1823.] Plan for reducing the National Debt. An experiment promising much advantage of increase of rate of sailing, may be well worthy of repeated trial on a proper scale, or actually on a vessel under sail. Similar stays might run from the top of the fore-topmast to the head of the main-mast, and from the top of the main top-mast to the head of the mizzen-mast. This would add very considerably to the effect contemplated in this paper. All this, Mr. Urban, is thrown out for the due consideration of men more conversant in such important subjects than mere experimental theorists, whose expositions generally require further confirmation. To a nation depending greatly on her commerce and maritime power, such considerations are essentially serviceable. JOHN MACDONALD. Mr. URBAN, Lloyd's, June 19. 485 to take a proportionate sum of stock in the new fund, notice may be given that they will be paid off in the manner prescribed by Act of Parliament in that behalf (17 Geo. holders of the new 4 per cents. and also to III. p. 46). But to them, as well as to the the holders of the 8 per cents. when the plan shall be extended to them, we should propose that such a bonus should be given as would make it their interest to consent to the conversion. "To us the mildness of the plan appears to be a recommendation almost equal to its efficacy. It does harm to no one, while it greatly benefits the State; being the most powerful and efficacious plan for paying off the National Debt ever submitted to the cousideration of his Majesty's Government." This interesting and animated appeal will no doubt be felt; and when sundry resolutions grounded on it are submitted by eminent persons for the serious consideration of Parliament, no doubt can be entertained but a due HAVING read Mr. Brickwood's attention will be paid to so important plan for reducing the National Debt, which I understand he has sent round to the Members of Parliament, I beg leave to observe, that I will hereafter submit, for the information of your readers, the plan, and some observations upon it, which I am encouraged to do by the following concluding remarks made in the last Number of the New Edinburgh Review, as follows: "In the present situation of the country, perhaps it may be more advisable to take off the taxes to the amount of four millions per annum, and cease to apply so much in the redemption of the debt: for we have shown, that by the operation of the plan which we recommend, the capital of the Debt may be immediately reduced upwards of one-third, by the addition of not more than half a million of annual charge, while a reduction of the capital to an equal amount could not be effected by the application of five millions annually in less than 40 years. But a reduction of the capital of the Debt to the extent of upwards of one-third of its present amount, being immediately practicable by the operation of the plan which we recommend, at an increased annual sum of not more than half a million, the balance of the five millions proposed to be applied as a Sinking Fund may be saved, and the public may be immediately relieved of taxes to this amount, if the surplus revenue over the expenditure shall amount to such five millions, or whatever it may amount to. Taxes to such amount minus half a million may be taken off. We desire, however, to do nothing by compulsion. Ifthe holders of the old per cents. should refuse I subject. Mr. URBAN, T. June 5. CANNOT refrain offering to your notice, and, through you, to your serious-thinking and numerous readers, the result of no small reflection and reading relative to the expected epoch of the present already astonishing century, an era which will not close without still more important events, at once proving the truth of sacred prophecy, and the manifestation of divine councils.-Far be it from me to pretend to a knowledge of prophecy and its occult interpretations, but it may be no presumption to enshow the certainty of God's moral deavour to apply it, with a view to government of man, and to amend our lives by a suitable preparation for any visitation which will approach and effect its purpose suddenly: : then it will be well for us if we be found well doing! There are two events which we may expect without much longer delay; and this expectation is considerable even amongst those who do not accustom themselves to reflect deeply or without any consistent study or arrangement on such subjects; they are looking out for something, as the Jewish and the Gentile nations did previous to the first advent of the Messiah, without knowing to what point to direct their attention! Let us see then whether, from what follows, I shall afford 486 Prophetic Destruction of the Ottoman Empire. afford them any light to guide their wandering way. I. Daniel (ch. viii. 14) states the period of Mahomet and his Ottoman empire at 2300 years from his vision; if from this period we deduct the date before Christ 334, of Alexander's conquest of Darius at the river Granicus, when Alexander the Great gave birth as it were to Mahomet, as his little horn, the result will be 1866, at which time his sway, which may also be dated from 606, when he retired to the cave of Hera to concert his imposture, will be destroyed or broken with out hand. (v. 25.) "The end of these two conterminating periods (says the intelligent and scholastic Faber, in his Dissertation on the 1260 years, vol. I. p. 226) of 2300* and 1260, will be marked by a wonderful display of the power of God. At the end of the 2300 days, the little horn of the he-goat will be broken without hand (Dan, viii. 14, 25). At the end of the 1260 days, the judgment will sit, and the dominion of the papal horn, or the little horn of the fourth beast, will be utterly removed by the Son of man. (Dan. vii. 25.) At the end