LAING S RESIDENCE IN NORWAY.

ALTHOUGH the English public actually knows nothing of Norway, there is much that is worth knowing in the political and social con- dition of the people, as well as in their history and the nature of their country. It seems much more probable, as Mr. LAING asserts, that the origin of modern constitutional governments, and of English freedom especially, is to be sought for amongst the Sea Kings and the direct progenitors of the Normans, than in the fin'ests of Germany. From a very early period, they had a rather retitled system of Jurisprudence. Certainly not less if not more power was lodged in the assemblies of the people (Thing), than in our Parliaments. Its meeting was not optional or accidental, but was provided for by the very nature of its functions. The cha- racter of the climate and the country, which virtually prevented the erection of fortresses, nipped in the bud the growth of a power- ful nobility ; and the law of equal partition not only effectually prevented the foundation of the feudal system, but is a most inte- resting subject of present investigation. In Norway, we can trace for more than a thousand years the effects of a system of distributing property which two of the most enlightened nations— France and America—have adopted within the memory- of living men. In the language of the North, too, will be found the root of all the Germanic and Saxon tongues. And we suspect that the philosophical philologist will be able distinctly to trace the germ of a language, which in its original structure admitted of as much flexibility and native compound as the Greek itself, but was stopped in its development by the mixture of many peoples, and by the circumstance of many of its ideas being of foreign deriva- ti,n, which caused the simultaneous introduction of word and image.

These are subjects of speculative interest. We have a con- nexion with Norway of a more practical and living nature. It was one of those countries which Tory tyranny and incapacity of fore- sight, by its true representative Lord CASTLEREAGH, made over to another, with as little compunction as a pigstye or a pig. Luckily for Norway, NAPOLEON was then making head against the Allied Sovereigns ; and when the Norwegians took up arms to defend their nationality, it was found convenient to guarantee their rights; and England and Russia are bound for all ages, like knights-errant of old, to maintain the constitution of Norway "against all comers." • Happily, this constitution is not only worth defence, but of the closest examination and study of every Englishman, who, reading the signs of the times, perceives that great changes are impending, and feels that a combination of knowledge, reflection, and sagacity, will be necessary to conduct Us safely through them. Let us, with Mr. LAING'S assistance, endeavour to give a general account. of it. The Storthing, or Parliament of Norway, is the supreme power of the state. Every native Norwegian of twenty-five years of age, who has been for live years owner or life-renter of land pay- ing tax, or who is a burgess of any town, or possesses there a house or land to the value of 150 dollars (30/.), is entitled to elect and be elected : but for this last privilege, he must not be under thirty years of age, must have resided for ten years in Norway, and must not hold certain offices or be upon the pension-list. District election takes place; the electors of each district choose a certain number of election-wen; who meet and elect the repre- sentative. The number of Storthing members is variable in theory, depending upon the number of electors in a county or division ; but no division can send more than four. Each member is paid for his attendance (one and a half dollar a day, and travelling expenses); and with each member is elected a substitute, who in case Of illness or other non-capacity of attendance in the principal, immediately takes his place. On assembling, the first proceeding of the Storthing is to elect its President and Secretary : the next, to elect what is equivalent to our House of Peers—the Lagthing, or Upper House.

" This consists of one-fourth of the members of the Storthing, being in the present assembly twenty-four, who are voted for by the whole body ; and they form a separate house, and sit in a different chamber, with their own president and secretary, also elected by themselves. The functions of the Lagthing are not exactly the same as those of our House of Lords, but are more confined. No bill can have its initiative there. It can only receive bills front the other Louse, the Odelsthing, deliberate upon what is sent up to it, and approve or reject, or send back the bill with proposed amendments. It is also the court before which, aided by the Hoiest ret Court, whieh is an independent branch of the state, the lower house, the Odelsthing, may impeach ministers of state. The composition of this House of Lords, which doss its business quite as well as a house of bishops, dukes, and barons, may be an object of curiosity to our British Radicals. It consists in the present Storthing of mght persons in civil offices, five in clerical functions, two lawyers. and nine bawler or peasants—in all twenty-four. They ai-e not elected to the Lagthing with any reference to profession or rank, but simply front the opinion their fellow 'limbers in the Storthing may have formed of their judgineut, knowledge, and fitness for deli- berative function."

