by which credit has hitherto been maintained, are broken, and the holder of a Bank-note has no other security for the payment of it than the Minister's not having judged it expedient in the mean time to apply the money to the public services. If the wound which has been given to public credit by these injudicious proceedings be not fatal, it will, indeed, be fortunate for this country; that it should ever be perfectly healed, I am satisfied is impossible. The histories of other countries in similar circumstances afford no instance to encourage our hopes. Wherever government has interfered with private banks, and made their credit administer to the wants and extravagance of the state, the consequences have been invariably the same. A mass of fictitious wealth has been accumulated, and the nation has appeared, for a season, to rise in splendor as its debts have increased. But the government, possessed of such an easy method of providing for the public exigencies, has set no bounds to profusion; its paper securities, therefore, have necessarily multiplied until their amount, exceeding the specie beyond all reasonable proportion, has unavoidably produced their depreciation, while the Bank, having been lured by a high interest to issue their notes in immense quantities upon these securities, become straitened for cash, their solvency, in consequence, begins to be suspected, the slightest alarm pours in their paper from all quarters, government interposes its authority, and the very measures which have hitherto been employed to prevent a bankruptcy, have always proved the infallible means of producing it. This was particularly the case with regard to the Mississippi company at Paris, in 1720. By the assistance of their paper currency, the French nation, in that period, assumed a splendor unknown in former times. Commerce flourished, luxury prevailed, riches appeared to accumulate, and the company, by continuing to issue their notes in still greater abundance, or, in other words, to multiply their circulating medium, seemed only to produce the effect of increasing the wealth and prosperity of the kingdom. No bounds, therefore, were set to their fictitious coinage, till at last it was carried to such an extent, that they had issued 1600 millions of livres in paper on government securities, and 600 millions on their own. The mass now became too unwieldy for circulation. The Duke of Orleans, who was then regent, being desirous of applying a remedy to the evil, interposed the authority of government, and, in order that the paper might bear a nearer proportion to the quantity of specie, an arrêt was issued to diminish its value to one half its denomination. In an instant it was reduced in the public opinion to nothing; and as Sir James Steuart observes, " a person might have starved the next day with one bundred millions of paper in his pocket t."

In the year 1788, Paris affords a similar instance of folly and misfortune (although in a much more limited degree) in the fate of the Caisse d'Escompte. Here again we perceive the necessities of the state obliging it to have recourse to the credit of a private company,

*Amounting in the whole to more than 96,000,000l. sterling. ↑ Political Economy, part ii. book iv. chap. xxxi.'

REV. Juse, 1797.

P

In

In consequence of having advanced immense sums to government, and of the increasing demands from the same quarter, the affairs of this company were involved in such difficulties as to render them the object of suspicion. Their paper, therefore, became depreciated, and the ardent desire of converting it into specie, produced such a concourse of people at the Caisse d'Escompte, as to induce the Archbishop of Toulouse (who was then minister) to issue an arrêt de surséance, empowering them to refuse payment of their notes in money, and to discharge them with drafts and bills of exchange of a short date; at the same time forbidding all suits for the amount of any bills of exchange, the payment of which had been tendered in these notes. This operation of finance was at first applauded, as a wise precaution against the effects of unfounded and precipitate fear. The Bank now continued and even enlarged its discounts. The commerce of Paris, which was stated to have increased so much as to want a circulating medium, was, for a moment, assisted in its speculation; but the face of things was soon changed, and it is well known, that the measures which were intended for the preservation, terminated, as usual, in the ruin of public credit. Several instances of the same kind might be added from the histories of the banks in America, Spain, and other countries.'

The report of the finances of the Bank has been formed in such a manner as to impress the public with a much too favourable opinion of them. According to that very concise account, their assets, [not] including 11,686,800l. said to be due to [from] government, are made to amount to 17,597,280l. and their debts only to 13,770,390%; so that it may be inferred from hence that they are possessed of a surplus, after discharging every demand, of fifteen millions and a half. As far as relates to their creditors, the affairs of the Bank, when all that is due shall have been paid to them, may be considered as perfectly secure; but as to the proprietors, they have no such consolation, as will appear from the following statement :

* The nature of this order will be better understood by observ ing, that the French nobility, when pressed by their creditors, very often obtained from the Court an arrêt de surséance, to enable them to postpone the payment of their debts.

6

The ridiculous cant of an increasing trade's wanting a circu lating medium was, I believe, first promulgated on this occasion, and it has since been brought over into this country, together with other principles of political economy equally novel and absurd, by some of the very persons who introduced them at Paris. The measures also which are now taken in regard to the Bank of England are so like to those which were taken on the stoppage of the Caisse d'Escompte, that they all appear (excepting indeed in the circumstance of the French minister's having been dismissed from his place on the occasion) to be either copied from them, or suggested by the same advisers."

• BANK

• BANK ACCOUNT on the 25th of February 1797.

• Hence it is evident that on a capital of 11,686,800 l.* there is a deficiency of more than two millions; or, in other words, that supposing the stock of each proprietor to be rated only at par, there will not be sufficient to pay him in the proportion of seventeen shillings in the pound.'

cence.

