his studies. Eckius returned to Rome in 1606, as appears from a letter written by him to the celebrated Kepler; but new persecutions obliged him again to fly, till 1614, when, for the last time, he returned to the eternal city.

The annals of the Society are silent till 1609; a year remarkable in the history of science for the invention of the telescope. The news of the accidental discovery at Middelburg, which suggested the idea of that invaluable instrument to Galileo, reached Italy in the spring of that year; and we have a letter of Della Porta at Naples, to Cesi, dated August 28, in which he gives a drawing of a telescope, with a reference, for its principles, to his work on Optics, published in 1589. When we consider that Galileo did not exhibit his in Rome till 1611, it will seem probable that Della Porta was guided by his own sagacity to divine the nature of the new invention. One thing, however, the historian of this Academy considers pretty certain; that the names "telescope" and "microscope" were first devised by Federico Cesi. When Galileo came to Rome, he became a member of the Academy, at whose expense some of his works were printed. Indeed, by the year 1612, it had extended its reputation very far, and undertaken the publication of several works, among the rest, the observations of Hernandez on the natural history of New Spain, with notes by the Academy, and had formed a plan for branch societies, with a college at Naples. The work of Hernandez did not, however, appear till 1651 (2 vols. fol.); and it has prefixed a brief, dated 1627, of Pope Urban VIII, the very pope under whom Galileo was condemned, in praise of the Academy. To the same pope, Cesi dedicated his microscopic observations on the bee; and his nephew Cardinal Barberini entered his name among the members of the Academy.

But, in the mean time, new domestic troubles had gradually withdrawn Cesi from his previous undivided attention to the interests of his society. He had married; and, in addition to the cares of his own household, had to undertake the management of his father's property; for the old nobleman, extravagant as he was imperious, had fallen into considerable embarrassment; and, reserving an annuity, made over his estates to his son, who engaged to pay all creditors. Cesi was obliged to reside upon the estate of Acquasparta, upwards of a hundred miles from Rome; and, at the same time, his father's waywardness and tyranny wore out his spirits, and undermined his constitution. The Duke died on the 24th of June, 1630; and, on the 2d of August, his son followed him to the grave, at the age of forty-five. He seems to have been the idol of all that knew him. His portrait exhibits a mild, and thoughtful, and noble

countenance; and every record proves that, while, in moments of danger and difficulty, he could display the greatest courage and dignity, yet, when contending with the capricious tyranny of his father, he never, in word or act, transgressed the duty of an obedient son. He was well versed in every class of literature; seems to have been a proficient in Arabic; and, when Cardinal Bellarmine consulted him upon some points of natural history, his answer, though written in the country, contained so much learned discussion upon the doctrine of the fathers, whose passages he quoted on the subject, that the eminent theologian affectionately chid him for such an unnecessary display of learning. This correspondence is given by Scheiner in his Rosa Ursinu. Cesi was one of the first to make accurate observations on fossil woods, and to discover the system of propagation of ferns. Brown has accomplished what the Lincei were anxious to do, to commemorate his name in science by conferring it on some plant. His class of Cæsia, in Australian botany, is called after him.

After Cesi's death, the Academy languished on for twenty years, when it became extinct. His death, indeed, was so sudden, that he did not make a will; and thus his museum, with its curious collections and instruments, became the property of his family. Bianchi, who wrote a history of the Academy, endeavoured to revive it, but failed.* At the beginning of this century, it was renewed. Pope Leo XII gave it apartments in the Capitol, and built for it there an observatory, now under the direction of its president, Scarpellioni. Its apparatus is very complete; and we have now lying before us an able paper lately read in it by the learned Father Pianciani, containing some new experiments and results upon electro-magnetism. The present pope pays an annual visit to this establishment.

We might have added to this sketch the history of other scientific academies, as that of Bologna, which succeeded the Cimento, and reached its glory under Morgagni, for it never experienced anything but countenance and protection from the sovereign pontiffs; but what we have written is sufficient for our purpose, which was to disprove the assertions of Libri, and at the same time, to show the slight grounds of plausibility on which they rest.

*For our account of the Lincei we are indebted to Prince Odescalchi's work upon the subject, 4to. Rome, 1806.

For a correct account of the state of natural philosophy in the middle ages, and an exposure of many erroneous opinions of modern writers as to the supposed hostility of the Church to scientific pursuits, see Cap. VII, VIII, and IX, of Mr. Digby's admirable Ages of Faith, Book VIII, recently published. We hope in a future number to draw the attention of our readers to the writings of this very distinguished author. The 8th Book, inasmuch as it is more practical, exceeds its predecessors in merit.

ART. VIII.-Christian Political Economy; or, an Examination into the Causes of Pauperism as it exists in France and Europe, and of the Means of Relieving and Preventing it. By the Viscount Villeneuve Bargimont, Prefect of the North, formerly Counsellor of State, Deputy, &c. 3 vols. Paris.

1834.

