however much the mere ceremonial and superficial aspect of the Patristic age may bear a Jewish physiognomy, it is to the influences at work in the social fabric of the Roman Empire itself, that we must seek the true springs of action in the Christian Church, -so far as they came from any foreign source. It is therefore with something more than a mere artistical interest that we find the Bishop seated on the chair of the Prætor-the forms of the cathedral already wrapt up in the halls of Æmilius and of Trajan. It is in exact accordance not only with the more general influence to which the Christian society was exposed, from the rhetorical subtleties, the magical superstitions, the idolatrous festivals, and the dissolute habits of the heathen world at large, but also with the more especial influence which the purely political spirit of the Roman State exercised over some of their most peculiar institutions-with the fact that the very names by which the functions of their officers are described, sprung not from the religious, but from the civil vocabulary of the timesand are expressions not of spiritual so much as of political power. 'Ordo' (the origin of our present orders') was the well-known name of the municipal senates of the empire; ordinatio' (the original of our ordination') was never used by the Romans except for civil appointments; the tribunes of the people' are the likeness which the historian of the Decline and Fall, and the author of The Church of the Fathers, alike recognize in the early Christian Bishops; the preponderance of the Gentile spirit of government, and the revival of the spirit of the Roman Senate in the counsels of Cyprian, was the thought which forced itself on the mind of the last English historian of Rome, in spite of many earlier prepossessions: even the Papacy itself, according to the pregnant expression of Hobbes, which, however inadequate as a complete account of it, is yet true as far as it goes, was but the 'ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting upon the grave there'of.' Evils and abuses innumerable no doubt flowed from the excess of this influence on the Christian Church, but in itself it was a true instinct, which no declamations about the contrast of civil and spiritual power were able completely to extinguish. The free spirit of the Roman citizen felt that it could breathe no where so freely as in the bosom of the Christian society. The Christian minister felt that no existing office or title to power was so solemn as that of the Roman magistrate; and Christianity could pay no more striking act of homage to the greatness of the expiring Empire, than in this declaration of its belief, unconscious if we will, that the hall of Roman justice was not too secular for a place of Christian worship.

Yet once more-we have seen how the very name of Basilica

leads our thoughts back to the period of Roman greatness and Grecian refinement-we have seen how naturally the several parts of the heathen and the secular edifice adapted themselves to their higher Christian use-we have seen how, on the one hand, as if by an exact inversion of the Divine rebuke, the den of thieves was changed into the house of prayer-the words of heavenly love spoken from the inexorable seat of Roman judgment-the halls of opposition and wrangling converted into the abodes of peace and worship;-how, on the other hand, the idea of the public and social life which the Basilica had brought with it from Greece-the idea of an irresistible law and universal dominion which had been impressed upon it by the genius of Rome, first found their complete development under the shadow of that faith which was to preserve them both to the new world of Europe. Surely it is no idle fancy, to trace in this transfiguration of the ancient images of Gentile power and civilization, at least a shadow of that higher purpose which shapes mens' ends, rough hew them as they will,'-a sign, however faint, of the true spirit. of that faith which here found its earliest outward expression. Had unrestrained scope been given to the tendency which strove to assimilate all Christian worship to the outward religious ceremonial of Judaism or Paganism, it might have perpetuated itself by adopting in all cases, as it certainly did in some, the type, if not of the Roman, at least of the Jewish temple. Had the stern indifference to all forms of art prevailed every where, and at all times, during the three first centuries, as it did during the ages of persecution, and in the deserts of the Thebaid, it would probably have swept away outward localities and forms of worship altogether.

A higher spirit, undoubtedly, than either of these tendencies represent, there has always been in the Christian Church, whether latent or expressed;--a spirit which would make religion to consist not in the identification of things with itself, nor yet in a complete repudiation of them-but in its comprehension and appropriation of them to its own uses;-which would look upon the world neither as too profane, nor too insignificant, for the regard of Christians, but rather as the very sphere in which Christianity is to live and to triumph. To what extent such a spirit may have co-existed with all the counteracting elements which it must have met in the age of Constantine, we do not pretend to say: but if the view above given be correct, it is precisely such a spirit as this which is represented to us in outward form by the origin of the Christian Basilica. It is precisely such a monument as best befitted the first public recognition of a religion whose emphatic distinction it was, that

it embraced not one nation only, nor one element of human nature only, but all the nations, and all the various elements of the whole world. The connexion of the details of the Basilica with the popular theory of Church government may possibly have been overstrained-but the very fact of its existence attests the triumph of a principle, far more deeply connected with the cause of Christian freedom, than can be the case with any arrangement of government however liberal. The Gothic Cathedral may have had its origin quite independently of its precursors in Italy, and may have been a far truer exponent of the whole range of Christian feeling; but neither it, nor any other form of Architecture could have won its way into the Christian world, unless the rise of the Basilica had first vindicated the application of Gentile art, whether Roman or Teutonic, to sacred purposes. The selection of the Halls of Justice may have been occasioned by merely temporary and accidental causes; but the mere fact of the selection of such sites or such models, unhallowed by ancient tradition, or primeval awe, was in itself a new phenomenon-was in itself the sign that a Religion was come into the world, confident of its own intrinsic power of consecrating whatever it touched, independently of any outward or external relation whatever.

