THE MERCHANT has come to be, in the minds of all clear-sighted men, whether statesmen, political economists, or Christian philosophers, a name of power. His pursuit has always, indeed, been recog nized as a great and sure source of wealth. From the time when the Phonicians (Canaanites, that is, merchants,) spread their purples by the Tyrian seaside, and stretched the white sails of traffic along the shores of Italy and Spain, and beyond the pillars of Hercules to the tin mines of the Scilly Islands and coasts of Cornwall, down to this new century, when the New-Englander, quite as fearless and thrift-loving, finds his way with canvas to any distant arm of the ocean where a tenpenny nail can be sold, or a harpoon darted to advantage-commerce has been felt to be a chief accumulator of riches. But this is not all that commerce has done, just as riches in themselves are not the best possession of a people. It has borne a principal part in the great humanizing changes that have from time to time taken place in Society. An excellent and finished address, delivered by Mr. Winthrop lately before the "Boston Mercantile Association"- a practical discourse, but finished and classical, the thoughts at once of a scholar and man of the world-has some passages that touch rightly upon this subject, and might do something to make the despisers of trade among us change the "rude current of their opinions."

"If one were called on to say," remarks Mr.Winthrop, "what upon the whole, was the most distinctive and characterizing feature of the age in which we live, I think he might reply, that it was the rapid and steady progress of the influence of Commerce upon the social and political condi

tion of man. The policy of the civilized world is now everywhere and eminently a commercial policy. No longer do the nations of the earth measure their relative of their armies upon the land, or their consequence by the number and discipline armadas upon the sea. The tables of their imports and exports, the tonnage of their commercial marines, the value and variety of their home trade, the sum total of their mercantile exchanges, these furnish the standards by which national power and national importance are now marked and measured.

Even extent of territorial dominion is valued little, save as it gives scope and verge for mercantile transactions; and the great use of colonies is what Lord Sheffield declared it to be, half a century ago, the monopoly of their consumption, and the carriage of their produce.'

"Look to the domestic administration, or the foreign negotiation of our own, or any other civilized country. Listen to the debates of the two houses of the Imperial Parliament. What are the subjects of their gravest and most frequent discussions ? The successon of families? The marriage of princes? The conquest of provinces? of trade, the sliding scale, corn, cotton, The balance of power?-No, the balance sugar, timber-these furnish now the homespun threads upon which the statesmen of modern days are obliged to string the pearls of their parliamentary rhetoric.

What is

"Cross over to the continent. the great fact of the day in that quarter? Lo, a convention of delegates from ten of the independent states of Germany, forgetting their own political rivalries and social feuds, flinging to the winds all the fears and jealousies which have so long sown dragon's teeth along the borders of neighboring states of disproportioned strength and different forms of government-the lamb lying down with the lion-the little city of Frankfort with the proud kingdom of Prussia—and all entering into a solemn league to regulate commerce and secure

markets!

What occupy the thoughts of the diplomatists, the Guizots, and Aberdeens, and Metternichs? Reciprocal treaties of commerce and navigation-treaties to advance an honest trade, or some

times (I thank Heaven!) to abolish an in

famous and accursed traffic-these are the

engrossing topics of their protocols and ultimatums. Even wars, when they have occurred, or when they have been rumored, for a quarter of a century past, how almost uniformly has the real motive, whether of the menace or of the hostile act, proved to be-whatever may have been the pretence -not, as aforetime, to destroy, but to secure, the sources of commercial wealth. Algiers, Affghanistan, China, Texas, Oregon, all point more or less directly, to one and the same pervading policy throughout the world-of opening new markets, securing new ports, and extending commerce and navigation over new lands and new

seas."

"The commercial spirit," he observes again, has rendered noble service to mankind. Its influence in promoting domestic order, in stimulating individual industry, in establishing and developing the great principle of the division of labor its appropriation of the surplus products of all mechanical and all agricultural industry for its cargoes-its demand upon the highest exercise of invention and skill for its vehicles-its appeal to the sublimest science for its guidance over the deep-its imperative requisition of the strictest public faith and private integrity-its indirect, but not less powerful operation in diffusing knowledge, civilization and freedom over the world-all conspire with that noble conquest over the spirit of war which I have described, in commending it to the gratitude of man, and in stamping it with the crown-mark of a divinely appointed instrument for good. As long as the existing state of humanity is unchanged-as long as man is bound to man by wants, and weaknesses, and mutual dependencies, the voice which would cast out this spirit,

will come from the cloistered cells of superstition, and not from the temples of a true religion. But that it requires to be tempered, and chastened, and refined, and elevated, and purified, and Christianized, examples gross as earth, and glaring as the sun, exhort us on every side."

