THE, FARRERS OF BUDGE ROW.

THE merits of the Farrers are threefold,—it is an admirable tale, a sufficiently skilful exposition of economical science, a very ex- cellent illustration of morality. The professed object of the work is to expose the Funding system, and to depict the respective in- conveniences of direct and indirect taxation, and to strike the ba- lance between them. The mischiefs of taxes on commodities, the inquisition of an income-tax, are slightly but distinctly exhibited; and the conclusion arrived at is a decision in favour of a Property- tax. The evil effects which a bad system of taxation may have on the morals of a people—the gambling spirit it induces—the reck- less, desperate, and extravagant habits it nourishes, when nou- rishing the smuggler—and the petty malice which it encourages, by giving the power by which it may be exercised—are developed, not at length ( for that would require volumes as large as the fiscal statute-book), but clearly. The triumph, however, of Miss MAR- TINEAU is her sketch of the manner in which the love of wealth hardens the heart, stifles the natural affections, and makes people shabbily plot and counterplot to increase the riches of those beings whose hopes of happiness they are crushing by their schemes.

The time of the Farrers is the time of Mr. PITT and the French Revolution—the heyday of wars, " vigorous government," alien- laws, plots, loans, scdition, and last, not least, taxes of all sorts. The characters of the tale chiefly consist of Mr. Ferrer, the shop- keeper of Budge Row, and his family. To be rich for the sake of riches, is the object of Mr. Ferrer. The only outbreak of worldly pride he ever appears to have indulged, was to give his younger son a learned education : here his ambition stopped; he would have confined him to the chandler's shop, but the son rebelled, and the father disinherited him.

The following quotation exhibits a part of the family on Henry Farrer's return from College. It is part of a scene which no one but Miss MARTINEAU could have represented. An equal or a greater genius, if cast in a different mould, would have avoided it as prosaic, or shunned it as vulgar ; an inferior mind—a SMITH or a Hoox—would have treated us to some miserable caricature or wretched ridicule. Perhaps Miss MARTINEAU alone could have painted the jolly, laughing, straightforward, selfish, wily, and obdurate tyrant of private life. Miss MARTINEAU alone could have touched the character of Jane Farrer—have indicated her blighted affections, shown her gradual adaptation to circum- stances, and the mastery which avarice finally attained over her soul. An extract, limited as we are, cannot do her justice; and even the whole work, though a leaf from the book of life, may disappoint some, from its very truth, and the absence of all effort. "Ate these," said the indignant visitor at Hampton Court, "are these the Cartoons ?"

" l'ray open the window, Morgan," said Jane Ferrer to the old servant, who was assisting her to arrange for tea die room in which the family had dined. " Perhaps you don't know, Ma'am, what a cutting wind It is. More like December than March, Miss Jane ; bitter enough to help on your rheumatism, my dear."

And Morgan paused, with her hand on the sash. Miss Farrer chose that the room should be refreshed. She was aware that the scents from the shop were at all times strong enough for the nerves of any one unaccustomed to the atmosphere she lived in ; and she did not wish that her brother Henry should have to encounter in addition those which the dinner had left behind. She tied a handkerchief over her head, while the March wind blew in chilly, and Morgan applied herself to light the fire. When the dinner-table was set hack against the wall, and the small Pembroke table brought forward, and the sofa, with its brown cotton cover, wheeled round, and the two candlesticks, with whole candles in them, placed in front of the tea-tray, Miss Ferrer thought she would go up into Henry's room, and see that all was right there, before she put off her black stuff apron, and turned down the cuffs of her gown, and took he seat beside the fire.

She tried to look at everything with the eyes she fancied her young brother would bring from the University. She, who had lived fra• five-and-thirty years in this very house, at the corner of Budge Row, among this very furniture, could not reasonably expect to view either the one or the other as it would appear to a youth of two-and-twenty, who had lived in a far different scene, and among such companions as Jane had no idea of. It was some vague notion of this im- probability that made her linger about Henry's little apartment, and wonder whether lie would think she ought to have put up a stuff curtain be:ore the win- dow, and whether he had been accustomed to a bit of carpet, and whether the

soap out of her father's shop was such as lie could use. Then came the odd mixture of feelings,—that her father's youngest son ought not to dream of luxu-

ries that his elder brother and sisters had not had,—and yet that Henry was a scholar and a gentleman, and therefore unavoidably held in awe by the family. When she reverted to the time, well remembered, when she upheld the little fel- low, and coaxed him to set one tiny plump foot before the other, the idea of being HOW half afraid to receive him, made her smile and then sigh, and hope that good might conic of her father's ambition to give a son of his a university education.