THE progress of industry, the continually increasing activity

of manufactories, and the more and more extensive applition of the principles of science to all the useful arts, are facts which the detractors of the times we live in cannot dispute. If Great Britain was the first to give the signal for this universal activity, if she still leaves all other nations behind her in the career which she threw open to them, it is not the less true that the space which separated her from her rivals is sensibly diminished. Not only have the United States, with all the energetic pertinacity that distinguishes the inhabitants of the mother country, raised numerous manufactories under the protection of their liberal institutions, and that even before the increase of population could suffice for the purposes of agriculture; but nations bending under the yoke of despotism, the Austrians, and even the Russians, are making progress in the amelioration of the useful arts, and ere long, perhaps, Sheffield may have to contest with the workmen of Toula for her monopoly in the markets of Persia. France, Belgium, and Prussia, on their part, are displaying unaccustomed activity; and their manufactories, multiplied and improved as they have been since 1815, will perhaps receive in the course of a few years an assistance from the railroads now projecting upon the continent, the consequences of which we can neither foresee nor calculate. Without giving way to the enthusiasm of some modern Utopians, if we examine, however coolly, this concourse of powers, inert half a century ago, and now employed in the production of all that is necessary, of all that is merely agreeable to the human race,-if we reflect that these powers continually gain strength, and are directed by knowledge, which is itself increasing, it is difficult not to believe in the approach of an earthly inillennium, during which poverty shall be banished from the earth and misery unknown. Such, at least, would be the conclusion we should come to, could we be ignorant, that at the side, under the very shadow, of those gigantic establishments which the genius of industry has raised, pauperism has established her dwelling. There is no doubt that there are every where men, whose idleness or misery levies a tax upon the superfluities of their fellow-creatures; but these beings whom vice or misfortune has degraded, are no where

numerous enough to become an intolerable burden, or to compromise the future peace of nations, except in the countries to which industry has carried all her riches, and which have attained the highest degree of prosperity. There would even seem to be an indissoluble connexion between wealth and pauperism, they put forth together their power of increase, and faithfully divide the conquests which they make. Thus, in Great Britain, so far exceeding other nations in the extent of her commerce, and the skill and perseverance of her workmen, there is a greater number of individuals supported by public charity than can be found in any other country. Of all her rivals, France approaches her the nearest ; and, accordingly, next to herself, the largest proportion of poor is to be found in the manufacturing districts of that country. Of this we shall find abundant proofs in the remarkable work we are about to analyze.

It would be an evident absurdity to suppose, that pauperism and industry can be connected in such a way, as that the most enterprising and laborious people should of necessity be those who include the greatest number of persons unable to support themselves by the work of their hands. Manufactories, and the commerce they supply, create an immense demand for workmanship, and have consequently a most favourable effect upon the price of wages, and the welfare of all who prefer the comfort of independence to the shameful idleness of parish support. None can be less disposed than we are to believe that the accumulation of our circulating capital, and the excellence and multiplicity of our machines, can tend to promote or aggravate the distress of the lower classes,-a distress which, although partial in England, is indisputable, and could not be much increased without endangering her tranquillity. Unhappy Ireland is a living proof of the utility, nay more, of the necessity of commercial industry. If her inhabitants, in spite of the fecundity of their soil, are now an object of pity to those who, in the natural course of things, should have beheld them with envy,-it is because, reduced almost entirely to the cultivation of the earth, and deprived of the resources they would find in more abundant capital, and in manufactories, in proportion to the number of hands not required by agriculture, they find nothing to employ the time left at their disposal by their present occupation. To pacify Ireland would be to give her what she requires,-by offering to English capitalists a market incalculably more advantageous than the mines of Mexico. The redress of all her grievances will certainly have an immense political effect, by adding to the legal bond that unites the two islands, the closer union of sincere and reciprocal affection. But the concessions already obtained for

Ireland, or those she is still seeking, are, as respects the welfare of her peasants, only so many means of opening a more extensive market to their labour. But however great the advantage of industry, whether for the workman himself or the country which he inhabits, the progress of pauperism in the wealthiest nations is not the less a fact, and a phenomenon which deserved and obtained the most serious consideration. As England was the first to perceive this deplorable anomaly, so our economists were the first to inquire into the causes of it. The late Mr. Malthus owes much of his celebrity to his well-known and justly admired essay on the principle of population. Accord ing to this writer, population, when it is unchecked by external circumstances, but obeys its natural tendencies, is multiplied in a geometrical proportion, and as, when all land is brought into cultivation which is capable of it, food can only increase in arithmetical ratio, it follows, as is unanswerably demonstrated, that at the end of a certain number of years, in any country whatever, if it has been well and happily governed, and has not been ravaged by periodical scourges, the number of inhabitants will arrive at that point when the produce of the earth will be insufficient to sustain them. This theory, broached as it was at a time when the farmers were realizing enormous profits by the rise in the price of corn, became immediately popular: its success was the more certain, because those who most violently attacked it had no reasonable objection to oppose to it. If we suppose a nation never visited by plagues, where the fields are habitually fertile, and which is constantly directed by a wise administration in the paths of prosperity, we shall easily discover, that in time this nation will multiply until its harvests, however skilful its agriculturists, will no longer suffice for the necessities of an innumerable population: and what is true of one people is true of all, if they all and always enjoy the advantages we have enumerated. Thus, as is so forcibly stated by the learned Mr. Malthus, we can only conceive two possible remedies for such a frightful consequence of universal and continual happiness,the one which should precede and prevent it, the other which should accompany and diminish its terrible effects. The first is the moral check, which would prevent improvident marriages; the second is the misery consequent upon these marriages when they become too numerous, which misery, by destroying a part of the children, would leave a sufficiency for the rest, at least, for the purposes of existence. As Mr. Malthus's system offered a plausible explanation of the increase of pauperism, it was eagerly adopted by the greater number of political economists, who were unable either to deny the existence of the evil or to