The Colonial and Asiatic Review [Incorporating the Asiatic Journal and Monthly Review, and the Colonial Magazine and East India Review]. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1852 Excerpt: ... land, haTe other subjects than these to describe and adjust, and reflect also on the changes which our own history records as to the estimate of pomp and pageantry, and princes and courts, and economic and social laws, and as to the usages of life, we ought to trace our advantages to the great fountain heads of rational freedom and religion, whence they have flown, and to refer these again to the gift of that God " who appointed to the nations the bounds of their habitations." PINCHBECK BUBBLES, OR SOCIETES EN COMMANDITE. John Bull, whether deservedly or not, has such a reputation for gullibility in matters of speculation, that the surest sign of his purse being well filled is a flock of Chevaliers d'Industrie flitting about his strong box. To judge by such omens, his purse is now filled to bursting. The hawks have been gathering round him for months, and the usual result of the scramble amongst themselves for the little pickings, has been the practical disproof of the old proverb, "hawks do not peck out hawks' eyes." Poor John Bull has been a second St. Antony in his temptations, shapes seductive as the fair and frail damsels in the legend have beckoned him to rich mines, and the longest, greenest, and most sulky guardian dragons have offered to him their buried treasures for a small "con-si-de-ra-ti-on." John's heart softened, and he left his three per cents, for Californian scrip, and preferred picking up gold in handfuls on Jonathan's land to distilling it drop by drop by patience and industry. John, however, had no slight reason for his conduct. The gold was no fairy money, but a solid reality. The treasures are still there, and the owners too, and if John is at last cheated it will be by the sharp practice of the rival dragons. The gold discoveries, t...