The mode of procedure differs considerably from that of our Parliament.; and besides the smaller extent of the business to be done, the superior capacity of the Storthingmen to do it, and the lesser numbers of the assembly, it will be seen that its division into committees renders it a fin more effective working instrument.

" The Stoi thing consists, in fact, of three liousrs ; the Lagthing of twenty- four members, the Odelsthing of seventy. two, and the entire Storthing, con- sisting of the whole ninety-six united in one Imme. In this latter, all motions are made and discussed • and, if entertained, are referred to cominitteeS to re- port upon to the Sturthing. The report, when !received back from its com- mittee, is debated and voted upon ; anil if improved, a bill in terms of the re- port is ordeled to be brought into the Odelsthing. This Loihe entertains or rejects the propowd hill; frames and discusses the enactments, if it is not re- jected in tofu ; and sends it op to the Lagthing, or upper house, to be delibe- rated upon, approved, rejected, or amended. The Storthing appoints standing Coinniittees at the beginning of the session for each branch of the public busi- ness. These have to ievise and report upon the proceedings of each depart- Ment during the preceding three years ; and every motion or petition to Slur. thing is, if not rejected at once, referred to the pioper committee in the first instance to report upon the house."

The following are some of the principal functions of the Storthing. It will be seen that several of the details are exclu- sively adapted to the condition of Norway.

The Parliament, or Storthing, is elected and assembled once its three years, and sits for three months, or until the business is despatched. A special or ex- traordinary Storthing may be summoned in the interval, if extraordina y cir- cumstances, as the death of the Sovereign, war or peace, should require it ; but its powers do not extend to any altera in the laws or constitution. Each St.ething settles the taxes 1r the ensuing three years; enacts, repeals, or alters laws ; opens loans on the credit of the state ; fixes the appropriation ant adminis- tration of the revenue ; giants the fixed SUMS to be applied to the different branches of expenditure—the establishments of the King, the Viceroy, or members of the royal family; revises all pay and pension lists, and all civil and clerical promotions, and makes such alterations as it deems proper in any into im grants made since the former Storthing. It also regulates the currency, apptents live revisors, who shall every year examine all accounts of Government, and publish punted abstracts of them. Thele are laid before it verified copies of all treaties, and the minutes of all public departments, excepting those of the highest mili- tary command. The Storthing impeaches and tries before a of its own body all ministers of state, judges, and also its own members. Besides these great and controlling powers, fixed by the ground-latv, as it is called, passed anal agreed to by the King and the nation on the 17th May 1814, the Storthing receives the oaths of the King on coining of age or ascending the throne, or of any regents appointed doling a minority ; and in case of a failure of the royal line, it could proceed, as in 1514, to elect, in conjunction with Sweden, a new dynasty. • • A Coulsellor of State may, on the part of the executive, give in writing any pia pasals for new laws; but has no vote; and the initiative of laws is not vested in Government alone, either in theory or practice,—although it has mani- fested a strong desire, ever since this constitution began to operate, to obtain the abrogation of this part of the ground-law, but without success. In addi- tion to these extensive legislative aunt-controlling powers, the Storthing enjoys a right not known in any other European monarchy. After a bill has been passed in the .0delsthing or lower house' it is sent to the Lagthing or upper house, where it is deliberated upon and passed, rejected, or sent back with amendments to the lower house, nearly as o•-r two Houses of Parliament; it then requires the sanction of the King to b nie law. But if at bill has passed through both divisions in three successive Storthings, on the third occasion it becomes the law of the laud without the royal assent. The ground-law, sworn Os between the king and the people in 1811, fixes WA defines this right so dis- tinctly, that it cannot be got over, without overturning that compact. It pre- sumes that, if, during six successive years, the nation by its representatives

three times di:elates a measure beneficial, the king's ministers must he wrong, and the nation right. The right has not remained dormant. The abolition of

hereditary nobility in Norway was made law by its exertion. « * The Storthing meets on the first business day of Februaty, anti continues its session until April GO. All the meetings now described take place sun jure,

by the terms of the constitution ; anal nut under any writ or proclamation from the King. An extraordinary Smalling, convened lay royal authority, can only pass interiin acts, until the next regular Storthing, by which they must be rati- fied, in miler to continue in force. The election and meeting of the regular Italy cannot be postponed or controlled in any way by the executive power, and do not depend on any shape on its cooperation.

