenness is rounded off and smoothed down. By the attrition of time it is so changed in form and manner that the same idea has to be, if we wish to see it in its true colours, brought forth from the heavy folded drapery in which it has been enveloped to the light of day, and carefully examined: in general, we pass it by as a thing of trivial or no import. Observe, in the early history of the Saxon and other rude nations, the plainness and outspokenness of the people. "You lie in your throat,"

was a common mode of expression when dissenting from the opinions of the speaker. This, too, was used by prince, peer, and knight, as well as by villein. In these times everything moral or immoral went under its real name, and was displayed in its proper colours, without any attempt to soften its light or relieve its glare by artfully constructed and delicately woven tissues of sophistry or periphrasis. In the days of Chaucer, Shakspere, Jonson, this is plainly apparent, so that parts of their writings-we refer now to the two latter in particular-appear to polite and refined ears, in this nineteenth century, as revolting or unnecessarily vicious. This arises from the fact that the terms employed convey the meaning in such a way as to leave no doubt of its being understood; nay, more, they are such as bring up the veritable thing in its own proper form before us, and compel us to take note of it. We forget that the novelist, moralist, and dramatist of the present day often says the same or similar things, but he takes care to cover his disagreeable truth, or subtle insinuation, with a garment of the choicest material and most attractive colours. Thus, in place of the outspokenness of our ancestors, we have the delicate inuendo, and the covert sneer of the present day, so that the real truth is concealed in a cloud of words, and may be completely lost sight of by the heedless or general reader. It is a noteworthy fact that this artificiality did not make its way into England until it had been practised for some time upon the Continent; it being, in fact, introduced thence. As soon as the English adopted the more refined, courteous, and polite habits and manners of their Gallic and continental neighbours generally, this system of artificiality crept in with it, and has continued to grow with our growth from that time to the present. It has now, so say our novelists, attained such dimensions, that it has become a canker eating into the core of our existence, and rendering life unreal. Instead of the old doctrine, What is, is; and what is, is right, —we are told that what is, is not; there is nothing real about us, it is all sham; and therefore, what is, is wrong, radically wrong; and what is not, alone is right. This is the theme of our moralists of the present day,-Carlyle, Dickens, Kingsley, Tennyson, and Thackeray. We do not, therefore, wonder at the themes they choose, or that many should admire, reverence, and follow them.

It is a very remarkable circumstance in the history of man, that any one, be he prophet or charlatan, who shall arise and proclaim that the world is turned upside down, and declare that nine-tenths of his countrymen are rogues, vagabonds, and hypocrites, will be sure to obtain a large audience. He will soon make converts, and have a crowd of disciples who will swear by him as their authority in all things. We do not, generally speaking, like being abused; but it is nevertheless a notorious fact, that all who declaim against national vice and hypocrisy are sure of obtaining an audience and applause. Two or three circumstances contribute to this remarkable state of things. The generality of mankind now inherit the characteristic of the Athenians of old; they desire to hear some new

thing. The love of novelty and change is so strong upon them, that no sooner does any one appear with any new doctrine, or any modification of old doctrine, than the multitude run after him, are entranced with his teaching, and immediately make him their idol, till some other prophet, with fresher and more startling wonders, appears upon the stage, to be heard and exalted in the room of the former favourite, where he will remain till displaced by a more startling novelty still. Another cause is found, we presume, in the fact that the hearers of these teachers do not for a moment suppose that they, respectable men and women, can be included in the category of those who are stigmatized as shams-we had nearly written another word; and also because their teacher, whether he propounds his doctrine orally or in writing, does not forget to expose the follies and vices of the upper classes, and because he does not say to them individually, You, Mr. Brown, imagine yourself to be a very respectable and worthy gentleman, with silk umbrella, seats at church, &c., &c.: well, sir, you are nothing of the sort; indeed, sir, you are not; you are a sham; you do as you do to be like others, and to have praise of men whom you profess to reverence and respect, but whom, in your heart, you despise or you Mrs. Robinson, who profess to be in ecstasies of delight when Mrs. Jones drops in unexpectedly upon you, you are an old hypocrite; you know you are; and, despite the charming smile and gentle pressure of the hand, really wish the aforesaid Mrs. Jones at Utah, or some other equally pleasant and distant region. Moreover, you know that the next time you take tea with Mrs. Simpson, the actions, dress, &c., of Mrs. Jones will be subjected to a keen and searching criticism; she will be weighed in the balances by you and be found wanting. Such teachers, then, will always be well received. They will, however, have two separate and distinct classes of hearers, -the giddy million, who rejoice in them for abusing things in general, and who are ready to adore them without in the least understanding their true doctrine, or entertaining the slightest conception of the real tendency of their philosophy, yet who, if they did, would be the first to turn again, and rend them. The other class consists of the thoughtful few, who discover their hidden and double meaning, and contemplate what will be the end of these things.

Of the celebrated authors whom we have named, and who are undoubtedly at the present time the great favourites of the reading public, all have joined to preach a crusade against the artificiality, the intense unreality, of the every-day life of society, generally and individually, as exemplified in the present day. Whether in history, essay, novel, or poem, they contrive to enter their protest against this age of make-believe and hypocrisy. That such writers should count their readers by millions is not to be wondered at, for the reasons above given, nor is it any matter of surprise that the thoughtful should pay them deference; for, setting aside the fact that they come to us with a new doctrine, they are, in their own proper persons, entitled to our deference and respect. They