of Alfred, and possesses, besides, a higher tendency, developed in the fifth book.

Small as the work is, it may be divided into three distinct parts:

1. Alfred's life and deeds: 2. The principles of the British constitution; and 3. Historical and political notes and commentaries, applying to both the preceding parts.

These three parts, as they are now composed, have but one tendency; the author and compiler of the apparently heterogeneous notes and commentaries has united them for one purpose, which may thus be considered:-The transformation of the life of nations may be observed in their manners and customs; but the more that life becomes civilized, the more it loses the irrevocable harmony of its primitive condition, the desire of preserving which, does not expire so speedily in the better part of the nation. This preservation cannot be effected by better means than by warning, and by the recollection of its early stage of perfection.

The propensities of nations often lose the original purity of their early consecration, and the races, abandoned to themselves, will hardly continue, as they ought, in their primitive state. It is therefore necessary that they should be led, until their tottering inclinations are once more strengthened and sufficiently purified to be again abandoned to themselves, to procure a life of unconscious truth.

It is consequently the recollection of the early perfection, and the retrospective view of its former condition, that seem to present the most suitable means of stopping the progress of the commencing corruption.

In such times as ours, when anomaly has begun everywhere, and even around us, we wish to preserve the knowledge of the better situation of our forefathers, that, by reviving it through examples, we may turn the public mind towards it.

While translating "ALFRED," we were induced to study the elements of the British constitution;

and having observed, with an unprejudiced eye, the progress of the civilization of nations, and principally that of the British for the last half century we have perceived the inevitable consequences which such civilization must produce on the original character of the people. The simplicity of manners and customs, and the probity impregnated in English hearts has partly and successively vanished, and given place to the love of Mammon, which prevails in all classes in this formerly blessed country.

The love of the arts and sciences,-the train of civilization, has not yet succeeded in inspiring the minds of the people. On the contrary, they are in England mostly considered as the means of procuring money; and ambition, which also attends civilization, and is the great lever of civil and warlike deeds, is equally neutralized by the love of gold and comfort, and does not go farther than making a short speech as a chairman in an assembly, or on obtaining a commission,

Virtue is suddenly awakened by adversity, or acquired when civilization has attained so high a perfection in enlightened minds, as to replace the simplicity and probity of former times. This is not the case at present in England, and much good is birth-strangled by civilization in the moment of nativity.

Whether a little book, with historical notes, apparently without a systematic order or tendency, can contribute to the remembrance of the former grandeur of the British constitution and high standing probity of the nation, or in the slightest degree forward their regeneration, we do not pretend to decide; but trust the reader will believe that the sole and pure design of the compiler and writer was to do justice to every opinion, and flatter none, that the reader may examine them, and preserve that which he considers the best; a little attention will enable him to discover to which of these opinions the author inclines.

The author is far from pretending to be a

reformer; the times are not always alike, and the world reforms itself in the different periods through which it passes. It reforms itself in every epoch just according to the contemporary individuals, and they again according to the times; both reciprocally make and reform each other, and both likewise reciprocally change each other.

When, in the organization of nature, and at the critical moment of decay, a new encheiresis of life is formed; so soon as the positive direction has been given to the inner re-union, all that is external, all that has faded, whether merely spoiled, or rotten to the state of a dead peel, will break and fall asunder; but it may console us, that if the actual time seems to present such a picture of decay or disorganization, it is obliged so to do because the inner encheiresis of life has already begun to form itself.

FRANCIS STEINITZ.

LONDON, JUNE, 1849.