But this legislative government for and by the people is not all. In Norway there are no tithes and no dissent.- In Norway the press is perfectly free, though every man is responsible for what he publishes. For treason or blasphemy he is amenable to justice; but the ground-law declares that to constitute the offence it must be open and intentional. Defamation must also be open, inten- tional, and false, to constitute the offence. The Norwegians are paying off their debt ; nevertheless their taxes are light, and chiefly direct : the wine and brandy of countries more favoured by • climate are brought cheaper to them by sea than they can be pur- chased by the natives of the producing country themselves, what with internal imposts and land-carriage. In Norway justice is brought home to every man's door. In every parish there is a local court, called the Court of Mutual Agreement, before which all causes must be stated, and the facts agreed upon ; anti a party dis- liking the suggestion of the Commissioner, may appeal from his decision, or rather recommendation, to other courts, though at the risk of paying the costs-if evidently wrong : but the question before - the superior courts is narrowed to one of law ; from the original statement there is no appeal, nor is any alteration in it admited. In Norway judges must pronounce a Judgment in six weeks; and they are responsible for their judgments. They are liable to have their decisions reviewed before the Supreme Court, and to • Peasant" is not exactly the word, though Mr. LAING uses it : a loader is rather a freeholder or householder. be punished for negligence, ignorance, or any obvious error. In Norway local self-government is established upon the most extensive scale. And all this unbounded power of the people works adtnirably for the people. We do not appeal to Mr. LAING solely for this assertion, for it may be said he is prejudiced. We rely upon that goodnatured but bigoted Tory Mr. 13Amiow junior. His generals:haracter of the Norwegians 'oust be impre.sed upon all who have read his boil, but the exact tertns of his closing apostrophe may be forgotten.—" Farewell, ye free, and happy, and :contented sons of the meuntains ! May no intruders distitrb your peaceful cottages with wild and pernicious theories, that lead -only to confusion and ruin !" In his scampering mode of travel- ling, and ignorance of the language, this yenng gentleman evi- dently had not learned that the " free sens of the mountains" had got all that the " wildest and roost pernicious theorists" in England now require, and more than many if them were dreaming of at the time he wrote.

Besides the history of the past and the ponies of the present, the sceial condition of the Nerwegians is worth examinitry. The people combine much of the real advantages of modern refinement with an antique and patrialchal simplicity which carries one hack to the middle ages. They have their guitars and their gallopades, their papers and their penny magazine ; ladies of the first respeet- ability ply the spinning-wheel ; they sprinkle the naked floor with the fresh green ends of fir branches, as cur ancestors did, and perhaps for the same reason—to keep Ike dirt from the shoes off the beards. As in Norway there is iittle wealth and no poverty, or rather no want, ntul consequently much real equality, the gen- try, or those who would be thought so, have only one mole ofappear- ing different from their countrymen : they wear clothes of foinign manufacture—lime less genteel persons of homespun. The ladies, as in the olden time in England, esteem it a mark of hospitality and politeness to wait upon their guests,—a practice !bat has led supelficial travellers to e,nclude that the sex is unduly de- graded. The ceremonial forums of puli!eness, which have ceased amongst the upper classes of England, and whieh the luwer never bad, are practised in Norway throughout society. Common la- bourers, fishermen, arid private soldiers, when they meet, not only salute each other with a bow, lint remove the hut. This is care- fully taught to children, and schoolboys salute each other in the street. After meals, every one misses from table and shakes hands, with the complimentary phrase of " Takfor mud "--" Thanks for the meal," or " II e1 bekomme"—" may it do you good." Ilus- baed and wife shake hands and say so to each other. The infant is taught to say " Tak for mad " to its mother. And there are other forms of politeness universally practised. Yet with all this punctilio there is no stiffness. The distinct lines of society give every one his own place ; the general diffusion of property, and the near equality in the manner of living, (for servants of all kinds board in the house and form part of the family,) prevent any offensive distinction, and effectually binder pretence, and striving after appearances. When persons assemble in company, there are no awkward pauses, no forced attempts to talk; every one seems to have something to say, and says it. What is better than all, people there "have not two sets of manners, as we see hi England among persons even far tesove the middle classes ; one set for home use—rude, selfish, ano frequently surly ; and another set