of the same 1260 days, the King, who magnified himself above every god, will undertake the expedition, which will terminate in his destruction ;-and at that very time, the restoration of the Jews will commence (Dan. xi. 40; xii. i. 7); at the end of the same 1260 days, the ten horned beast, which was to practise prosperously in his revived state 42 prophetic months, and along with him his false prophet, will be ultiinately, that is, at the end of those 42 months, defeated in great battle with the personal Word of God! (Rev. xix. 19, 20.) And lastly, the Man of Sin will finally, and therefore at the end of the same 1260 days, be consumed with the spirit of the mouth of the Lord, and destroyed with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thess. ii. 8.) It is to be understood that these events will begin to take place at the end of the two conterminating pe riods." The short period between the present and that year being only 43 years, it is natural that we should have regard to the present state of that empire, and moreover, to the corresponding prophecy of St. John's Revelation, chap. 2200 is the true reading supported by Jerome. Faber, 249. [June, xvi. 12 seq. who declares that the sixth vial will effuse upon the river Euphrates, whose waters will be dried up. Rivers and waters are universally understood to be the symbolical representations of men and people; and where any river is named, it is designed to describe the particular people intended to be the subject of such visitation. If we refer to the map of Asia, we may trace this river upward from the Persian Gulph to the Caspian Sea, and so on to Trebizond, to the Dardanelles, where our view may for the present be fixed on Constantinople; now this course is the seat of the Ottoman Empire. To dry up the waters of a river is metaphorical of their wasting away, and their provinces being deserted; and as their strength thus gradually declines, their dominion incapable of longer defending itself, approaches to its fall! Now this has been already observed. Some of its provinces have been of late suffered to remain undefended, their passes lie open, and their cultivation discontinued in many parts, particularly, I believe, in Bulsaria, Wallachia, &c. The Affghans are in possession of the city of Mecca, and the pious visits of the superstitious multitude are either almost discontinued or prohibited. The recent plague and fire at Aleppo, and its severe consequences, the more recent destruction by fire of great part of Constantinople, their severe losses of men and of treasure in their contests with the Greeks,-the ambitious enmity avowed against them by the Russian Government, the corrupt despotism of the Turkish orders, from the source to every part of the stream in which the Beys bear no other allegiance than that of fear, and exercise their proconsular power rather as the means of amassing wealth, than promoting the welfare and happiness of their people, the indelible hatred and jealousy which they bear to all people, a source of reciprocal fraud and animosity from all others towards them, the oppression which guides the usual principles of government in all the under-currents of official influence, the total deficiency of either affection or allegiance from the Beys to their Chiefs, and from those Chiefs to the Sultan, which affords a certainty that in case of successful invasion, they would fall away from their master in any way that could give to themselves the least prospect of gain, or pre 1823.] Prophetic Destruction of the Papal Empire. II. But this visitation will not be single; for the See of Rome will take her turn also in the pouring out of the same vial! For as these two arch apostates sprung up together, their days are alike numbered! The date when the Bishop of Rome became Ecumenical, and assumed the dominion of universal pastor, was 606. Daniel and St. John give the same period of 1260, and thus bring both of them to the same termination, A.D. 1866. 487 also, and as it was unhappily associated in time with her apostate companion, so they will fall together! But previous to this important event we are assured, v. 13, that three unclean spirits are to issue from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, who will join the papal see in her last efforts against the truth, and will, however, perish with them both together at the great and terrible conflict of Armageddon! This royal coalition is not yet revealed,— but will be a sign of the tremendous contest shortly before that event, and must awaken the vigilance of every true Christian, to mark their opening efforts, and the treaties which it is probable that they will thus ignorantly form, lost to their own interest present and to come! This warlike coalition and final destruction will set the period of these two empires of Turkey and of Rome, and of their three coadjutors together; and then the angelic voice will declare that the work is done;" which sacred words will be the opening of the seventh vial. As Rome has rendered herself more conspicuous by her general interference with the States of Europe, than Tur- These awful visitations, or at least key was enabled to do, her affairs and the close of them, will be sudden; for proceedings are more generally known, we are forewarned by St. John (Rev. and therefore need less enumeration; xvi. 15) that they will come as a thief, but it is visible to every observer, that which is the prophetic symbol of comshe is struggling very hard in her ad- ing as it were by stealth, unseen, unvancing age against the natural course observed, and unprepared for! The of destiny, has lost her former influ- effect is therefore the more dire, and ence in every nation, even with those all the consequences far more terrible, over whom she formerly exercised uni and the sufferings more acute and treversal lordship, in Germany, Spain, mendous! But the vigilant who daily and France, &c.