This is the true idea of this great department of human employment. Beyond a question, commerce has been, and is now, the handmaid of civilization. By exchanging the rich products of different climes, it increases the stores of wealth in a nation, and consequently the means of cultivation and refinement. By

introducing into one country the arts and science of another, it diffuses and equalizes the gifts of knowledge, stimulates invention, and makes the general mind than that which preceded it. By renderof one age wiser and more enterprising ing nations better acquainted with each other, and making common between them the ties of interest, it overlays the old incentives to war with manifold considerations of peace. But commerce has never employed half the advantages that should belong to her. She has seemed to act alone for selfish, if not present, purposes-for profits-profits-profitsnot with an eye also to great moral and social consequences. These notable effects spoken of have been rather inevitable results than the products of care and design. This of course comes from the mode in which THE MERCHANT has usually been educated, and the course marked out for him. Merchants and money-dealexceptions like a Roscoe, a Rogers, a ers in every class of traffic-with but rare Sprague or a Carey-have (to say nothing of the love of gain) cared more for the reputation of success in business, than for those accessory accomplishments in themselves, or influences of commerce upon the world, which should bring this so vast and varied a pursuit to be considered an intellectual, elevated, noble occupation. Thus is commerce denied her legitimate honors in the history of human progress, because she has refused to recognize them; and those which she might easily have added from without her own sphere, she has hardly thought of.

The personal accomplishments and public spirit by which the higher class of mercantile pursuits would be greatly ennobled as a department of human life, and made more influential, must indeed be built of many important qualifica

tions.

statesman.

The great merchant should be half a His occupation of itself, when conducted on its broadest scale, demands the exercise of that wide and comprehensive vision requisite for the operations of a chief Minister, or a General whose plans of campaigns cover half a continent. If in addition to his own fortunes he would understand and advance the great interests of his country, his qualities and acquirements must be much ampler. To give him such capacities what and how great training is necessary. For our own part, we would ad

vocate the establishment-in our schools and colleges of a distinct branch of commercial studies, with its own professorships, by which those designing to follow the more enterprising pursuits of trade should have their grasp of mind enlarged, and their views rendered more liberal and enlightened. We do not know why commercial knowledge-a knowledge embracing the products and essential interests of different countries, their relations to each other, together with the principles of maritime and international law-why a pursuit thus covering the world with its observations and its action, is not a science as much as any other, and to be mastered with as severe and regular study.

This much for his department of life as an occupation;-but the merchant should have more than this would argue. He should be accomplished in many things, like any other person, in the community, of cultivated mind. His pursuits must necessarily be very engrossing; but they need not be so to the exclusion of those gentlemanly tastes and acquire ments which would place the mercantile business-in its more general departments -on a level, intellectually and socially, with the learned professions. Why should not a merchant have cultivated a very thorough knowledge of literature, a taste in architecture-one of the noblest of studies a love for sculpture and paintings, a delight in landscape and garden ornation. These things should form a part of his education; and they need not afterwards interfere with the full prosecution of business. He has wealth to support his tastes, which many, if not most, professional and sedentary men have not;-why should the sense of the beautiful slumber in him? Not many, perhaps, are formed to have a taste for all these; but some part of them must appeal to the perceptions of every one ;—and why should the man of traffic pour away the wine of life, satisfying himself with the dregs, though they be of gold?

If to this statesman-like scope of vision and these refinements of mind, he add an understanding of the great moral and social interests of his country and the world, and the abiding disposition to help them forward, what one of all the professions which men follow, would be more worthy of honor, or of envy, than the profession of THE MERCHANT?