for company—stiff; constrained, too formally polite, and evidently

not habitual. The manners here are habitually good even among

the lower ranks."

Our remarks upon the more striking points of Mr. LAING% sub- ject have kept us too long from his work ; which is the most

valuable book of travels that has been published for some years,

and contains more matter than any volume we have lately met with. The author is neither a common man nor a common tra- veller. He appears to have a competent knowledge of geology, botany, and political economy; he is evidently skilled both in the science and practice of agriculture; and he possesses a wide

acquaintance with the arts of life. He is a shrewd, clear-headed, unprejudiced man, with good sound sense; he is a practised ob- server and thinker ; without any ot' the arts of composition, his

style is plain, easy, and animated, from the clearness of his ideas and the natural vigour of his mind ; whilst the shrewdness of his sense frequently produces the effect of humour or wit. 1Vith all these qualifications, our author set about writing on Norway in -the proper way. He did not whisk through the country like a bird of passage, but remained stationary there for two years. Having passed the summer of 1834 in traversing the Southern and Mid- land parts of Norway, in a carriole,—noting the characters of its scenery, observing the general appearances of the country and the

manners of the people, criticizing their agricultural and domestic practices, and narrating the customary occurrences of travellers,— winter overtook him in the neighbourhood of Drontheim. Instead

of hurrying off by the first vessel, or locating himself in the capital, Mr. LAING made arrangements to board and lodge with the chief executive officer of a country district; and spent his time in perfecting himself in the language, reading the national literature, studying the Norwegian constitution and institutions from books and conversation, visiting the families of the vicinity, and sledging over that natural railroad hard frozen snow. In the next summer, he took a farm for a twelvemonth; managed it in the Norwegian way, lived in the Norwegian fashion, mixed with the natives as a native landholder, and took various excursims through the country. In February 1836, -he bade adieu to his farm, and started for Christiania, to be present at the meeting of the Storthing, and inspeet its Working ; after which he returned home, and has published his Resideace 1,1 Norway ; whiell we earnestly recommend as a most valuable contribution to our stolid literature.

We have already indicated sorele of the subjects the. Mr. LAING handles, but we have left very niany Winnentioned altogether; and even of those we have dwelt upon, the striking points alone have been alluded to. The length to which this notice has already run, must prevent our attempting- a detail of the numerous topica he treats of; but we will endeavour, by a few unconnected extreas, to give an idea of their variety and of the author's manlier.

NOR WAY AND ENGLISH NIO NG.

July '28.-1 amused myself yesterday evening by wailing over my land- lord's (an innkeeper's) farm. I suppose there may be abon a hundred acres cleared of bushes, of which two •thirds at least me under grass, natural, nut sawn, and preserved fro hay, which the peop:e are now busy iu As the land is dry, and has not been top-die.“eth the qitantity is ve, y small iu proportion to the extent ; the is:infra! grasses not attaiaing auy length under such eh cmnstanees. The cutting is excellent. The ground is shaVen ES' close as a ,gentleman's lawn ot bowling-green. They use a shorter scythe blade t11311 we do- If one considers the length of our Gollillion seythe-blatle, it be evident that the heel of it only can cut close to the ground. The 'mint and one-third of the blade are sticking up in the air, and what is cut by that part is cut too high. Look at one of our mowers at work. It is evident that he cannot, without great exertion and fatigue, keep his ythe close to the gruntal for its whole len;.;th. The point is in the middle of the stems of grass, and is working to waste, especially at the end of his sweep ; and if the point wet., prolonged in the direction iu which the blade stands, it ivould he flourishing over his head. The short Wale saves the ridiculous sweep or semicircle of our mowers, one-half of which is working to Ivaste either of time or of grass.

