yet been constructed from materials of deeper interest. We allude, of course, to the work of Mr Francis; Mr Doubleday's treatise is of a graver and a sterner nature. We dare say, that no inconsiderable portion of those who derive their literary nutriment from Maga, may be at a loss to understand what element of romance can lie in the history of the Stock Exchange. With all our boasted education, we are, in so far as money-matters are concerned, a singularly ignorant people. That which ought to be the study of every citizen, which _must_ be the study of every politician, and without a competent knowledge of which the exercise of the electoral franchise is a blind vote given in the dark, is as unintelligible as the Talmud to many persons of more than ordinary accomplishment and refinement. The learned expounder of Thucydides would be sorely puzzled, if called upon to give an explanation of the present funding system of Great Britain. The man in easy circumstances, who draws his dividend at the Bank, knows little more about the funds than that they mysteriously yield him a certain return for capital previously invested, and that the interest he receives comes, in some shape or other, from the general pocket of the nation. He is aware that consols oscillate, but he does not very well understand why, though he attributes their rise or fall to foreign news. It never occurs to him to inquire for what reason that which yields a certain return, is yet liable to such surprising and violent fluctuations; he shakes his head in despair at the mention of foreign exchanges, and is not ashamed to avow his incapacity to grapple with the recondite question of the currency. And yet it may not only be safely, but it ought to be most broadly averred, that without a due comprehension of the monetary system of this country, and the general commercial principles which regulate the affairs of the world, history is nothing more than a tissue of barren facts and perpetual contradictions, which it is profitless to contemplate, and utterly impossible to reconcile. Nay more, all history which is written by authors, who have failed to acknowledge the tremendous potency of the monetary power in directing the destinies of nations, and who have neglected to scrutinise closely the source and operation of that power, must necessarily be fallacious, and can only mislead the reader, by false pictures of the condition of the present as contrasted with that of a former age. No eloquence, no genius, will avail to compensate for that radical defect, with which some most popular writers are justly chargeable, and a glaring instance of which we propose to examine in the course of the present paper.