"In France the number of accused'were in the proportion of 1 in 4,195 of the population; of the accused tried, 1 in 4,557. În England, the proportion would be greatly superior. But it is difficult to draw any parallel in this respect. The offences tried before the correctional tribunals in France, are of a graver character than those which are punished in this country out of the Courts of Assize and Quarter Session. For instance, in France, under the head of crimes punished by the correctional tribunals, there appear under the title Vols. 10,796, of whom 4,364 were condemned to imprisonment for a year or more. "Distinguishing crimes against the person, and those against property, the number under the former head are in France, of accused, 1,907; under the latter, 6,988; leaving out Corsica, the former number would be 1,821, the latter 6,939. In England, including the same class of crimes, the numbers are, Against the person Against property But adding to the 6,939, 10,796, the numbers would be for France, against the Person England Property 531. 15,616 1,821 17,735 531 15,616 "Being in France, in the proportion of more than 1 to10, while in England it is little more than 1 to 30. Without pretending to any great exactness on this subject, it may be inferred that the whole quantity of crime is greater in proportion to the population in England than in France; but that of offences against the person there are more, both in proportion to the whole number of offences, and to the population, in France than in England. The general conclusion from this and other facts seems to be, that crowded towns and flourishing manufactures tend to increase depredations on property, and to diminish acts of violence against the person. "Passing to the tribunals of correctional police, under the head of Chasse et Port d'Armes, there appear 6,578 prévenus, of whom 5,047 were condemned, but 5,020 only to a fine. Under that of délits ruraux, the number prévenus are 5,109; of 3,659 are condemned 2,929 to fine. It appears that the number of these judgments given in 126 exceeds those of 1825 by 8,260, and that of these 6,049 were délits forestiers. No reason is given for this augmentation. We must reserve any general considerations arising out of this mass of important facts, for a future occasion. THE ENGLISH ALMANACS. THE history of almanacs in this country forms one of the most curious chapters in the records of literature. For a century and a half, the two Universities and the Stationers' Company held the monopoly of them, by letters patent of James I. During this period, according to the condition of the patent, almanacs received the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London; and yet it would be difficult to find, in so small a compass, an equal quantity of ignorance, profligacy, and imposture, as was condensed into these publications. By the persevering exertions of one individual the monopoly was overthrown, about 1779;-and the parties claiming the patent-right, then applied to parliament for an act to confirm it. That bill was introduced by the minister of the day; but Erskine, then first coming into repute, appeared at the bar to oppose it,-and the monopoly was destroyed for ever, by a solemn vote of the House of Commons. From that time the Stationers' Company proceeded upon a different course. They secured their monopoly, by buying up all rival almanacs; and they rendered the attempts of individuals to oppose them perfectly hopeless, by those arts of trade, which a powerful corporation knew how to exercise. For the last fifty years, they have rioted, as of old, in every abomination that could delude the vulgar to the purchase of their commodity. On a sudden, a new almanac started up, under the superintendence and authority of a society distinguished for its great and successful labours to improve the intellectual condition of the people. For the first time in the memory of man, an almanac at once rational and popular was produced. From that hour the empire of astrology was at an end. The public press, infinitely to their honour, took up the cause. The blasphemy of Francis Moore, and the obscenity of Poor Robin, were denounced and ridiculed through all quarters of the kingdom. In one little year the obscene book was discontinued the blasphemous book retreated into pure stupidity-and the publishers of the blasphemy and the obscenity applied themselves, in imitation of the first powerful rival they had ever encountered, to make a rational and useful almanac. By the year 1832, (even we prophecy) the whole delusion will have vanished before the day-spring of knowledge-and the people will then wonder, that for so many years they endured the insults habitually offered to their morals and their understandings. This is an abstract of this singular chapter in literary history; but its details are too curious and amusing not to be preserved, while there is any interest attached to their recollection. The stormy period from the rupture of Charles I. with his parliament to the Revolution, was the golden age of astrology in England. James I., "the wisest fool in Christendom," did little more for "the art" than to grant the monopoly of promulgating its absurdities in almanacs to the Universities and the Stationers' Company. As a matter of state craft, this was a politic measure. Almanacs have always had a considerable influence upon the opinions of the common people; and it was, therefore, prudent to secure the compliance of a DECEMBER, 1828. 