TR A VELLI NG IN NOR NV V.

Sundset, August th1.-1 set off this morning from Drivestuen. The ex- pense of travellug in my present style is half a dollar per day fir man and horse. I live, to be sure, and so does in these, in the comma, manner, which is eel taut Tv mit the English one ; hut whoever has travelkd in the Highlands, or evea the Lowlands of Scotland twenty yeat s ago, has no right to complain of his accommodation here. An Englishman, Inert in the midst of that peen- :mention to cleanliness and nicety which, even now, is ahno-t exeludvely English, will find inuell to horrify him in a Noi wegian inn ; but such getale- men me scarcely in a situation to judge of the habits of a people. 'They have been trained in a very nice, cleanly, little world, bounded, perhaps, by the Trent, or, at most, the Angel at Ferrybridge on the north, and the Ship inn at Dover on the south. It isseareely lair to compare the state of manners and habits of all European nations with this standard. Ite who will travel fairly must eat what is placed before hint, and sleep where there is a bed to lie dowa upon. If his sheets and his food are tlirty, a plunge at day- lit eak in tl:e clear burn, and a good digestion, will remedy all. I doubt if a traveller would at present be so well accommodated in our remoter Highlands. The dMry pm- ducts are all chair ; and butter is such that any one may venture on it. Fish, eggs, wild strawberries, and the moltebeer, which will keep fur is year, and de- serve a place on our housekeepers' shelves better dein in of our jams and preserves, are all excellent things, which cookiug- cannot spoil to the most dainty traveller. There is, doubtless, a scarcity of many articles very impor- tant to comfort :and cleanliness. Pottery-ware, plates, dishes, bowls, are coarse, and not in the abundance we are accustomed to. Knives, forks, spoons, are also on the minimum side of the account as to comfot t and nicety. If we will not buy their timber, how can the-e People buy our pottery and hardware? If the traveller judges fairly, and considers what he actually finds, asnit,ILitilhescoorst and difficulty of bringing together these household articles in a wegian household, he will find much to admire. The sense of comfort, clean- liness, and order in domestic concerns appears to me more generally developed among the working class in this country than in Scotlautl. The wooden floors and side-ware, the abundance of glass windows in the meanest habitations, and the outside store-rooms and accommodations distinct from the dwelling apart- ments, keep the inmates, especially the females, and their habits of living, in a much more cleanly and orderly state, than it is possible for those of the same class in Scotland to enjoy, with their earthen floors, and roofs, and side-walls, their single pane of glass window, and their single room fur all ages and sexes, to cook, and eat, and sleep in, and to hold all the clothes and stores of the fa- Mi!y.

HINTS TO SCOTTISH AGRICULTURIS

The harvest work in this district, and I believe all over Norway, is well done; and parts of their management might be adopted with advantage in our late districts, where so much grain is lost or damaged almost every autumn by wind or rain. For every ten sheaves a pole of light strong wood, about the thickness of the handle of a garden-rake, and about nine feet in length, is fixed in the ground by an iron-shod borer : it costs here almost nothing. A man sets two sheaves on the ground, against the stem, and impales all the rest upon the pole, one above the other, with the heads hanging downwards. The pole enters before the band of each sheaf, and comes out at the bottom ; the sheaf is put on with a pitchfork, and a whole field is picketted in this way with the greatest ease and as fast as cut. The crop is in perfect safety as soon as it is on the poles; no rain or damp can heat or make it grow. Only a single sheaf is exposed to the wet. It hangs with its head downwards, is open on all sides to the air and wind, and thus dries as fast as the rain wets it. Gales of wind cannot shake it, making the heads of the sheaves dash against one another, which often happens to corn standing in stooks; there is also not half of the handling and pitching about of the sheaves as in our harvest work ; in which each sheaf is first dragged' to the stook, and afterwards thrown into the cart. Here a sledge or car, on low wheels, comes along the pole, which is lifted with all its sheaves, and laid into it at once; and each pole, when in the barn, is a tally for a threave of ten sheaves. The crop is all necessarily brought at once into large barns, on account of the deep snow in winter. The straw must be well withered and quite dry when housed, which without this plan could seldom be effected. The sheaves are somewhat less than ours.

