MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 341 



We remember Mathcws telling a story of a dog which a certain ser- 

 geant rebuked by a blow of his halberd. " Why didn't you hit the 

 poor thing with the other end?" asked a bystander, and a friend of 

 humanity. " Because he didn't run at me with his tail," responded 

 the military assailant. 



Miss Martineau, however,, does run at us with her tale, and we are 

 bound, therefore, to be more lenient towards her than we should be 

 disposed to be were she to assail us with her head. 



We have, upon a former occasion, adverted to the exquisite absur- 

 dity of illustrating political economy or taxation through the medium 

 of a tale, which must either involve some extreme case, inevitable 

 even under the best possible form of government, or refer to a state 

 of society altogether different from that in which we find ourselves. 



It may be a startling thing to assert, when we remember the pre- 

 tensions they are so much in the nauseous practice of making ; but 

 it is, nevertheless, true, that your political economists are altogether 

 without, and entirely discard, moral considerations. We mean no- 

 thing individually or personally offensive to that body (for soul it 

 would seem to have none ;) but what we mean, is this : that they 

 would be for ever changing the without, and leave to chance, or the 

 impulses of a man's own mind, the within. At the best, they would 

 put an additional window into a man's prison j but would they 

 draw him thence? No. 



The present number of Miss Martineau's Illustrations is wretched 

 rubbish childish, tedious, and absurd as a tale ; it does not even 

 possess the merit of illustrating the injustice or inexpediency of the 

 taxes on knowledge as they are, on the principle of lucus a non lu- 

 cendo, called. 



If, indeed, the removal of these taxes be to subject us to such stuff 

 as this, we heartily pray that the Chancellor of the Exchequer may 

 still find it inconvenient to disturb them. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT'S PROSE WORKS. VOL. 4. BIOGRAPHIES. 

 VOL. 2. EDINBURGH AND LONDON, 1834. 



THIS volume contains biographies of Mackenzie, Charlotte Smith, 

 Sir Ralph Sadler, John Dryden, Miss Seward, De Foe, George III., 

 Lord Byron, and the Duke of York. Rather a heterogeneous col- 

 lection, and for the most part only interesting quasi the writing-^ 

 from the fact of Sir Walter Scott being the author. 



We do not think that were the great author living, he would care 

 to see some of these biographies included in a collection of his prose 

 works ; but to the world at large every word he wrote has become a 

 matter of interest and importance ; and to say the truth, these volumes 

 are beautifully and cheaply got up, and may be said to be indispen- 

 sable to the collector and admirer of the genius and moral excellence 

 of the lamented author. These biographies, at least, display the ad- 

 mirable qualities and excellent sense of Scott, if they do not partake 

 of those higher qualities which the world has been so fortunate as to 

 detect in his more popular writings. 



M.M. No. 105. 2 Y 



