102 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



recommend the present publication as a useful sequel to Mr. Bulwer's, and 

 the first attempt that has been made to supply that information which he 

 had only the more caused to be felt as a desideratum. 



THB MALTHUSIAN BOON UNMASKED, WITH REMARKS ON THE POOR 

 LAW AMENDMENT BILL, &c. BY A FRIEND TO THE POOR. p. 16. 

 WHITTAKER: LONDON. 



ANOTHER cracker let fly at the head of Malthus and his disciples. Verily 

 we begin to wonder that so much fuss is made about the chimeras of an 

 old croaker, and the twaddling of an old maid. The only piece of infor- 

 mation we gain from the notoriety of their writings is this that political 

 economy must be at a wonderfully low ebb when such wretched and de- 

 moralizing trash is allowed to be wisdom. 



There are one or two remarks as to the displacement of natural power, 

 which we copy. " The real cause of the heavy amount of our poor rates 

 when traced to the fountain head, will be found of comparatively recent 

 origin. Not half a century ago, the able-bodied labourer neither needed 

 nor received parochial assistance , nor would they now want it, but for the 

 substitution of artificial powers in place of natural ones for almost every 

 purpose. But for this, every man would receive a just requital for his ser- 

 vices all would be provided, not merely with necessaries, but also with 

 reasonable comforts. A result so beneficial will, I am aware, by the fancy 

 tribes of the Malthusian school, be deemed impossible. We have already, 

 say they, an over-population more hands to work than work to give them 

 the natural result of the geometrical progression of increase of the 

 human species discovered by our renowned oracle. They reconcile them- 

 selves to this notion of surplus population by saying, there is a multitude 

 constantly out of employ ; and, moreover, all that are employed are em- 

 ployed unprofitably to themselves, if not to their employers, and therefore 

 the country is overpeopled." 



" Upon an appeal to facts have we no better reason to assign than this ? 

 According to the best authenticated estimates the population of Great 

 Britain has doubled within the last eighty years our command of power 

 must consequently have doubled too. Strange if this were all, that it 

 should have produced the present destitution of the labouring classes. 

 But if we have found an increase of natural power of only two, how stands 

 the case with respect to power produced by artificial or mechanical aids ? 

 Why that this has increased eighty-fold, so that at the present there is 

 power equal to the labour of six hundred millions of human beings." 

 According to this writer, therefore, the evils pressing upon our population 

 arises from the substitution of mechanical power for human labour. This 

 is the inference to be elicited from his little work, though he has failed to 

 draw the necessary deductions. 



FINE ARTS. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OP MODERN SCULPTURE. A SERIES OF ENGRAVINGS, 

 WITH DESCRIPTIVE PROSE AND ILLUSTRATIVE POETRY, BY T. K. 

 HERVEY. 



THIS splendid publication has one merit which is very uncommon, espe- 

 cially among works relating to the Fine Arts, that of being much more cal- 

 culated to exceed than disappoint the expectations thaUts title and exterior 

 form may raise. There is no attempt to engage a large class of the public 

 by promising something to meet the taste of every one ; but the editor 

 addresses himself simply and directly to those who have similar tastes and 



