resist. This influence is more sound and effective in Norway than in any country in Europe in the present day.'

There is no dissent. This arises partly from the church having no temporal power; no political existence; no interests jarring with those of the other classes of the community. Another leading cause is the great consideration in which the rite of confirmation is beld. There is a strict examination by the bishop, or ⚫ rural dean, into the young person's knowledge of his moral and religious duties, his capacity, acquirements, and character; and it is only after a long previous preparation by his parish minister, equal almost to a course of education-the confirmants being instructed singly as well as in classes-that the individual is presented for this examination. The certificate of having passed this ordeal is considered as implying a capacity for discharging ⚫ ordinary trusts and duties. Accordingly, "A confirmed shopboy wants a place." " Wanted a confirmed girl who can cook," -are the ordinary advertisements to or from that class of the community: and the not being confirmed would be held equivalent to not having a character, either from want of conduct, or of ordinary capacity.*** This simple discharge of an unexceptionable duty shuts out dissent from the Norwegian Church.' The clergy are described as being laborious and zealous; and as a well educated body of men. In proportion to the other professional classes in the country, they are highly paid; and the Church has always been the first profession, to which all talent is naturally directed.

It appears, as above-mentioned, that widely as its first elements are spread, education is upon the whole on a low footing. The reasons are, the cost of maintaining a young man at the schools of preliminary instruction, which are but few, and afterwards at the distant University of Christiana. Besides which, there is no undefined demand for educated labour, in the medical, legal, and commercial professions, as in more thickly peopled and commercial countries; tending to raise the standard of intellectual proficiency through all classes of the community. Professional men bring up their sons to succeed them. The extent of the demand is easily recognised; and the supply is adjusted accordingly. Another cause is the absence of religious dissent. However much this may add to domestic happiness among a people, it must detract from their intelligence, acuteness, and value for religion. A land of conformity is one of apathy or superstition. Something of both is observable in Norway. A somewhat passive state of mind ensues where there are but few causes to produce collision. But the restrictions on the

free exercise of trade and industry, which we are sorry to observe still in existence, operate perhaps with the greatest force to depress general education. Before a person can enter upon any medical or legal employment-before he can buy or sell, or manufacture he must obtain peculiar privileges from a corporate body. 'As the expense of preparation, and the small number of prizes to 'be obtained, place the higher and learned professions out of the 'reach of the main body of the people, as objects of rational am'bition, for which they might endeavour to bestow superior edu'cation upon their children; so the restrictions and monopoly system shut them out from various paths and employments for 'which ingenuity, with ordinary useful education, might qualify them.' We cannot believe that the enlightened legislature of Norway will permit these fetters forged by the old monopolists of the Hanseatic league, to rest much longer upon the industry and intelligence of their country.

Of the legal system, the leading feature is a Court of Reconcilement, held in every parish; before which every cause must be carried in the first instance. Of this court we approve in all respects, except in that by which it seems to have chiefly recommended itself to Mr, Laing. As the parties are not allowed to make use of professional assistance, there cannot be that full investigation into the real merits of the case, on either side, which is obtained by means of that invaluable test of truth, a skilful cross-examination. It is the more necessary with respect to this tribunal; because in all the subsequent courts to which the case may be taken, no evidence is received but that which appears on the notes of the commissioner, detailing what took place before him. He is elected every third year by the resident householders, from among themselves; and holds his court once a-month.

The punishment of death was abolished by the Danish Government about the latter end of the last century—a measure of questionable expediency, especially in a country where the secondary punishments are imperfect. But the punishment which is among the most effective, and which forms one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the country, and affords the most unequivocal proof of the very high tone of thought and feeling pervading the whole people, is that of The loss of Ho'nour.' That a punishment, which in other countries is often inadequate to impose a due check on the conduct of many among the higher orders of the community, should here be used as a means of restraint on the passions and evil dispositions of a whole people, is a phenomenon in social polity which seems almost

Utopian; but it appears to be a matter of daily and familiar experience among the estimable inhabitants of Norway. The following are Mr Laing's observations on this subject:

"Loss of honour" has been, from the earliest times, a specified effective punishment in the criminal law of Norway, standing next in degree to loss of life. The possession of property naturally diffuses through all classes the self-respect, regard for character and public opinion, circumspection of conduct, and consideration for others, which flow from, or are connected with the possession of property, and render these influential on the morals, manners, and mode of thinking of the whole body of the people. The Norwegian peasant has never, like the Swede, the Dane, the Russian, or the German, crouched beneath the cudgel of the feudal Baron's bailiff. He has the feelings and proper pride of an independent man, possessed of property, and knowing nothing above him but the law. In real high-mindedness he is the Spaniard of the north. Among a people whose national character and social condition are so formed, who are scattered in small clusters only over the country, and whose business and occupations are of the most simple kind, the loss of honour is not an unmeaning nominal punishment, as it would be among our manufacturing population. There is, and always has been, much more of the real business of the country in the hands of the people, and transacted by themselves, than in any other country of Europe. They have not merely the legislative power and election of their Storthing, which is but a late institution; but, in all times, the whole civil business of the community has been in a great measure in their own hands. It appears to be the general spirit of the udal law, that the constituted legal authorities have rather a superintending, than a managing power. The division of udal property among heirs, the guardianship of estates belonging to minors, the settling disputes by the commission of mutual agreement, the provision for the poor, the support of roads and bridges, the regulations for the fisheries, the charge and conveyance of prisoners (as jails are only in the chief town of each province), the attendance on the courts of the district as valuators, arbiters, or jurymen, are among the affairs which devolve on the people under the superintendence of the legal authorities. The exclusion from these affairs and functions, which of course the legal sentence of loss of honour produces, is a punishment so severely felt, that there are instances of culprits, after that portion of their punishment, consisting in slavery for a certain period, had been completed, returning to their chains, committing on purpose some petty offence, rather than live as outcasts under the sentence of dishonour among their former friends. It, is also a remarkable trait of the open, simple, manly disposition of this nation, that a criminal very rarely, when arrested, attempts to deny or conceal any part of the fact, and usually at once makes a full avowal of all particulars; even of those which could not be proved.'

