thing signified, and
under the fleeting forms of rhythmed time and measured space, learn to
detect the immutable principles which are to be its glory and joy for
eternity!

CURRENCY AND THE NATIONAL FINANCES.

1. _History of the Bank of England, its Times and Traditions, from 1694
to 1844._ By JOHN FRANCIS. First American Edition. _With Notes,
Additions, and an Appendix, including Statistics of the Bank to the
close of the year 1861._ By J. SMITH HOMANS, Author of the 'Cyclopaedia
of Commerce and Commercial Navigation.' New York. 8vo, pp.476.

2. _Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Chairman of the
Committee of Ways and Means, in relation to the Issue of an Additional
Amount of United States Treasury Notes._

3. _Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances
of the United States for the Year ending June 30, 1862._

4. _The Tariff Question considered in regard to the Policy of England
and the Interests of the United States. With Statistical and Comparative
Tables._ By ERASTES B. BIGELOW. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 4to, pp. 103
and 242.

5. _The Bankers' Magazine and Statistical Register._ New York, monthly,
1861-2. Edited by J. SMITH HOMANS, jr.

The Bank of England was created during the urgent necessities of
national finance. It was a concession of a valuable privilege to a few
rich men, in consideration of their loaning the capital to the treasury.
'The estimates of Government expenditure in the year 1694 were
enormous,' says Macaulay, in his fourth volume. King William asked to
have the army increased to ninety-four thousand, at an annual expense of
about two and a half millions sterling--a small sum compared with what
it costs in the year 1862 to maintain an army of equal numbers.

At the period of the charter of the bank, the minds of men were on the
rack to conceive new sources of revenue with which to meet the increased
expenditures of the nation. The land tax was renewed at four shillings
in the pound, and yielded a revenue of two millions. A poll tax was
established. Stamp duties, which had prevailed in the time of Charles II
had been allowed to expire, but were now revived, and have ever since
been among the most prolific sources of income, yielding to the British
Government in the year 1862 no less than L8,400,000 sterling. Hackney
coaches were taxed, notwithstanding the outcries of the coachmen and the
resistance of their wives, who assembled around Wes