-has seen her Bulls await their call, and use the best efforts disregarded, and her threats of excom- in their power to preserve themselves munication treated with levity, as a unspotted from transgression, may be mere brutum fulmen, has been ob- better secured against the ravages of liged to yield her spiritual authority, slaughter and persecution; and even if and to be content to let many of her ten righteous were found, perhaps a once zealous people practise her forms city might be saved! "Blessed is he of devotion without the entire allegi- that watcheth." A. H. ance which they once professed,-has heard her children urgent with their Mr. URBAN, Wymondham, June 3. own national governments for equali-As the taste in the present age of S there seems to be a very laudzation of temporal rights, while they verbally avowed a renunciation, or affected to renounce, some of the antient tenets of their faith, which, though still taught in their schools, are denied in practice, thereby clearly showing that they are willing to sacrifice in forms what they would acquire by power, as the only means of attaining it-all these present a similar assurance that the effusion of this vial is ready to fall upon the papal empire' rescuing every character of note from the gulph of oblivion, allow me to contribute my mite towards a person who, however little he may have contributed to our stock of literature, deserves some notice. This person is no other than old Downes the Prompter, and Historian of our early Theatricals. On looking for some account of this man in the last edition of the Biographica Dramatica, edited by Mr. Stephen Jones, 488 Downes, the Prompter," Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis.” Jones, I do not even find his name mentioned; and in his short account annexed of the several authors who have written on the Stage, Downes is again omitted. Mr. Jones says, that from 1619 to 1714, no list of plays was published; but I find, from Downes's book, lent me by a friend, that his work was published in 1703, the title of which is as follows: "Roscius Anglicanus; or an Historical Review of the Stage, after it had been suppressed by means of the late unhappy civil war, begun in 1641, till the time of King Charles the II.'s Restoration in May 1660. Giving an account of its Rise again; of the time and places the governours of both the Companies first erected their Theatres. The names of the principal Actors and Actresses who performed in the chiefest Plays in each house. With the names of the most taking Plays, and modern Poets, for the space of 46 years, and during the reign of three Kings, and part of our present Sovereign Lady Queen Anne, from 1660 to 1706. London, printed and sold by H. Playford, at his house in Arundel-street, near the wa ter side, 1708 *." Small 8vo, pp. 52. The only particulars of the author I can gain is from his Preface to the Reader: "The editor of the ensuing relation being long conversant with the plays and actors of the original company under the patent of Sir Wm. Davenant at his Theatre in Lincoln-inn Fields, opened there in 1662. formances in the afternoon; imboldens him Mr. URBAN, N J. C. CHAMbers. June 4. In this age of literary research and were are forming into one great Roxburgh Book-Club, it still requires historical judgment and Antiquarian taste to I can only find the title of this book in Watts's Bibliotheca Britannica. [June, make due selection. It is not the mere antiquity of a reprint that can stamp a value, and it follows of course that where judgment and taste are displayed, the scholar and the man of letters will be alike interested. From considerations of this kind, I, and indeed many of my collecting friends, hailed even with glad anticipation the announcement of a "Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis," consisting of a reprint of very curious and scarce tracts published during the civil wars, and to be illustrated by remarks both biographical and historical. Such a work holds out promises far beyond the mere local interest of the place selected; even in the present instance, the share which the city and county of Gloucester had in the memorable contests between Charles I. and his Parliament, being interesting in its progress, and important in its consequences: it is, therefore, with a great degree both of Antiquarian and of Bibliomaniacal pleasure that I observe a full earnest of those promises and expectations in the first part of the work just published, comprising John Corbet's "Historical Relation of the Military Government of Gloucester," to which is prefixed a wellengraved portrait of the author, and biographical memoir. That the collecting the materials for the volume, to be completed in three or four parts, has been laborious and expensive, is self-evident; and I fear it is impossible that the very small number printed can ever remunerate the industrious editor (Mr. John Washbourn, jun. of Gloucester); whilst the work itself, in the few libraries that can procure it, will adorn their shelves (more particularly the large paper copies) with all the charms of broad margins and superior typography. So small indeed is the number now open for the public, that all but early applicants must meet with disappointment; which has induced me the more to offer it to notice in your pages, in order that those who can best appreciate its merits may be the first to secure copies. the liberal style in in the hope, that tion is brought forward, will prove a stimulus to others "to do likewise:" a good example has been set, and that it may be judiciously and spiritedly followed in other counties, is the wish of your constant reader, U. Mr. |