Number of Members. Prefent. Plan of 1785 *. Additions by By this plan the majority of the reprefentatives of the landed interest of the home divifion, would be increased from forty-four to eighty-fix, or very nearly doubled. But this majority would have received a further accession of ftrength, by a disproportionate addition of new members for great towns, if that part of the plan of 1785 had ever been carried into execution. For the majority of the members of the whole district would have received a further increase of fourteen votes, or have now become fifty-fix in the whole: for the latter would have brought an augmentation of power to the landed intereft of its proper diftrict; though perhaps not quite fo certain and effective, as an equal divifion of reprefentatives of counties.'. Number of Members by Prefent Plan of 1790. Additions by, Remote Diftri&t Home District latter. system. Majority of former By this plan the majority of the representatives of the landed interest of the remote diftrict, would be confiderably more than doubled. This decrease of power of the landed intereft of the home district in the Commons, is an unbalanced lofs, to be repaired by no probable circumftance.' Mr. B. does not affert, but he infinuates, that the counties in the remote diftrict, particularly the county of York, first set up the cry of reform, for the purpose of gaining by it an increafed majority of members to oppose to the reasonable demands of the home district that the land-tax fhould be equalized, and indifferently claffed, in every part of the kingdom. He concludes with the following very forcible appeal to those descriptions of men whofe fortunes are vefted in the public funds, or in trade: One very important queftion on this fubject ftill remains to be difcuffed and that is, how will the intereft of the public creditors, and the whole class of men whose income is derived from the profit of ftock, be affected by the landed interest of the remote counties acquiring an additional power in the House of Commons ? Expreffed in the nearest whole numbers." REV. APRIL, 1794. · By By the plans for this alteration here examined, the weight of the landed intereft in the Houfe will be greatly increased. If feventy-two members for counties were fubftituted instead of the fame number for boroughs; its weight will be very confiderably augmented, although twenty-eight members were admitted, for the more populous unreprefented towns. But there is no occafion to employ much confideration upon this, as the plan for the abfolute fuppreffion of boroughs feems abandoned. If they be left in their prefent ftate, and any number of members be added to the counties, the addition to the landed interest in the House will diminish the relative importance of that of the other two-the mercantile and the monied men. If the mode of election in boroughs be changed, by admitting more of their inhabitants to have votes, it will not tend to counterbalance the increase of weight the landed intereft will acquire as above: but if that change be made, by admitting the inhabitants of the circumjacent country, of any defcription, to votes in a borough, it will give fome further fuperiority to the landed interest. By the equalization of the land-tax, fuch an addition may be made to the applicable finking fund, that it will very foon, by its own operation, become what has been called, in this Effay, an adequate fund. It has been fhewn to be the property of that fund, that while it is applied to the extinction of capital, a debt ceases to increase periodically; or the additions made to it in every war are paid off in peace. By the operations of fuch a fund, it is evident, that the price of ftock will be fupported, both in peace and war, at a rate much higher than at prefent can permanently take place. Hence the value of the funded income of that great body of the public creditors, the proprietors of the 3 per cent. ftocks, and the irredeemable annuities, will be very greatly increased; while the interest of capitals in trade will be reduced; and that great clafs of men will be benefited by fome moderate increase of profit, and by a new facility of obtaining capital, whenever an opportunity of employing a greater to advantage, prefents itself. Thefe are the confequences of a revenue acquired by an equalization of the tax, fo applied: it is the only apparent anchor of the national hope juftice demands it from the landed proprietors of the remote diftrict: they themselves will be great sharers of the benefit which the public may thus receive from it; and fo far the expence of their facritice will be leffened: but I think an enlightened attachment to the good of their country ought to make them preferve it for this purpofe, to give it up on no other condition. But if, before the equalization be obtained, the commercial intereft and the public creditors concur in any plan for the alteration of the reprefentation, which adds to the majority of the members of the remote district in the House of Commons, they render it apparently impoffible, and deftroy the foundation of their best hopes. No bodies of men exift, whofe intereft at this