2 Q powerful body of men with the wishes of the ruling authority. The French government, half a century earlier, had forbidden the almanacmakers to prophecy at all; but it was a more subtle device to render the liberty of prophesying profitable to those who would take especial care that their "old men should dream dreams" after that holy and legitimate fashion which should give "the right divine of kings" the last and best varnish of superstition, wherewith it might shine and look lovely in the eyes of the ignorant multitude. The Universities, to their honour be it spoken, grew ashamed of their participation in this pious work; but they were not ashamed of the lucre which their share of the monopoly produced. They sold their right to the Stationers' Company; and that company earned their title to this and other privileges so fully, that in the next century they had the honour of being called "the literary constables to the Star-Chamber, to suppress all the science and information, to which we owe our freedom." But Charles I. did even more than his sapient father. He not only encouraged astrology, but he affected to believe in it. He raised up Lilly and Gadbury from the low condition in which they were born, to publish the "Royal Horoscope," and to threaten disobedient subjects with malignant aspects of the stars. But Charles could not secure even the loyalty of the astrologers. The Stationers' Company always had especial reasons for being on the side of the ruling power. They could always see clearly, "by the help of excellent glasses," who would be lord of the ascendant. They prophesied for Cromwell, as they had prophesied for Charles; they sang Te Deum for the Restoration, as they had done for the Protectorate; and although they dated their little books from the year "of our deliverance by King William from popery and arbitrary government," they had not forgotten to invoke the blessings of the planets upon the last of the Stuarts; and to prognosticate all the evils of comets and eclipses upon those who resisted his paternal sway. Lilly was unquestionably the prince of the magicians of the air in those glorious days of horoscopes and witch-burnings. He was originally a domestic servant; but he was not satisfied to tell fortunes to the wenches of the kitchen, or to predict the recovery of a stolen spoon. In 1633, he boldly published the horoscope of Charles I., at the period when that unfortunate prince was crowned king of Scotland. Charles had either too much weakness, or too much cunning, to put the impostor in the pillory, as one might have expected from the friend of Strafford and the patron of Rubens. The astrologer was for years in the habit of giving counsel to the monarch. Whether he predicted evil or good in their private moments, we are not informed; but the presumption is that astrologers could flatter as well as lords of the bedchamber. It is doubtful whether Charles found as much truth in the predictions of Lilly, as when he consulted the Sortes Virgilianæ, with Falkland, at Oxford. The old impostor, however, was not content to be a cabinet-counsellor of the king. In 1644, he began to prophecy for the ear of the whole world; and he went onward through good report and evil report, till he acquired a considerable fortune, bought an estate at Hersham, near Walton-upon-Thames, and died there in 1681. In his old age he became cautious in his prophecies; and was fearful, according to his own words, "of launching out too far into the deep, lest he should give offence." There is no doubt, however, of his semi-belief in his art. He deluded others till he was himself deluded. Gadbury, who was originally the pupil of Lilly, became eventually his arch-rival and enemy; and when the one published his "Merlinus Anglicus," the other had his "Anti-Merlinus." Lilly, some three or four years before he was removed to learn the value of all attempts to penetrate into futurity, from the lessons of " the great teacher Death," thought fit to contradict "all flying reports" of his decease, "spread abroad for some years past." The astrologers of that day had a wicked trick of vilifying each other, by anticipating the summons of the Fates; and thus Lilly himself, when he could not write down Gadbury, announced to the world that his disciple, whom he proscribed as a monster of ingratitude, had perished in the passage to Barbadoes. But Gadbury outlived his master ten years, very much to his own satisfaction. He had a narrow escape in the days of Titus Oates; for he was a staunch catholic, and had no belief in the "horrid, popish, jacobite plot," from the epoch of which Partridge dates to this day. Partridge hated Gadbury, as much as Gadbury hated Lilly; and when Gadbury died, Partridge published the history of what he called "his Black Life." But though Gadbury was dead, the Stationers, according to their