children; and since all of these, even, do not reach a marriageable age, an absolute diminution of our numbers would take place, if it were not that some couples are to be found, who, relying on Providence, and on their own industrious efforts, bring into the world a larger number than the generality.

"It is this excessive forethought (continues M. Block) which retards our numerical progress.

Again. "If France does not possess more numerous colonies, it is because children do not swarm with us, as they do in England (ne pullulent pas), and that, consequently, we possess not the amount of over population requisite to set up fresh communities !" &c. &c.

Few persons can, I think, fail to perceive, in the almost ludicrous lamentations of M. Block, the source of the difference between the condition of the French people, taken as a whole, and that of the English people. Those to whose imaginations the ideas of boundless wealth carry unmixed delight and pride, will deem the English form of existence the preferable one. But persons of a really philanthropic turn of mind will probably regard the prudent, independent habits of the French peasant with approving sympathy. Nay, they may even come to regard the advantage of setting up distant colonies as dearly purchased, by the painful sacrifices involved in a system of inconsiderate, improvident multiplication of families, necessitating, as a last resource against want, an expatriation from country, coupled with, possibly, a life-long separation from home and friends.

NOTICE

OF THE

LIFE OF THOMAS MOORE.

Being the substance of an Article in No. CII. of the "EDINBURGH REVIEW."

G

PREFACE.

THE author of the following pages has deemed it but fair to herself to reproduce, for private circulation, the "article" such as she intended to offer it to the readers of the Edinburgh Review.

The author thought (and still thinks) that the character of the late Thomas Moore had received somewhat hard measure at the hands of contemporary critics. Whether, in the review here taken, she has or has not succeeded in presenting a fair account of Moore's merits and failings, it must be for the reader to judge. But one thing is certain, viz., that such as he was, the best and highest in the land coveted the possession of his society and friendship with eagerness; so that, if Moore really was what some have striven to make it appear that he was, then the gentlemen and ladies of England must lie open to the reproach of a signal want of taste and discern

ment.

There is no escaping from this conclusion, except by admitting the substantial claims of their Idol to the admiration and affection of which he was the object. And it may be observed, in behalf of this