These thoughts have arisen, in part, from perusing the address of Mr. Winthrop. They might be followed out into an ample range of considerations, but we must choose another occasion. It is sufficient for us now to have indicated what the life of the merchant should be. There are, however, two or three works on our table which deserve some remarks in this connection, more particularly in view of the practical part of the subject, the means by which the enterprise of the merchant shall be informed with the most clear and extended knowledge in his immediate occupation. The first of these is M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce, and Commercial Navigation, (Longman and Co., London,) a fine edition of which has been published by a Philadelphian house. The American edition is indeed fully equal to the English, with the advantage of being much cheaper.

This is, beyond question, a very able work-perhaps the ablest of its kind yet issued in Europe. The plan of course was not new. The plan of distilling the spirit and brief essentials of all kinds of science into the condensing receivers of dictionary paragraphs arose among the French Savans. The Encyclopædists were ambitious of saying something about everything. So great an interest and science as Commerce could not of course be neglected, and dictionaries professing to treat all commercial matters were prepared at an early day. The first, indeed, was executed before the time of the Encyclopædists. It was "The Grand Dictionnaire de Commerce," compiled in 1723, by the Inspector of customs, M. Savary, and published in two volumes, folio. Another volume was added in 1730. It contained many valuable facts for that period, but more than half of it was composed of matter quite foreign to the object proposed, relating as much to manufactures as to commerce. It was, moreover, neither proved nor very well arranged. A new one was projected in 1769, but never executed. The Encyclopédie Méthodique, published, in Paris, in 1783, contained a Dictionary of Commerce in three of its quarto volumes. Many parts of it were valuable; but the greater part was borrowed from Savary, much of whom had then become obsolete. The best of the remainder was taken from a work published two years before at Amsterdam. The first English Commercial Dictionary was Postle

thwayt's, published in 1751. It was mainly a mere translation of Savary, and of course not much of an improvement. Another was issued in 1766, by Thomas Mortimer, then vice-consul for the Netherlands. It was better than Postlethwayt's in its arrangement, but of little more value :-half its articles were on purely geographical or other subjects, not at all connected with commerce. It is not too much to say that M'Culloch's work, in the completeness and order of its statistics, and the clear, matter-of-fact and able style in which they are written, far surpasses all that preceded it. It is a volume of 1269 pages, large octavo, in close print, with a supplement of 152 pages more-touching in brief and lucid statements on nearly everything that can in any way interest or affect the merchant. The amount of information it contains for the general reader is surprising; taken in connection with the Geographical Dictionary, by the same author, it is a most valuable store for one concerned in no species of traffic, but desirous of being widely informed. The general qualities of the work cannot, indeed, be more happily stated than by a passage from Dr. Johnson's preface to Rolt's Commercial Dictionary, published in 1761, mainly an abridgment of Postlethwayt.

"Though immediately and primarily written for the merchants, this Commercial Dictionary will be of use to every man of business or of curiosity. There is no man who is not in some degree a merchant; who has not something to buy and something to sell, and who does not, therefore, want such instructions as may teach him the true value of possessions or commodities. The descriptions of the productions of the earth and water which this volume contains, may be equally pleasing and useful to the speculatist with any other Natural History. The descriptions of ports and cities may instruct the geographer as well as if they were found in books appropriated only to his own science; and the doctrines of funds, insurances, currency, monopolies, exchanges, and duties, is so necessary to the politician, that without it he can be of no use either in the council or the senate, nor can speak or think justly either on war

or trade.

"We, therefore, hope that we shall not repent the labor of compiling this work, nor flatter ourselves unreasonably, in predicting a favorable reception to a book which no condition of life can render useless, which may contribute to the advan

tage of all that make or receive laws, of all that buy or sell, of all that wish to keep or improve their possessions, of all that desire to be rich, and all that desire to be wise."

JOHNSON, Preface to Rolt's Dict. Whatever it may be to the general reader, it is certain that no merchant can be entirely master of his occupation, still less, of the true interests of his country, who does not possess this work of Mr. M'Culloch, or something like it. We have observed some errors in it, but they chiefly arise from later changes in the cir cumstances of the matters spoken of; and the amount of its statistical and descriptive matter is immense. The only drawback, in our own view, is its Free Trade opinions, of which it is an uncompromising supporter.