Shearers here make good work, cut low, and all back-handed; that is, they grasp the corn with the back of the left hand towards the hook, not the palm, ES with us; thus only the stalks contained in the hand can be cut over at one stroke. With us much more;almost an arinful,lis pressed against the idge of the hook, and cut over,- the greater part of which is strewed about the field, and lost in carrying it to tine band ; for it is only what the grasp can manage that comes safely to the sheaf.

EFFECTS OF THE BRITISH FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETIES.

Being in want of books, and of a few other articles, which I could not find in our village, I went to town, that is, to Druntheim, for a few days. I was surprised, on inquiring at the only bookseller's shop for a New Testa- ment in the Norwegian tongue, to find that he kept none. I thought at Bret he had misunderstood me; but really found that he did not keep any of late years. As he understood German, I asked him how, in a population of twelve thousand people, the only bookseller kept no stock of Testaments and Bibles. He sai I that country booksellers did not find it answer, as the Bible Society in London hail onee set out a stock which was sold much lower than the trade could afford ; and it was only after the Society's Bibles were sold that they could get clear of what they had on hand ; hence they could not venture to keep any now. It is plain, if any benevolent society were to supply a parish

i

with boots and shoes below prime cost, until all the shoemakers n the palish had turned to other employments, the parish would soon be barefooted, and that they would do more harm than goal unless they had funds to continue the supply for ever. This bookseller, a very respectable man, laid no stress upon the circumstance, but simply explained it as he might have answered any other inquiry about !woks; and a bookbinder, whom I afterwards saw, gave me the same reason. Men of the first capacity are connected with our Societies

for the i distribution of the Scriptures, and t may well deserve their considera- tion, whether such distributions may not in the long run do more harm than good. If the ordinary mode of supplying human wants, by affording a fair remuneration to those who bring an article to where it is wanted, be invaded, they may he interfering with and stopping up the natural channels by which so.;

-freiety must in the long mm be supplied with religious books.

A PILEVLNTIVE CHECK.

Among the secondary checks upon improvident marriages in this nation, the most powerful is that in the Lutheran Church marriage includes two distinct ceremonies, the 1,etrothal and the final ceremony. The one precedes the other generally for one, two, and often for several years. The betrothed parties have, DI the eye of law, a distinct and acknowledged status, as well as in society. It is to be regretted that a custom so beneficial to society should have fallen into disuse in the English Church. It interpo,es.a seasonable pause. before young parties enter into the expenses of a family and house. It gives an oppor- tunity of discovering any cause, such as drunken or idle habits or poverty, which might make the loan iage uusuitable; and 'perhaps, as a.surt of proba- tionary period, is not without its good effect on the character and temper of both sexes. If we reckon the prolific age of a female at twenty-two years, or from eighteen to forty, the interval of a year (and in the less opulent classes it is often several) alone reduces to the amount of between four and five per cent. the increase of population.

A DERIVATION.

It may be news to the sentimental reader to be informed that the English expressions " true love" and " true lover" are not derived from the sentiment or passion love, or from the fidelity of the lover, not from the Scandinavian synonym to amor, but from the synonym to lex. Our word love is derived from tor, law, and true from tree, to contract, plight ; so that " truloved " or

trolov " meant originally contracted or pledged in law ; and in old times a man might be a "true lover" to his bond for ten pounds, as well as to his sweetheart.

The following is a forcible piece of description, mingled, as is Mr. Laisto's custom, with some useful information. It also closes with an important hint, if our squires had sense enough to take it. It is possible that, under a free system, we might eaport agricul- tural produce; it is certain we should have a transit trade.

