The study is said to be a dry one. Certainly, until we have mastered the details, it does look forbidding enough; but, these once mastered, our eyes appear to be touched with fairy ointment. What formerly was confusion, worse than Babel, assumes a definite order. We behold, in tangible form, a power so terribly strong that with a touch it can paralyse armies. We behold it gradually weaving around us a net, from which it is impossible to escape, and claiming with a stern accent, which brooks no denial, a right of property in ourselves, our soil, our earnings, our industry, and our children. To its influence we can trace most of the political changes which perplex mankind, and which seem to baffle explanation. Like the small reptile of the old Northumbrian legend, it has grown into a monstrous dragon, capable of swallowing up both herd and herdsman together. The wisest of our statesmen have tried to check its advance and failed; the worst of them have encouraged its growth, and almost declared it harmless; the most adroit have yielded to its power. Interest after interest has gone down in the vain struggle to oppose it, and yet its appetite still remains as keen and insatiable as ever. When, in future years, the history of this great nation and its dependencies shall be adequately written, the annalist must, perforce, give due prominence to that power which we weakly and foolishly overlook. He will then see, that the matchless industry displayed by Great Britain is far less the spontaneous result of bold and honest exertion, than the struggle of a dire necessity which compels us to go on, because it is death and ruin to stand still. He will understand the true source of all our marvellous machinery, of that skill in arts which the world never witnessed before, of our powers of production pushed to the utmost possible extent. And he will understand more. He will be able to comprehend why, within the circuit of one island, the most colossal fortunes and the most abject misery should have existed together; why Britain, admitted to be the richest of the European states, and in one sense imagined to be the strongest, should at this moment exercise less influence in the councils of the world than she did in the days of Cromwell, and, though well weaponed, be terrified to strike a blow, lest the recoil should prove fatal to herself. The knowledge of such things is not too difficult for our attainment; and attain it we must, if, like sensible men, we are desirous to ascertain the security or the precariousness of our own position.