We cannot take leave of these volumes without an expression of gratitude to the country which has produced them. We often hear alarm at the influx of German literature into England-at the increasing interest taken by the rising generation in works of German philosophy and theology. That Germany has much to answer for in hasty speculation and capricious theorizing, we readily acknowledge; but the Works before us are amongst a thousand proofs that the Germans, as a nation, possess that which we cannot dispense with, unless we appropriate it for ourselves. They teach us by example not only how to collect facts, but how to arrange them. They make us feel that we have gained by criticism at least as much as we have lost; that those who walk in the steps of the great Scholar, who has well been called not the destroyer, but the restorer of Roman History, will give us back more than they have taken from us. The materials were already at hand in the works of Italians or of Englishmen-but what a contrast between Nibby and Niebuhr-between Bingham and Bunsen! It is not by translating German works, but by studying them with an English spirit-not by divesting ourselves of our English character, but by lighting it up with the Promethean spark of German research, that the chasm between the two nations can really be bridged over with advantage to either. And we trust

we shall not be suspected of national vanity, if we express our firm conviction, that the English History and Theology which may arise out of such a union would be as much greater than any thing which has yet appeared in Germany, as it would be than any thing which has yet appeared in England; and that so far from any dangerous result to Christian belief, amongst us, there is no prospect, humanly speaking, which holds out so fair a hope of a thoroughly deep and sound appreciation of the true ends and principles of Christianity, both by the spirit and the understanding, in the Church and in the World.

ART. VI.-Over-Population and its Remedy; or, an Inquiry into the Extent and Causes of the Distress prevailing among the Labouring Classes of the British Islands, and into the Means of Remedying it. By WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON. 8vo. London: 1846.

OUR UR chief subject of difference with Mr Thornton lies in the first word of his title-page, and the first lines of his book. By over-population,' he says, is to be understood, throughout the following pages, that condition of a country in which part of the inhabitants, though able-bodied ' and capable of labour, are permanently unable to earn a suffi'ciency of the necessaries of life.' We confess ourselves unable to understand this definition; and, even if this be our fault, and not the author's, we wish he had not adopted, as a comprehensive title for the evils which affect the labouring classes, a word which seems to us rather calculated to raise unnecessary controversies than to convey definite ideas. And we

are quite sure that if over-population' exists among us, Mr Thornton has not succeeded in the difficult task of pointing out its remedy.' But, viewing his work as what it more justly might profess to be an inquiry into many circumstances connected with the condition-of-England-question,'-particularly as regards the agricultural classes, with suggestions respecting measures now or lately under consideration for their relief, we have found in it much to instruct us, and not a little to praise, even where we are forced to disagree.

There is one sense, undoubtedly, in which the word over'population' may be used with sufficient, if not absolutely strict accuracy. Wherever the bad economy of labour causes it to be expended in part unproductively, there over-population

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may be said to exist. If, by the habits of a country, two men, with inferior skill and machinery, are required to execute work which one might perform, the labour of one of the two is redundant. Thus, in agriculture, (to employ the instance which appears most familiar to Mr Thornton, and is generally used by him for the purpose of illustration,) there is a certain proportion between capital and labour which, with the existing appliances of skill and machinery, may be termed the most advantageous. In the present state of agricultural skill, there is a certain extent of land which a certain number of labourers can cultivate to the greatest advantage; that is, with the greatest net return above wages and profits. The same land, divided between a much greater number of Cottiers, cultivating it by the spade, might yield a larger gross return; but the net return, over and above the wages of the cultivator, would be much less. Labour is not so productive in the latter as in the former case; and the land is over-peopled. In this sense, the handloom weavers form a class of redundant workmen. Ireland is over-peopled by Cottiers. Every country, indeed, suffers more or less from the same evil; for there is probably no country where, in some department or other of industry, many more hands are employed than would be necessary to create the greatest amount of surplus wealth, if labour were properly divided, and existing skill properly applied. Inveterate habits, monopolies, customs influencing the tenure of land, the slowness of the process by which surplus labour is absorbed, after the derangements occasioned by changes in fashion, and improvements in machinery,-all these are causes tending to produce and maintain over-population,' in this sense of the word.

But this is not Mr Thornton's meaning. He is not one of those who consider that the waste of labour is in itself, and of necessity, an evil. He is an admirer, as we shall by-and-by see, of the system of cultivation by small proprietors, or small tenants, under which a large proportion of labour is necessarily expended with little or no return. And we are fully prepared to agree with him thus far,-that the condition of a community in which much labour is expended for small returns is not, necessarily, an unhappy one. We can imagine a state of society in which industry, and skill, and intelligence, are exerted to the utmost pitch-in which capital is accumulated in comparatively few hands, and applied in the most advantageous manner-in which much surplus wealth exists, and riches and luxury aboundand yet the labourers, the mass of the community, may be habitually poor, discontented, improvident. On the other hand, it is equally possible to suppose a community in which land is