It is difficult to convey an idea of the dreary aspect of this plateau and its utter solitude. The soil covers only in patches the naked rock. Every hol- low is a pool or a morass. Trees are spiinkled over the surface, but they do not enliven the scene, being the dark, stern-looking pines, which appear almost like a piece of the rock from which they are growing. Many were standing with all their branches dead, stripped of the bark to make bread, ani blanched by the weather, resembling white marble—mere ghosts of trees.The bread is made of the inner rind next to the wood, taken off in flakes like a sheet of foolscap paper, and is steeped or washed in warm water to clear off its astrin- gent principle. It is then hung across a rope to dry in the sun, and looks • v like sheets of parchnient. When dry, it is pounded into small pieces, mixed with corn, and ground into meal on the band-mill or quern. It is touch more generally used than I supposed. There are districts in which the forests suffered very considerable damage in the years 1812 and 1814, when bad crop-, end the war, then raging, reduced many to bark bread. The extentle:1 culti- vation of the potatoe since that 'wrierl has probably placed the inhabitaLts of the lower country beyond the necessity of generally resorting to it ; but the Fjelite bonder use it, more or less, every year. It is not very unpalatable, nor is there any good reason for huNoosing it unwholesome, if well prepared ; but It is very costly. The value of the -tree, which is left to perish on its root, W OW', buya sack of flour, if the English market were open. They mai ve and i we shiver n our wretched dwellings, although each country has the means of relieving the other with advantage to itself, and all for the sake of supporting colonies and other interests, which add little to the wellbeing of the people of Great Britain.

Before finally leaving Mr. LAING, it may be as well to observe, tlmt in the course of his book he has endeavoured to note the ellicts which the law of equal partition has upon the subdivision of property and the conclusion he comes to is directly opposite to that of property; M`Cum.ocx. Mr. LAING also maintains that it produces the best and truest check to over-population, which is to be found in the ownership of property, and the forethought and expensive tastes that spring from its possession • and whilst he admits that in Norway equal partition has not produced great na- tional wealth or vast fortunes, he asserts that the general ease and equality to which it has given rise are far more conducive to na- tional happiness than the enormous riches of a few, and poverty, or the constant bordering upon it, in the many. He has also discovered for the quidnuncs, a new and a much more probable source of alarm from Russian ambition than ag- grandizement in the East. At present, as we have formerly ob- served, the Russian seabord is limited to the Baltic and the Black Sea—one frozen up a considerable part of the year, both liable to be blockaded by any power that has a fleet of men-of- war. It' the Russian Government had no ambition, the interest of her subjects, as Mr. LAING truly remarks, would not justify her in allowing their commerce and their intercourse with the world to depend upon frost and the friendship of other nations, any longer than she can help. If the reader examine a map of Europe, be will see that the upper part of Norway trends backwards till it almost touches the territory of Russia, and that the Northern provinces both of Norway and Sweden would be a compact and not unnatural addition to her empire. In themselves these pro- vinces are of uo great value ; but their possession, from the nu- merous fiords or inland arms of the sea on the coast of Norway, would give Russia a succession of ports never frozen, capable of containing in security the largest navy, and always open to the Atlantic. If Russia has really entertained the notion of' Indian conquest, where the country is so remote, the cost so certain, awl the success so very doubtful, it is not to be supposed that she would overlook such a near, obvious, and solid advantage. Nor, judging from her conduct, has she overlooked it. The greatest facilities are offered to Russian subjects to trade with these remote districts either by sea or land. Every means is put in practice, covertly and quietly, to induce the Northern Nor- wegians to become accustomed to Russian connexion, and to look to Russia for the supply of their wants; so that, in the event of a war, they might be taken possession of with- out exciting any popular resistance. This success of this policy is favoured by local circumstances, by the existence in Norway of the old corporate system of the middle ages, which limits employ- ments to privileged persons, and something perhaps by our re- strictive duties, that throw almost all the trade into the hands of the Russians. Mr. LAING is far too sensible to advise either war or threats of war, on the part of England, upon this account: indeed he does not give us any advice. But he recommends the Swedish Government to cease their useless attempts upon the national rights of Norway. He also suggests that both nations should cultivate the good-will of each other, and carry out the principles of free government. By these means, Ile holds, they will strengthen their own hands, and in case of a general war, may expect assistance from the sympathy of the people of Great Britain to second their own efforts in preventing the dismember- ment of their countries.