society, and is equally necessary to bring about that effect; that it is therefore equally taxable; and that the scope of taxa tion is that of affecting the produce without injuring the sources. The opinion, that land constitutes the only productive pro perty, calls from the author the following among many other equally forcible observations :-Land is an instrument of which labour makes use, and ought to be regarded in precisely the same light with the instruments which the industry of man has created; it is employed by the husbandman, in order to convert into corn the nutricious principles of vegetation which it con tains, just as the miller uses his mill to convert the same corn into meal, and the baker his oven to form the latter into bread } the materials of each of these instruments exist in rerum naturâ, but the beneficial adaptation of the one, not less than that of the others, is to be traced to the exertions and guidance of human skill. M. CANARD does not consider money as a representative sign of things, but as an intermediate mercantile commodity, of equal value with that for which it is taken in exchange; and a crown he states to be the result of as much labour, and to possess as much intrinsic value, as the article of provision which it purchases. He is a friend to paper credit, when voluntary: but he remarks that, when compulsory, it has in every state ended in bankruptcy. Facts warrant the observation: but we hope that our own country will furnish an exception to it; though we trust that this state of things, which necessity alone could justify, will not be permitted to continue a moment longer than that necessity requires. The following is the author's account of the effect of a new tax, when imposed on some particular branch of industry; 1. The manufacturer in that line shares it with the buyerssellers, and the buyers-consumers-2. The effect of the tax is to diminish the branch: the poorer dealers in it are obliged to desert it, and to engage in other and unburthened pursuits, a circumstance which increases the competition in those branches, and consequently lessens the profits of the dealers in them. In this way, a tax, immediately affecting only one branch, extends its effects to all, and in time it operates like a tax imposed on all :-3. Its prejudicial operation is, at length, lost in the superior consumption occasioned by the great numbers who derive advantage from the political effort for which the tax was imposed. Time is necessary to allow things thus to find their level; the tax does not instantaneously divide itself between the venders and consumers; it is after a considerable interval that the balance is struck; and while the first friction continues, the weaker individuals inte rested in the branch fall sacrifices. As a corollary from this reasoning, the author lays it down that an old tax is a good one, and a new tax a bad one. The argument is ingenious, and the inference follows fairly from it: but it were easy to shew that the doctrine which it holds out requires to be very considerably qualified. The reasonings which prove that tithes operate as a discouragement of agriculture will suggest to our readers the nature of our objection; or, to adopt the language of the author, if an old tax, though it does not diminish a productive source, yet materially hinders it from increasing, it cannot be called good. M. CANARD very justly compares changes in taxation to the frequent removal of plantations of young trees. He illustrates his doctrines by exposing the absurdity and impolicy of several revolutionary taxes, the abolition of which he earnestly recommends; and he proposes the revival of the tax on salt (the famous Gabelle) under certain mo difications. We imagine that those of our readers, who are acquainted with the recent transactions of France, will (like ourselves) feel their minds assailed by a crowd of reflections, on finding it recommended to the present government, to revive a tax which was deemed one of the most obnoxious among those that were levied under the monarchy. Loans, the author says, are become resources with which no state can dispense; they favor the extension of foreign traffic; and they hold out a premium to economy by offering an easy, secure, and commodious investiture of capital. This, like many others of his doctrines, requires proper qualifications, which he uniformly omits to introduce. M. CANARD shares in the animosity against this kingdom which is common to all the publicists of France. Like them, he ascribes to it a vast proportion of the calamities of his country; like them, he describes it as at the highest pitch of power and prosperity; and, like them, he seems to derive consolation from the idea of a rapid decline, which, if certain causes intervene not, he prophesies will soon be witnessed, We are obliged to him for stating to us these causes, whence we may contrive preventatives of this galloping consumption, which so speedily awaits the British body politic. The declaimers in favour of obsolete laws to regulate commerce, the enemies of voluntary paper credit, and the partisans of taxes laid exclusively on the rich, may, if inclined to receive instruction, most advantageously have recourse to the present work. Many readers, however, we doubt not, will pronounce that it is dry, too rigidly systematic, and too artificial in its composition; and it must be admitted that a popular style is the best suited to such subjects as are here treated, A happy A happy and correct analysis of terms in common use (in which we have already stated that this writer greatly excels) is highly advantageous: but we must observe, on the other hand, that the constant use of the circumlocutory language of analysis renders the page inelegant, irksome, and obscure. The treatise merits great praise for its matter, but its manner we must consider as susce; tible of numerous and various amendments:-it is a treatise which, in fine, the superficial will soon throw aside, but which the profound will peruse more than once with renewed, interest. ART. IV. Die Furienmaske, im trauerspiele, &c. i. e. The Masks of the Furies, in the Tragedies and on the Gems and Relievos of the antient Greeks. An Archæological Essay. By C. A. BÖTTIGER. 