the same field is a series of papers preAnother work of great excellence in pared at the command of the British Government by John Macgregor, Esq., one of the joint Secretaries of the British Board of Trade, and presented to both Houses of Parliament. It bears the general title of "Commercial Statistics: A Digest of the productive resources, commercial legislation, customs, tariffs, navigation, port and quarantine laws and charges, shipping, imports and exports, and the moneys, weights and measures of all nations, including all British Commercial Treaties with foreign States, collected from authentic records, and consolidated with special reference to British and Foreign products, trade and navigation." The first two volumes, which were laid before Parliament in parts, contain about 2,800 pages, and embrace Austria, Denmark, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, the Italian States, the Ottoman Empire, Greece, African States, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Spain and Portugal. United States, and of itself occupies a The third part is devoted entirely to the volume of 1,427 royal octavo pages, equal to half the space devoted to all the other nations above named. This fact shows most conclusively how large a place we hold in the rank of industrial and commercial nations. Mr. Macgregor has shown himself in this work to be a diligent and able statician,-not surpassed, perhaps, by any one in England. It is compiled with great care, and with sufficient arrangement. Its articles do not embrace-as was not their aim-such a multitude of things as M'Culloch's work, spoken of above, not professing to be a

Dictionary of Commerce; but many of them are for that reason far more complete and comprehensive. It is a compilation which the merchant whose enterprise extends to distant countries should not do without.

In our own country a work has been issued for some years of nearly equal excellence, in a scientific point of view, with either of the above; and as a practical expositor of the doings of the commercial world, and statistics constantly changing with the growth and change of cities and countries, it is undoubtedly superior. On certain topics, where the statements must be more or less permanent, many of the articles in the compilations of M'Culloch and Macgregor will be found more complete; but in respect to the current transactions of commerce, and the multitude of new facts daily coming to our knowledge, "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review," the several volumes of which we have been perusing with great interest, is the most useful of the three.

This journal was established in July 1839. It has now been extended to fourteen large volumes, each embracing about sixteen hundred closely printed octavo pages, and it has been uniformly sustained with promptitude, and the papers have been marked with ability. During the period when it was commenced, such a work in this country was peculiarly required. Although the development of the various physical interests of the country had been almost unexampled, the precise character and amount of the interests thus developed were but partially known.

It is true that occasional acts had been passed by the National and some of our State legislatures, for the purpose of collecting the statistics of particular branches of production, and documents had occasionally been published, under their authority, embodying information respect ing our commercial relations, but the statistical matter thus collected was not comprehensive, or always correct, and it was moreover necessarily fragmentary in its character. Such English statistical works as treated of our commerce but slightly supplied the deficiency, because of the limited circulation to which they had attained, their republication among us not having then been commenced, to say nothing of their being less satisfactory on our country than upon the countries of Europe, or of the disadvantage of many

of their statements being constantly rendered somewhat obsolete by current changes.

The design of this journal, addressed itself to the labor of reviewing the progress of commercial history, and exhibiting in a classified form the existing facts connected with commercial and mercantile matters, which lay scattered in a confused mass or buried amid the rubbish of official papers throughout the various parts of the Union, as well as abroad. The merchants of the nation, if they found it necessary to consult records bearing upon their interests, were obliged to have recourse either to the necessarily ephemeral productions of the newspaper press, or to Congressional and Parliamentary speeches or documents from time to time, from the absence of any permanent journal embracing that particular and wide range of topics. The permanent volumes of statistics published in Europe, being imported in small numbers, could not, as we have before said, meet the wants of the mercantile public. This deficiency seems to have been supplied by Mr. Hunt's Magazine. It is designed to contain all the principal matter in any way bearing upon the commerce and resources of this country and the world, and to constitute for the merchant, political economist and statesman, a permanent record to which they can severally resort for the information most required. The Magazine, accordingly, seems to have been encouraged by a satisfactory measure of the public confidence. It has beyond question deserved it. In looking over the bound volumes we have been surprised to see the great number and importance of the topics which somewhere in its course it has embraced. Most of its articles have been contributed by able writers in various parts of the country, and it has been quoted with confidence and respect by works of authority both here and in Europe. The classification of the various departments of the Magazine, is adapted to embrace the most interesting information in the most acceptable form, so that the inquirer may find in the several departments, conveniently arranged, for present and future reference, whatever may be sought regarding the subjects of which they treat. Each monthly issue has contained several elaborated papers, embracing historical, descriptive, or argu. mentative sketches of some important topic connected with commercial litera