Marcus's calculations are not yet perfect, two and a half. There might be 'beautiful cemeteries with colonnades and flower-pots,' in which the patriot infanticide matrons might delight to take their evening walk of contemplation; and reflect what patriotesses they were, what a cheerful flowery world it was. Such is the scheme of Marcus; this is what he, for his share, could devise to heal the world's woes. A benefactor of the species, clearly recognisable as such; the saddest scientific mortal we have ever in this world fallen in with; sadder even than poetic Dante. His is a nogod-like sorrow; sadder than the godlike. The Chartist editor, dull as he, calls him demon author, and a man set on by the Poor-Law Commissioners. What a black, godless, wastestruggling world, in this once merry England of ours, do such pamphlets and such editors betoken! Laissez-faire and Malthus, Malthus and Laissez-faire: ought not these two at length to part company? Might we not hope that both of them had as good as delivered their message now, and were about to go their ways? For all this of the painless extinction,' and the rest, is in a world where Canadian Forests stand unfelled, boundless Plains and Prairies unbroken with the plough; on the west and on the east, green desert spaces never yet made white with corn; and to the overcrowded little western nook of Europe, our Terrestrial Planet, nine-tenths of it yet vacant or tenanted by nomades, is still crying, Come and till me, come and reap me! And in an England with wealth, and means for moving, such as no nation ever before had. With ships; with war-ships rotting idle, which, but bidden move and not rot, might bridge all oceans. With trained men, educated to pen and practice, to administer and act; briefless Barristers, chargeless Clergy, taskless Scholars, languishing in all court-houses, hiding in obscure garrets, besieging all antechambers, in passionate want of simply one thing, Work-with as many Half-pay Officers of both Services, wearing themselves down in wretched tedium, as might lead an Emigrant host larger than Xerxes' was! Laissez-faire and Malthus positively must part company. Is it not as if this swelling, simmering, never-resting Europe of ours stood, once more, on the verge of an expansion without parallel struggling, strug gling like a mighty tree again about to burst in the embrace of summer, and shoot forth broad frondent boughs which would fill the whole earth? A disease but the noblest of all,-as of her who is in pain and sore travail, but travails that she may be a mother, and say, Behold, there is a new Man born! True thou Gold-Hofrath,' exclaims an eloquent satirical German of our acquaintance, in that strange Book of his,* True thou Gold-Hofrath too crowded indeed! Meanwhile what portion ' of this inconsiderable Terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled ' and delved, till it will grow no more? How thick stands your 'population in the Pampas and Savannas of America; round 'ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes ' of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, 'Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One 'man, in one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him earth, 'will feed himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the 'Hengsts and Alarics of our still glowing, still expanding Europe; 'who, when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist and, like 'fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses of indomit'able living Valour; equipped, not now with the battle-axe and 'war-chariot, but with the steamengine and ploughshare? Where are they?-Preserving their Game!' * Sartor Resartus, b. iii. c. 4. THE END. |