8vo. pp. 145. Weimar. 1801. אן N this elaborate disquisition, the learned author corroborates the assertion of Lessing, that the antient artists never represented the figure of a Fuy in the terrific form ascribed to those deities by Eschylus. We are told that this poet, in the third part of his Tetralogy, (admired by the antients under the name of Orestias,) has delivered all that could be gathered from old popular reports clothed in the customary metaphorical language, with tremendous attributes created by his own bold and comprehensive imagination, to represent the terrifying aspect of those avenging deities. The undertaking was grand, and highly worthy of a poet; at whose appearance in the lower world, Aristophanes ordered a black lamb to be slain, which otherwise was wont only to be sacrificed to furious hurricanes. The common Athenians scarcely ever presumed to mention these tremendous goddesses by their proper names, denoting them only by the appellation of the venerable deities. This intrepid dramatist, however, in the tragedy which he calls after their milder name, The Eumenides, introduced a company, consisting of not fewer than fifty of these tormenting spirits, as an acting chorus, on the stage; and he excited consternation and horror in the minds of all who were present, by so unusual a spectacle. At the first representation of this tragedy, indeed, several women miscarried, and children were frightened to death.-The horrible dresses of these infernal deities contributed greatly to produce these effects. They appeared for the first time with snakes interwoven with their hair; which hideous head-dress has continued to be appropriated to them on the modern theatres. We learn from an antient tradition, that the sovereign public of Athens, fond as they were, in the state of civilization at which they were Hh 4 then then arrived, of whatever could strike the senses by pomp, by prodigious forms, and by powerful impressions, yet found this monstrous and terrific creation rather too strong for their nerves, and therefore passed a law which limited the supernumerary chorus-performers to fifteen. Such disasters, as those occasioned by the first representation of the Eumenides, were thus certainly prevented for the future. Be the case, however, as it may, with this tradition, (which, at least in its more modern dress, is evidently deficient in marks of authenticity); thus much is certain, that the works of the tragic poets, by such an accumulation of the terrible as was rather addressed to the eyes than to the understanding of the spectator, were well calculated, at the first sight, to produce that censure which Aristotle, in his Poetics, pronounces in these terms: "To excite terror by decorations betrays a badtaste, and proves nothing but the prodigality of the theatrical manager." Modern judges of the drama, says M. BÖTTIGER, have not overlooked this passage of Aristotle concerning the graceless chorus of the gracious Eumenides, in criticising our tragedies; and they have uniformly declared, without reserve, their disapprobation of such an abuse of the theatrical apparatus. Neverthe less, some such apologies as have since been made for Shakspeare, may be urged in behalf of the venerable father of the antient tragedy, in regard to this extravagant multiplication of the terrific in decorations and in the apparition of ghosts; partly from the taste of the times in which he lived; and partly from the peculiarities of his genius, which, in its attainment of the sublime, disdained not to call in the aid of outward means. Nay, perhaps, (continues our author,) another way, not often adopted, might be found, by which the terrors and horrors here brought on in such constant succession might have a peculiar reference and mitigation, from the point of time in which the poet first caused this piece to be performed for the particular instruction and edification of his Athenians. The design of this little treatise, the author acquaints us, is to fulfil a promise which he lately made to two of his pupils, who were employed in reading the Eumenides; when the question was naturally started; How the antient tragedians displayed these terrific Fury-masks, and represented them to the gaping audience? In pursuance of this design, he enters into a critical examination of the tragedies of Eschylus, particularly the Eumenides and the Choephori; in which we meet * See Eschenberg on Shakspeare, p. 133. Comp. Warton on English poetry, vol. iii. p. 33 with several curious observations and remarks, the whole evincing a thorough acquaintance with the old dramatist and his various commentators. M. BÖTTIGER is certainly a man of genius and learning; and though the subject should be. considered as interesting only to the profound scholar or the scientific artist, it is at least very, ably treated. He often quotes, with great approbation, the English critics, Stanley, Harris of Salisbury, Twining, Pye, &c.; and we cannot omit what he says of Dryden, nor the quotation from an elegant German translation of his celebrated ode. After having mentioned the Iphigenia of Goethe, (whom he styles the modern Sophocles,) he thus continues: But rarely do we meet with an instance in which the mythos is employed to so happy and sublime an image as in Dryden's famous Alexander's Feast; where he introduces the slaughtered Greeks in the form of Furies, armed with horrid torches for the burning of Persepolis : "Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries: See the snakes that they rear, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Each a torch in his hand! These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, Behold, how they toss their torches on high, And glittering temples of their hostile gods!" This passage is thus translated by an anonymous correspondent in the Teutsche Mercur, for October 1800: "Rache! rache! ruft der sænger. Die furien treten hervor! Sieh, wie stræubt ihr schlangenhaar Erhobne fackeln gluhen! Der Griechen geister, die im kampf erschlagen Auf weiter haide lagen, Unruhmlich, ohne grab! Sie schwingen die fackeln sie zielen herab, Auf prangender Perser gebäude.” Three |