Before she had finished making herself as neat as usual, and rather more dressed, she heard, amidst all the noises that came in from the narrow bustling street, her own name called from the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm coming, father! It never can be Henry yet. The postman's bell is but just gone by, and the six o'clock cries are not all over ; and there sound the

chimes. It is full five minutes' walk from Lad Lane, too. Perhaps there is something more to be done at the books: so I will carry down my apron. Why, Morgan, it is well I did nut throw you down stairs."

-Mtisparla fije, inttrenched in 'tat nob sap, was jug visible in the twilight, peel:log.111W the room from the steep, narrow titair upon which the chambermloor directly opened, She came to say that her master wanted Miss Jane ; that he wait in a great hurry, and seenied to have some good news to tell.

Mr. Ferrer was bustling about, apparently in a state of great happiness. His brown wig seemed to sit lighly on his crown ; his hhoes creaked very actively ; his half Whistle betokened a light beint, and he poked the fire as if he had forgotten

how Ii coals were a bushel. Ile iitietehed out his arms when his daughter came down with a look of inquiry, and kissed her on the cheek, saying, " I have news for thee, my dear. I say, Morgan, let us have plenty of but-

tered toast—plenty and hot. Well, Jenny is short enough to sonic folks. Of all people, who do you think are dead ?" • Jane saw that it was nobody that she would be expected to grieve about. She had fallen enough into her father's way of thinking to conjecture aright, that some of the lot of lives with which her father and she were joined in a tontine annuity had fatal.

" POOL" 90116 ! Yes : Jerry Hill and him brother, both gone together of a fever, in the same house. Who would have thought it ? Both younger lives than mine, by some years. I have no doubt they thought, many a time, that mine would be the first to fail. But this is a fine itivention, this way of imrchasing annuities, though I was against it at first, as being too much like a lottery for a sober man to veuture upon. But, I say, Jane, I hope you ale glad I made you invest your money in this way. You had a right to look to coining into their lives, sooner or later; but one would haidly have expected it in my time ; though, somehow, I always had a notion it would turn out so."

Jane's colour had been much raised, from the first disclosure of the news. She now asked whether these were not the last lives of the lot, out of their own family ; whether her father's, her brother Michael's, and her own were not the only ones now left. " To be sure they are ! We have the whole thing to ourselves from this time. I think the Minister will be for sending Michael and me the wars, to have us killed off; though I hope, that iii case, you would live on and on, and enjoy your own for many a year, to disappoint him. But, to be sure," said the old man, checking his exultation as he saw his (laugher look grave, "life is a very uncer- tain thing, as we may see by what has just happened." " I am sure it is the last thing I thought of,' observed Jane. " Ay. It is a pretty yearly addition to us three; two dropping together in

this way : and, as 1 said, I hope you will enjoy it for many a year when I am dead and gone as I am sure you deserve, for you have been a good daughter to me, keeping the house as well as your mother slid before you, and the books better than I could myaelf, leaving me free to attend to the $hop. But, let us see. The roam is half full of smoke still ; and you will say that comes of my poking the fire. What have you got for Harry's tea? The lad will want something solid, though he be a student. I remember his telling me last time, that no folks are more hungry than those that have been a lung while over their books."

Jane moved about like one in a dream, till, the shop-boy's heavy tread having been heard in the passage, Morgan put her head in at the parlour door to say that Michael and a gentleman with him might be secn from the shop-door to have turned the corner at the other end of the Row.

• • • " 'Well, eat away now, and let us see whether book-learning spoils buttered toast. Come, tell us what you think of us, after all the fine folks you have been amongst." Jane was astonished that her father could speak in this way to the gentleman in black ; who, however simple in his manners, and accommodating in his con- versation, was quite unlike every other person present. in his quiet tone, and gentle way of talking. She could not have asked him what he thought of the place and the party.