juncture should lead them more strongly to oppose the alteration of the conftitution of the Commons, than the inhabitants of our commercial cities and towns, both in the home and remote diftris, together with the great majority of of our public creditors: and perhaps it would be difficult to fix upon a measure which it was more their intereft to unite all their strength against.' Our readers will by this time have perceived that Mr. B. is. not only an excellent calculator, and a powerful reafoner, that he is extremely well verfed in the whole fyftem of finance, and is an able writer, but alfo that he is the most formidable opponent that has yet appeared to the measure of parliamentary reform. He does not combat it on its own intrinfic merits or demerits but he preffes into his fervice the hopes and fears of two great bodies of the nation. He tells the reformers of the North and the South that an unequal land-tax is a grievance; and that, if they perfevere in this purfuit of reform, the home diftrict must apply for an equalization of that tax. To the home diftrict he fays, whatever hope you may entertain of this equalization, it will be blafted if you confent to a reform; because you will by fo doing ftrengthen the hands of the remote counties, whofe intereft it is to refift an equal and fair affeffment. We will go fo far as to fay that we never read a work of this nature which we admired more than the present, and which we think may be quoted as far as it agrees with that of Adam Smith, without any difparagement to the latter author. We, however, ftill adhere to the opinion which we expressed at the outfet, that the performance is as artful as it is able; for we think that Mr. B., in framing it, had it not so much in view to procure an equalization of the land-tax, as to ftir up an oppofition to reform, by bringing to bear against each other the hopes and, the fears of the home and remote districts; for he ftates the majority of the latter to amount, at this mo ment, to 44 members in the House of Commons; a majority fully adequate to the rejection of any propofition for equalizing the land-tax; and he tells the home diftrict that it ought to exert every faculty against a reform, because the adoption of fuch a measure must render ftill more impracticable any plan for relieving the home counties from their present very great inequality of the weight of the public burthen. We cannot but express our furprize that Mr. B. fhould fuffer his work to come from the prefs with fuch an uncom. monly large lift of errors; many of which are of the utmost importance to the fenfe, but which, in all probability, few readers will take the trouble of marking as they occur. This task, however, we have found it neceflary to perform; and we have alfo difcovered fome few mistakes which efcaped Mr. B.'s own attention when he framed the aftonishing lift. ART. XIV. Imitations of the Epigrams of Martial. 4to. Two Parts.. 2s. 6d. each. Faulder. 1793. A TRANSLATION of the. Epigrams of the witty poet Martial, connecting his fpirit with his brevity, has been long a defideratum, and may indeed be ftyled the opprobrium poetarum. We muft, however, confefs the difficulty of the task, on account of the conciseness of the Roman language, which no modern tongue poffeffes; and we must therefore reconcile ourselves to the impoffibility of fuccefs. The imitations now before us have faults, but they have also confiderable merit; and the frequent applications to characters of the present day will probably, with a confiderable number of readers, be a paffport in their favour.-From the following fpecimens, a judgment may be formed of the imitator's talents for this kind of writing: MARPLOT had long expos'd his wife in vain, Compell'd by death his millions to difgorge, John Bull, why fret ye fo, and rack ye, In Greek and Latin, what's the comfort? Sure and good grounds for parents' curfes, Is thrumming cat-gut now, or fqualling: * Nullus in urbe fuit totâ, qui tangere vellet Your Your lads of brilliant parts and fingers • Safe landed in London, young gentleman, fay, What means you fhall practice for pushing your way? "I'll take to the robe; with my Latin and lungs, Soon Garrow and Erskine fhall bridle their tongues." Better take to the road.-There's both Lackwit and Lean In a term scarce got fix-pence to keep their bands clean. "I've a talent for verfe, and I'll give it free fcope: You'll no longer be partial to Pindar and Pope❞— Do you envy thofe fhadows, in fhabby great-coats? Our Pope's and our Pindar's are all Sans-Culottes. "I'll worship at court."-A mere lottery at best: Bute fucceeded, indeed ;-but he starv'd all the rest. "Advife then, dear friend, for I'll live here, I vow." If you're good, you may live, but God only knows how. + The following lines poffefs the spirit as well as the terfeness of the original: How gen'rous John, at night, when drunk! how foon • Van Butchell's dead wife is ftill kept in his houfe, Jn a future edition, our English Martial will doubtless take that opportunity of correcting fome bad rhymes, as well as a Cui tradas, Lupe, filium magiftro, Cum libris Ciceronis, aut Maronis, &c. &c. Hh 3 few |