The fictitious coinage of paper, by enabling the Minister to increase the public expence, and the merchant to overtrade his capital, has given the nation a very false appearance of wealth and magnifiBut the bubble has swollen till it has burst, and we are now brought to the edge of a tremendous gulf, from which the utmost exertions of virtue and wisdom can hardly save us. I wish it were possible to perceive more evident traces of either in the measures which are now pursuing, and that the gloomy prospect which depresses every friend to his country were cheered with one ray, to announce the approach of those more auspicious times, when our commerce, no longer employed as the instrument of war, shall serve to extend our friendly and beneficial intercourse with mankind; and when our credit, established on its firmest foundation, peace, aeconomy, and liberty, shall secure to Great Britain that dignified respect and honour which shall place her among the most envied nations of the world."

* I believe, that though the Bank stock is 11,686,800l. the company divides only on 13,780,000l. or thereabouts. This will make some difference in favour of the proprietors, but not nearly to a sufficient amount to pay them twenty shillings in the pound even when their stock is valued only at par.'

We shall not add any observations on these statements, bus leave them to make their own impression on the reader.

TH

ART. XVI. The Oriental Collections for January, February, and March 1797. 4to. pp. 92. 12s. 6d. Boards. Harding. 1797. 'HE design of this miscellaneous publication is to promote and facilitate the study of Oriental literature; and if the editor's plan should prove successful, four numbers will appear annually and constitute a volume. It is proposed to illustrate the political events of Asia, by extracts from her most celebrated historians; the poetry, by selections from her most classical productions; the natural history, by drawings and descriptions; the antiquities, by essays, inscriptions, and medals; the geography, by maps; and the music, by occasional specimens while, for the benefit of the student of eastern Fanguages, the translations will be accompanied with the original text. So comprehensive a plan obviously involves considerable expence, and requires much labour to execute it with success: but the difficulty of procuring the Arabic (inaccurately called the Oriental) type was an unforeseen obstacle, which Major Ouseley, the editor, is now employed in removing, by preparing a new set, of the Talic character; which, if we may judge from the specimen here given, will add greatly to the elegance of the subsequent numbers. These circumstanees, combined with the limited circulation which such a publication is likely to command in Great Britain, unavoidably occasions its being sold at (as many will think) a high price; and this consideration renders it doubly incumbent on the editor, as a duty to his readers, and for the interest of his work, earefully to exclude every communication which he may receive, that is of a frivolous or uninteresting nature; and to admit only such as may be perused with pleasure by the man of taste, or with satisfaction by the general scholar.

At the commencement of this undertaking, by which the most celebrated productions of the Oriental muses will gradually be transplanted into our native soil, we think it proper to state our opinion of the manner in which translations from the eastern languages ought to be executed; and that opinion. is, that they should be performed as literally as the idiom of the English tongue will permit. The Historians of Asia have been justly censured for the false taste displayed in their writ ings the rhetorical figures which emblazon their pages form an assemblage little cuited to the sober dignity of history: yet the English reader will naturally desire to know how the principal authors of the East thought and wrote, and will be disappoint

ed

ed if he should find a Tacitus or a Livy, when he expected an Abul Faraj or an Abul Fazil. The same diffuse style by no means pervades the compositions of their Poets. With them, hyperbole is common, but amplification is rare; their conceptions are frequently gigantic, but their words are few; and the energy which results from brevity and simplicity of expression peculiarly distinguishes their classic writers, and ought sedulously to be preserved in the copy. Our readers will find occasion to apply these remarks in the prosecution of our analysis.

The first paper in the collection before us is written by the Rev. Mr. Hindley, and contains a biographic sketch of the poet surnamed Motanabbi, on account of his pretensions to divine inspiration. As a specimen of Mr. H.'s style in prose and in poetry, we present our readers with the commencement of his sketch, and with a part of his two translations.

Abu'l Taieb Ahmed Ebnol Hosain, better known in Europe by his name of Motanabbi, is universally celebrated as one of the most original and sublime of eastern poets. If we may credit the authorities of M. D'Herbelot, his abilities, at a very early age, were both powerful and brilliant; so brilliant, indeed, that Abu Teman was the only luminary in the poetic hemisphere uneclipsed by their splendour.

But this encomium is not general amongst the Arabian critics*. The elegant and profound Al Mokri, in a most esteemed and curious work on general criticism, took considerable pains to ascer tain the various degrees of merit of the more select Arabian poets. With him Abu'l Taieb ranks only fourth in the second class of the modern age, his name being immediately preceded by those of Hobeib, Bahteri, and Al Rumi; Hasan being alone selected as capable of wielding the sceptre of immortality.

But when such is the assemblage of excellence, it is of little consequence who shall wear the distinguishing laurel. It will be sufficient for us to know, that in whatever country the Arabic language has been studied with the greatest success, there the poems of Abu'l Taieb have gained the most unequivocal popularity. For full eight hundred years they have been the ceaseless amusement of the learned, and the admiration of the elegant, throughout the vast and once highly cultivated realms of Asia. Nay, at this moment, it is by no means improbable that they may be the subjects of applauded and animated recitation in the crowded Caravansera, and in the tent of the Bedouin. And much may we congratulate ourselves that our libraries contain excellent copies of these and many other precious germs of departed genius, which only want the protecting heat of patronage, and the cultivating hand of taste, to bloom anew in our European conservatories, and to delight and adorn posterity.'

*

Quære, how is this reconcileable with the universality of his fame above-mentioned? Rev.