The picture of this singular people would not be complete without some few particulars of their domestic habits and mode of life. The population is chiefly divided into proprietors who possess more land than they farm; and bonder, or peasant proprietors, who live on the produce of their own estates. The in

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comes of the former seldom exceed 800 or 900 dollars; though there are some who possess as much as three or four thousand pounds sterling a-year. The Norwegian valleys, crowded with the bonder farms, with their look of plenty and completeness, vie with the richest and most beautiful in Scotland. The crops of grain so rich and yellow; the houses so substantial and thickly set; farm after farm without interruption, each fully enclosed ⚫ and subdivided with paling; the grass fields of so lively a green as free from weeds and rubbish, and as neatly shaven as a lawn ⚫ before a gentleman's windows; every knoll, and all the back"-ground covered with trees, and a noble clear stream running briskly by,' form the usual features of the landscape. The farms are generally of about forty or fifty acres each, having besides a pasturage or grass tract in the 'fjelde' (moors), where all the cattle that can be spared are kept through the summer, until the crops are taken in; and upon these outfarms there are houses and a regular dairy. Others dwell by the side of the long and deep fiords, which penetrate many miles, in a winding course, into the interior of the country; each,' said Mr Laing, ' in his little land-locked bay, so shut in with rocks and woods, ' that it resembles a small mountain lake. The high-water mark 'on the white beach is the only indication that it belongs to the ocean. There, with his house at the foot of the rocks, a green 'spot for his cows and goats, and his little skiff at anchor before 'his door, is the fishing farmer, not so well off as the rest, because ' tempted to marry improvidently, by the precarious prospect of 'being able to maintain a family by fishing. The agricultural honder families live abundantly; for, in consequence of the want of commerce, and the restrictions on domestic trade, they have but few means of disposing of their surplus produce, and therefore not much inducement to save it. Sugar, tea, coffee, ́and a few other articles of foreign produce, are almost the only things that take money out of the pocket of the housekeeper; and the store for the whole year is laid in at once. Almost all articles of common use are manufactured at home, during the long winters which suspend in a great measure all agricultural employments. There is no want of intelligence among them. It is no uncommon thing to see an advertisement for a tutor or governess for a bonder family. The manner of living is very uniform among all classes; but it is not, by any means, incompatible with a superior degree of cultivation and refinement, among the wealthier proprietors. Of this class, the following sketch gives a very agreeable idea:

There is something pleasing and picturesque in the primive old

fashioned household ways of the Norwegian gentry. The family-room is what we may fancy the hall to have been in an English manorhouse in Queen Elizabeth's days. The floor is sprinkled with fresh bright green leaves, which have a lively effect; every thing is clean and shining; an eight-day clock stands in one corner, a cupboard in another; benches and straight-backed wooden chairs ranged around the room; and all the family occupations are going on, and exhibit curious and interesting contrasts of ancient manners, with modern refinement, and even elegance. The carding of wool or flax is going on in one corner; two or three spinning-wheels are at work near the stove; and a young lady will get up from these old-fashioned occupa tions, take her guitar in the window-seat, and play and sing, or gallopade the length of the room with a sister, in a way that shows that these modern accomplishments have been as well taught as the more homely employments The breakfast is laid out on a tray at one end of this room, which is usually spacious, occupying the breadth of the house, and lighted from both sides. People do not sit down to this meal, which consists of slices of bread and butter, smoked meat, sausages, dried fish, with the family tankard, generally of massive silver, full of ale, and with decanters of French and Norwegian brandy, of which the gentlemen take a glass at this repast. This is the breakfast of old times in England. The coffee is taken by itself an hour or two before, and generally in the bedroom. While the gentlemen are walking about, conversing aud taking breakfast, the mistress is going in and out on her family affairs, servants enter for orders, neighbours drop in to hear or tell the news, the children are learning their catechism, or waltzing in the sunbeams in their own corner; and the whole is such a lively animated scene, without bustle or confusion, all is so nice and bright, and the manners of people towards each other in family intercourse are so amiable, and with such a strain of good breeding, that the traveller who wishes to be acquainted with the domestic life of the Norwegians, will find an hour very agreeable in the family-room.'

Our limits will not permit us even to allude to the many other interesting subjects scattered through Mr Laing's book, some of which as the mode of farming, the system of corn-banks, the unchecked distillation of potatoes, and the manner of supporting and employing the houseman and agricultural labourer, their prospects and condition-are important elements in the constitution of society as there existing. We must content ourselves with one more extract, relating to the life of the bonder, and other general characteristics of this singular people.

If there be a happy class of people in Europe, it is the Norwegian bonder. He is the owner of his little estate he has no feu-duty or feudal service to pay to any superior. He is the king of his own land, and landlord as well as king. His poor-rate and tithes are too inconsiderable to be mentioned. His scat or land-tax is heavy, but every thing he uses is in consequence so much cheaper; and he has that which renders the heaviest tax light, the management of it by his own representatives, and the satisfaction of publicity and economy in its application. He has the satisfaction of seeing, from Storthing to Stor