COMPARATIVE SKETCHES OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

HAVING exhausted Russia and the Sclavonic races, with a glance at Aus- tria and Germany, the author of .Revelations of Russia takes up France and England, to consider their " contrasts and analogies." The book was written, he informs us, before the late Revolution in France, which he claims the merit of predicting ; and certainly he and not he alone) dimly foreshadowed changes in that country. As, however, the work depends upon observations extended over a long period, or broad sta- tistical views long since accessible, there is nothing to have prevented the composition of these rhetorical volumes within the present year ; only in such case the author would doubtless have predicted more specifically.

The title of the work does not convey a very distinct idea of its con- tents, or the objects of the writer • which objects, indeed, are various and independent enough, if we judge by what is done. One purpose is to show, by a broad statistical survey of civilized countries, that the well- being of the community at large—of the people—depends upon their po- litical freedom ; that men live longer, live better, consume more varied produce, have more money, and (with the exception of the United States) pay more taxes, in proportion to the constitutional character of their government and their influence over it. Another object is to urge that the advancement of Europe depends upon the good understanding of England and France; as each country in its.respective way sets an ex- ample to the European world, and both are able by their mere will to con- trol the despotic powers. Some half dozen chapters are devoted to the more direct resemblances or contrasts of France and England in their material power, national characteristics, social condition, and ideas of politics and government; which expositions are followed by a disquisition on the effect of institutions upon a country and of the reacting influence of race. The remainder of the book is of a less disquisitions' kind, consisting for the most part of personal sketches or comments upon contemporary public events. There is a survey of the life and character of Louis Philippe,—pressing hard enough upon the Citizen King : a chapter giving an account of the Spanish marriages, professing to furnish secret in- formation, but really containing little that is fresh, though deriving some novelty from the dramatic form into which it is thrown. The sketches of the parties and politicians of France is a paper attractive for its subject ; dealing with the circumstances that conduced to the late Revo- lution, and the characters of the men who influenced it, or were affected by it, for misfortune or advantage.

The characteristics of the writer are such as they appeared in Eastern Europe : there is the same rather imaginative breadth of view, the same full and rotund bnt somewhat verbose state-paper style; a similar at- tempt at exhibiting the philosophy of history and politics ; with great cleverness in the use of statistics. The book is hardly so attractive as its predecessor; and part of this may arise from the more haoknied nature of France and French politics and politicians at present. Ever since the Spanish marriages certainly, perhaps since the Syrian war and the affair of Pritchard, a good deal of not very favourable attention has been paid to Louis Philippe and his government. Its corruption has been pointed out, the selfishness of the Monarch touched upon, the leading men of France exhibited in periodical literature; and though the extent of the corruption or of the selfishness and still more of the national dissatisfac- tion were not apprehended till the result, yet the subject is now deficient in that novelty which characterized the author's views on the despotisms and peoples of Middle and Eastern Europe. Hence he may have been tempted to elaborate the philosophy of the topics too much, especially as the man- ner of his philosophy is not very taking in itself, belonging as it does to the extreme rhetorical school.

Notwithstanding the author's rather boastful enumeration of his oppor- tunities of seeing France and mixing with Frenchmen, we think the sta- tistical parts of the work better than the living descriptions. The facts in the following summary may not be accurate in their arithmetic, bet the general conclusion is independent of precise accuracy, and is remark- able-

" France exceeds in most things all the great European powers combined; but when we contrast France with Great Britain, we find her as far behind Great Britain as she is in advance of other Continental states.

" Thus, France exceeds the three powers in the extent of her trade. Great Bri- tain in her commerce doubles France.

" France doubles the three powers in the extent of her navy. Great Britain more than trebles France.

"In the extent of its middle class, France exceeds the Continent: France has 1,164,000 subjects enjoying an income above 211. Great Britain has more than two millions and a quarter enjoying upwards of 401. annually. " In the quantity of food consumed by its population, France averages double the quantity of wheat and double the quantity of sugar consumed by the popu- lation of the absolutely governed, states: in France 361 pounds of wheat, and 6 to 71 pounds of sugar are consumed per head. In the United Kingdom 886 pounds, (and taking only Great Britain, 446 pounds per head of wheat,) and 19

pounds of sugar, are consumed. „

Daring 1847, 68,000,0001. have been raised in France. The revenue of Rita- de, Prussia, and Austria, whose subjects are still more severely taxed in proportion to their ability to pay, is collectively 48,000,0001. The United Kingdom levies only MP/pillions of taxes; but as its income is computed at 550 millions, and that of France at 320 millions of pounds sterling, it is obvious that Great Britain could without greater pressure, raise double the present revenue of France. [It should have been stated, however, that many subjects of local or special tax- ation in England are in France discharged by the Gowitiment: were everything brought to a comparative account, it would be fowl, we think, that England pays the most.]

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" It is also worthy of remark, that in Russia more than a third of the whole revenue is derived from the brandy farms; which, when the low price at which it is sold, the profits of the brandy farmers, and the produce of illicit distillation are taken into account, suppose the consumption of a prodigious quantity of ardent spirits. "If we turn next to Prussia, attempted to be imposed on us as a specimen of model administration, we find twenty-four pints of distilled liquor the share of each individual; whilst in Ireland, the land of whisky, the average—mo, before Father Mathew's reign—is since only about seven; and in the United Kingdom, including London with its gin palaces, something ander six and a haff. If we draw a line through Europe, separating the Western and constitutional from the absolutely governed states of the Centre and of the East, we shall find that our British exports to Holland,-Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and France, not.. withstanding the illiberal tariffs of France and Spain, average three shillings for each individual, whilst for Central and Eastern Europe only one shilling and eight pence. " To the Mini= empire our exports are eightpence and a fraction for each inhabitant" Louis Philippe is painted badly enough, from first to last. The author tells the scandalous story of his reputed illegitimacy, with a leaning in its favour; and in his preface he asserts his disbelief of the alleged narrow circumstances of the dethroned Monarch.

"Louis Philippe now represents himself as almost penniless. It was so no. toriously his custom, when the wealthiest individual in the world, to speak of himself as in embarrassed circumstances, that he was popularly called in derision the pauvre pere de famille.' He has now a substantial motive for pleading poverty, in the hope of recovering, without deductions too absorbing, his sequestrated pro_ perty from the pity of the French people: a motive the writer would have re- spected if there had not been strong grounds for believing that the hoarded wealth he has placed in safety, is being employed to embroil this country with France. "Under these circumstances the following facts, recalled to the attention of the reader, will show what credit is due to the simulated poverty of the royal: exile.

"A few days before the Revolution broke out, the New York papers, then to England, announced that purchases to the total amount of one million dollars had been effected for Louis Philippe in that city.

"Armand Marrast has notonously of late discovered upwards of 20,0001. annuities invested in the French Funds, under an assumed name, by Louis Philippe, Is it to be believed that the Ex-King's foresight extended no further?"

The author considers the late Revolution favourable to the prospects of peace with France. Louis Philippe's Government had brought the financial condition of the country to so distressed a state, and induced such universal disgust among the people, that, however unwilling the King himself might have been to plunge into the uncertainties of war, no other resource would in'reality have been left him to divert attention from home affairs. The prospect from the Republic is only a chance of

war ; with Louis Philippe it was a certainty. •