Henry replied that he was, as he had said, much struck by Iris sister's looking so well ; and as for Morgan. she was not a day older since the time when he used to run away with her Welsh heaver—

And make yourself look like a girl, with your puny pale face," interrupted Michael.

" Well, but the place—how does the old house look ?" persisted Mr. Farrer. " You used to he fond of prying through that green curtain to see the folks go in and out of the drop; and then you raised mustard and cress at the back win- dow ; anti you used to whistle up and down stairs to your attic till your poor mother could bear it no longer. The old place looks Just as it did to you, I dare say ?" Henry could say no more than that he remembered all these things. By re- calling many others, he hoped to divert the course of investigation but his

father insisted on his saying that the dingy, confined, shabby rooms looked to the grown wise man the very same as to the thoughtless child who had seen no other house. It was as impossible for Henry to .;ay this as to believe still, as he once did, that his father was the wisest man in the world ; and Mr. Ferrer was disconcerted accordingly. lie thought within himself that this was a poor re- ward for all that he had spent on his son Harry, and pushed away his cup with the spoon in it when it had been filled only four times.

"Are you tired, Jane?" asked Henry, setting down his tin candlestick with its tall thin candle, when bis father had done bidding him be careful nut to set the house on fire, and Michael was gone to see that all was safe in the shop. Jane was quite dispose(' for more conveisation ; and would indeed have been darning stockings for at least another hour if Henry had gone to sleep at ten, like his brother. She brim& out her knitting, carefully piled the embers, extinguished one candle, and was ready to hear Henry's quesnous and remarks. and to offer sonic of her own. She could not return the compliment she had received as to her looks. She thought I larry was thin, and nearly as pale as in the old days when his nankeen frock and drab beaver matched his complexion.

Henry had 1,m: studying liar.!; and he acknowledged that his mind bad been anxious of late. It was so strange that nothing had been said to him respectiug Iris destination in life, that he could not help speculating on the future more than was quite good for health and spirits. Could Jane give him any idea what his father's intent were?

Henry now looked so boyish, with feet on fender, and fingers busy with an unemployed knitting-needle, that Jane's ancient familiarity' began to return. She hoped there were no matrimonial thoughts at the bottom of Henry's anxiety about the future.

" Must no man be anxious about his duties and his prospects till he thinks of marrving,.Jane ? But why have you hopes and fears about it?" " Because I am sure my father will not hear of such a thing as your marry- ing. You know how steady he is when he ouce makes up his mind." Henry glanced up in his sister's face, and away again wheu he saw that she met his eye. She continued. " I am not speaking of my own case in particular ; but he has expressed his will to Michael, very plainly, and told him what sort of connexion he must make if he marries at all. And Michael has, in con- sequence, given up all talk of marriage with a young womau he had promised himself to."

" Given up the connexion ! A grown man like Michael give up the woman he had engaged himself to, at another man's biddiug how cars he sit laughing as he did to-night?" " I did not say he had given up the connexion," replied Jane, very quietly ; but lie hasgiven up all talk of marriage. So you see—" " I we I-ehall have nothing .to say to my father on this part of the subject of settling in life. But you, Jane, what are you doing and thinking of ? My father knows that he is on safer ground with you than he can be with his sons. How is it with you, sister ?"

in What you say is very true. If he chooses to speak for his daughter, keep- ing her in the dark all the while, what can she do but make herself content to be in the dark, and turn her mind upon something else? If mine is too full of one object or another, I hope God will he merciful with me, since I have been under another's bidding all my days."

" It is hard—very hard."

" It is hard that others, that Morgan, and I dare say Michael, should know more of what has been said and written in my name than I do myself. Yes, Morgan. It is from her that I know—" in About Peek ? That he wanted you before he thought of Patience ?" " Not only that. Patience is welcome to het lot ; though I do not see what need have prevented her taking my place at the books, if any father had not made up his mind to keep me by loin. But that is nothing in comparison with —sonic other things that have been done in my name; the treating a friend as if be were an impostor, and I a royal princess; while, all the time, I had no such proud thoughts myself, God knows."

