would each carry away his extra halfpenny per horse but this would be a trifling advantage, compared with the serious loss of 201. a-year, entailed on the lender. It would be the small gain of the multitude; the great loss of the one.' Do you understand this?'

'Clearly, uncle.'

'I have before observed to you, that man does not create; he may give to one, what he has taken from another, and here his power ends. A nation is an aggregate number of individuals: and by remitting taxes to one portion, and diminishing the dividends paid to another portion, you may be acting justly, or unjustly, wisely or unwisely: but of this be sure, you are not increasing or lessening the national income. If you are relieving the tax payers, you are, to the same extent, injuring those who had previously received them. As to the nation at large, taken as a body, you are doing for it nothing, or worse than nothing.'

Well, uncle, you really deal in the marvellous; and I don't remember either to have read or heard such things as you tell me, among the political economists.'

I dare say not, my dear child; and besides, you don't study very deeply, I apprehend. However, to prove that I am not palming upon you any crude notions of my own, I will give you another quotation from that very unexceptionable quarter to which I have once before referred. Mr. Ricardo, in his principles of political economy, first edition, page 335, thus expresses himself. By cancelling the national debt, one man's income might be raised from a 10007. to 1,5007.; but another man's would be lowered from

1,500l. to 1000l. These two men's incomes now amount to 2,500l., they would amount to no more then. If it be the object of government to raise taxes, there would be precisely the same taxable capital and income in one case, as in the other. It is not, then, by the payment of the interest on the national debt, that a country is distressed, nor is it by the exoneration from payment that it can be relieved. It is only by saving from income, and retrenching in expenditure, that the national capital can be increased; and neither the income would be increased, nor the expenditure diminished, by the annihilation of the national debt.''

'That will do nicely, uncle, to bear you out; and to convince our readers that you are not making wonderful discoveries, or propounding doctrines, on your own unsupported authority. But as we have been in the stocks too long now, to enter upon any new ground before we part, will you just explain to me two things that I often hear named in connection with this subject, but concerning which I have very vague ideas. I mean, exchequer bills, and the sinking fund.'

'The funds, or stocks, my dear, form the permanent debt of the nation: exchequer bills, that which is but temporary. For example, if the income of 1834, was not quite equal to the expenditure, exchequer bills would be issued for the sum deficient: they are written promises, to pay at a fixed date, like the notes of hand that we pass among ourselves; and they are sold in the market, like the other government debt. In general they are paid at the appointed time.'

'Then, uncle, they differ from the funds only in having a period fixed for their liquidation.'

That is the material difference, certainly, and the only one necessary to explain to you now; as I don't wish to encumber you with unimportant minutiæ. Then, as to the sinking fund, it is, or ought to be, the surplus of the taxes, beyond the expenditure of government, applied to pay off its debt. For instance, if you owed 1007., had an income of 150l., and expended 30%., paying off 20l. and thus reducing your debt to 80%., this 20l. would be your sinking fund.'

I comprehend it now, uncle, perfectly and I must acknowledge this hobby of yours to be a very nice-going, pleasant animal; taking one over a considerable space of ground, at an easy rate, with very little jolting. I begin to enjoy my rides, I assure you.' 'Some credit being due to me, of course, for fixing the side-saddle so commodiously. However, my child, don't get into a gallop, as some fair ladies have done, before they know half the jade's tricks that even my good steed can play, when under an unskilful hand. It has made my hair stand on end, to behold the desperate leaps attempted by these madcap equestrians-leaps which, if they succeeded in them, would only lodge the performers in a bottomless bog on the other side of the wall. Thereforebeware!'

THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1835.

CHAPTERS ON FLOWERS.

THERE are some objects that all the world is agreed in admiring, or professing to admire. Those who have taste and feeling, experience exquisite delight in surveying such objects; and people who have neither, would not expose their deficiency by acknowledging that these things have no charm for them. Thus, an April sky, with its flitting clouds, and glancing sunbeams, and evanescent rainbows, is, by common consent, most lovely. Some, to be sure, there are, who consider all the enjoyment derivable from the contemplation, to be a very poor equivalent for the spoiling of a ribband, or the splashing of a gown; but they rarely venture to proclaim their dissent from the general agreement. This being the case, all descriptive, all sentimental writers, and indeed all who handle any other than the driest matter-of-fact subjects, are to be found tendering

U

their quota of admiration, in every variety of style and phrase. To elicit any thing new, on such a hackneyed topic, is, perhaps impossible: but as I do not aim at originality-merely wishing to indulge in the pursuit of a few thoughts that form the rainbows of my rather cloudy sky-I shall continue to think upon paper; unshackled by any apprehension of the censure that is, doubtless, often provoked by my lucubrations- How very common-place!'

I sally forth into the garden, on a very unpromising morning. The whole concave is overcast with clouds: they hang low, portending a dark and cheerless day. I see not even a probability of rain, which might clear the expanse, and give us the desired prospect of an azure heaven beyond; but there is every sign of continued gloom-clouds that appear disposed neither to pass on nor to fall, maintaining a position of sullen quiescence, the most discouraging. While the little flowers beneath, look as grave and as cheerless as flowers can look, and the general effect on my mind is that of chilled and saddened feeling. Presently, there is a perceptible movement of the dull mass-a thinning of the cloud in some particular spot, as though it was drawn upwards, and comparative transparency ensues. I watch, until an opening is effected, and a little-a very little speck of clear blue sky becomes visible beyond the separating edges. A gladdening sight! for then, I confidently anticipate, that, in another quarter, the same process will, ere long, afford a farther glimpse of what I desire to see. Another does appear, and another: the whole company of congregated vapours is breaking up, not borne along in a body, leaving all bright behind their course, but