most indubitable privilege in all such cases, continued to publish his almanacks; till another Gadbury (Job) succeeded to the honours and emoluments of his worthy relative, and prophecied through another generation of most credulous dupes. Swift has conferred an immortality upon John Partridge, whom he killed as an almanack-maker in 1709. The old man, at the time when this wicked wit assailed him, had been nearly forty years labouring in his vocation. He appears, originally, to have been a harmless, and, for an almanack-maker, somewhat sensible person. When Swift assailed him he had passed his grand climacteric; and though the almanack perished in this memorable affray, the man lived for six years after Bickerstaff had killed him. But when Partridge refused any longer to predict, the Stationers' Company did not chuse to be laughed out of the profit of his reputation for prediction. They accordingly, in 1710, printed a Partridge's almanack, with Partridge's portrait, which Partridge never wrote. During the three succeeding years the publication was discontinued; but in 1714, the year before the mortal part of the astrologer died, Partridge's "Merlinus Liberatus" again made its appearance; and is still dragging on a decrepit existence, with the sins of a century and a half upon its head. Swift's account of Partridge's death is one of the most pungent pieces of solemn humour which the genius of that most terrific of controversialists ever produced. No wonder that it killed the almanack for a season, though the man escaped. The confession of the astrologer is admirable:-"I am a poor ignorant fellow, bred to a mean trade, yet I have sense enough to know, that all pretences of foretelling by astrology are deceits, for this manifest reason-because the wise and the learned, who can only judge whether there be any truth in this science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant vulgar give it any credit, and that only upon the word of such silly wretches as I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read.' I then asked him, why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction. At which he shook his head, and said, ' Oh! Sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting these fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart.' By what I can gather from you,' said I, the observations and predictions you printed with your almanacs were mere impositions on the people.' He replied, If it were otherwise, I should have the less to answer for. We have a common form for all these things; as to foretelling the weather, we never meddle with that, but leave it to the printer, who takes it out of any old alınanac, as he thinks fit."" It is a hundred and twenty years ago since this attack, which one would have thought irresistible, was levelled against the prophecymakers of the Stationers' Company; but these fooleries still exist amongst us. At the time of Swift, the greater part of the astrologers of the civil wars had long been dead; but the almanacs, which were issued from this great patent store-house of imposture, bore the names of their original authors. "Poor Robin, Dove, Wing, and several others, do yearly publish their almanacs, though several of them have been dead since before the Revolution."* The individual men were gone; but the spirit of delusion, which they had originally breathed into their works, was not extinguished by their death, for the corporation of the Stationers' Company could never die; and there was thus a perpetuity in the imposture. That it should have existed to the present day can be no marvel; because the corporation is still flourishing, and still disposed to prostitute their power for the maintenance of delusions which, without them, must long since have burnt out, and left not even their expiring stench in our nostrils. The popular Almanacs, which predict the weather, and prophecy of the actions of men, have invariably been constructed upon the same principles, from their rise, in the seventeenth century, to the present day of their decrepitude and approaching extinction. The account which Swift gives of them, in their intermediate stage, will do for any time : "I rather wonder, when I observe gentlemen in the country, rich enough to serve the nation in Parliament, poring in Partridge's Almanac, to find out the events of the year at home and abroad; not daring to propose a hunting match till Gadbury or he have fixed the weather. I will allow either of the two I have mentioned, or any other of the fraternity, to be not only astrologers but conjurers too, if I do not produce a hundred instances, in all their almanacs, to convince any reasonable man that they do not so much as understand common grammar and syntax; that they are not able to spell any word out of the usual road; nor, even in their prefaces, to write common sense or intelligible English. Then, for their observations and predictions, they are such as will equally suit any age or country in the world. This month a certain great person will be threatened with death or sickness.' This the newspapers will tell them; for there we find, at the end of the year, *Vindication of Bickerstaff |