" How came Morgan to tell you any thing about it ?" cried Henry, eager to find some one on whom to vent the indignation that he was unwilling to express in relation to iris father.

" Morgan was made a friend of by that person ; and she is the kindest friend I have, you may believe it, Henry. She would have upheld me in any thing I might have chosen to do or to say. But I was doubtful whether it was not too late then ; and altogether I fancy it was best to get on as I did for a time. And now I am settled to my lot, you see, and grown into it. I am am fully satisfied, now, with my way of life ; and it is not likely to change." " Do you mean that you expect to keep the books, and be a thrifty housewife, as long as you live? If it was necessary, well and good. But my father must be enormously tich."

The only other passage we can take, exhibits the workings of the Excise in a small way.

Mr. Peek canoe in, at length, rubbing his hands, and apologizing for having kept the ladies waiting for their tea; hut it IViLS the privilege of such a business as his, to take, in some measure, his own times and seasons for doing things ; anti this afternoon he had been paying one of his official visits where he was least expected.

When Jane had stationed herself at the tea-table, with a Miss Mills to aid her, and Peek had ordered one little table to be brought for himself, and another for his father in-law, he addressed his conversation chiefly to the latter, observing that the young scholar's part was to entertain the young ladies. " You know the Browns—the way they behaved to iny wife and me about our nurse-maid that they tempted away ?" said Peek, to Mr. Fairer.

"0 yes ; I hope you have served them out." " That I have, pretty well ! They should have taken care what they were about in offending me. I eau always make out what are their busy days ; anti then I pop in, and there is no end of the stuck-taking I make them go through. What with measuring the canisters, and weighilig, and peeping, and prying, I keep them at it a pretty time ; and that is what I have been about this afternoon." " Can't you catch them with a pound of smuggled stuff ?"

" Not an ounce. They know I would if I could ; and that makes them take care and look sharp. What did you think of the last rummer of toddy you got here?"

" Capi al! Had Brown any thing to do with that?"

"Not lie; hut you shall have another to-night, since you liked the last so much ; and Mr. Henry too, if he likes. But I suppose he will be too busy play- ing commerce with the ladies? That fine spirit was one of the good things that one gets by being gentle in one's vocation, as I tell Patience when she is cross ; and then I hold back some nice present that I was thinking of giving her."

"Aye, aye. A little convenient blindness, I suppose, you find your account in sometimes; and who finds it out, among all the multitude of articles that pay taxes? Yes, yes, that is one of the understood things in the business ; as our men of your tribe give us to understand."

"I hope you find theni accommodating, Sir ? "

" Yes ; now we know bow to manage them. And they are wonderfully kind to Mike, considering all things." Mike assented, with one of his loud laughs.

Henry was listening to all this not the less for his civility in handing tea, and amusing his next neighbour. By taking in all that passed now and when he was seated at cards, after Mrs. Peek had made her excuses and withdrawn, he learned more than he had known before of the facilities afforded to the collector of taxes on commodities, of oppressing the humble, anti teasing the proud, and sheltering the shabby, and aiding the fraudulent. He felt that he would rather be a street-sweeper than such an exciseman as Peek. At best, the office was a most hateful one.

" When I'm gone, you'll know the miss of me," says the homely reprover of ingratitude. Something of the feeling intended to be excited by these words is conjured up within our breasts by the notice that the present Number is virtually the last of the Illus- trations of Political Economy. The next is to be devoted to a summary of the Principles of the work, but this closes the Tales. Taxation will be illustrated at length, in a new series. Of that which is now in the act of completion, it is scarcely per- haps too much to say, that it is unparalleled in the history of li- terature. The rapidity of production, the union of science with entertainment, the creative and doseriptive powers, the close ob- servation of life, the force and richness of the composition, the ab- sence of all pretence and affectation, combined with the woyderful cheapness of the "little books," are as unique as astonishing. We make these remarks because they are truth, and because we may in some measure owe the amends' honorable for the occasional fas- tidiousness with which we have treated the authoress. But in reality, we judged her by a high standard, from which we could bear no deviation. We compared her, not with the trash in three volumes that is perpetually issuing from the press, but we tested her by herself.