Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

For a young man to go up to Cambridge (I say nothing of Oxford, knowing nothing thereof) merely as routine work, to lounge through three years to a degree among the ὁι πολλοι – for such an one, Oxford Street herself, whom the immortal Opium-eater hath so direly apostrophised, is not a more careless and stony-hearted mother. But for him who will read, who will work, who will seize the rare advantages proffered, who will select his friends judiciously – yea, out of that vast ferment of young idea in its lusty vigour, choose the good and reject the bad – there is plenty to make those three years rich with fruit imperishable – three years nobly spent, even though one must pass over the Ass's Bridge to get into the Temple of Honour.

Important changes in the Academical system have been recently announced, and honours are henceforth to be accorded to the successful disciples in moral and natural sciences. By the side of the old throne of Mathesis, they have placed two very useful fauteuils à la Voltaire. I have no objection; but, in those three years of life, it is not so much the thing learned, as the steady perseverance in learning something that is excellent.

It was fortunate, in one respect, for me that I had seen a little of the real world – the metropolitan, before I came to that mimic one – the cloistral. For what were called pleasures in the last, and which might have allured me, had I come fresh from school, had no charm for me now. Hard drinking and high play, a certain mixture of coarseness and extravagance, made the fashion among the idle when I was at the university sub consule Planco– when Wordsworth was master of Trinity: it may be altered now.

But I had already outlived such temptations, and so, naturally, I was thrown out of the society of the idle, and somewhat into that of the laborious.

Still, to speak frankly, I had no longer the old pleasure in books. If my acquaintance with the great world had destroyed the temptation to puerile excesses, it had also increased my constitutional tendency to practical action. And, alas! in spite of all the benefit I had derived from Robert Hall, there were times when memory was so poignant that I had no choice but to rush from the lonely room, haunted by tempting phantoms too dangerously fair, and sober down the fever of the heart by some violent bodily fatigue. The ardour which belongs to early youth, and which it best dedicates to knowledge, had been charmed prematurely to shrines less severely sacred. Therefore, though I laboured, it was with that full sense of labour which (as I found at a much later period of life) the truly triumphant student never knows. Learning – that marble image – warms into life, not at the toil of the chisel, but the worship of the sculptor. The mechanical workman finds but the voiceless stone.

At my uncle's, such a thing as a newspaper rarely made its appearance. At Cambridge, even among reading men, the newspapers had their due importance. Politics ran high; and I had not been three days at Cambridge before I heard Trevanion's name. Newspapers, therefore, had their charms for me. Trevanion's prophecy about himself seemed about to be fulfilled. There were rumours of changes in the cabinet. Trevanion's name was bandied to and fro, struck from praise to blame, high and low, as a shuttlecock. Still the changes were not made, and the cabinet held firm. Not a word in the Morning Post, under the head of fashionable intelligence, as to rumours that would have agitated me more than the rise and fall of governments – no hint of "the speedy nuptials of the daughter and sole heiress of a distinguished and wealthy commoner: " only now and then, in enumerating the circle of brilliant guests at the house of some party chief, I gulped back the heart that rushed to my lips, when I saw the names of Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion.

But amongst all that prolific progeny of the periodical press – remote offspring of my great namesake and ancestor, (for I hold the faith of my father,) – where was the Literary Times? – what had so long retarded its promised blossoms? Not a leaf in the shape of advertisements had yet emerged from its mother earth. I hoped from my heart that the whole thing was abandoned, and would not mention it in my letters home, lest I should revive the mere idea of it. But, in default of the Literary Times, there did appear a new journal, a daily journal too; a tall, slender, and meagre stripling, with a vast head, by way of prospectus, which protruded itself for three weeks successively at the top of the leading article; – with a fine and subtle body of paragraphs; – and the smallest legs, in the way of advertisements, that any poor newspaper ever stood upon! And yet this attenuated journal had a plump and plethoric title, a title that smacked of turtle and venison; an aldermanic, portly, grandiose, Falstaffian title – it was called The Capitalist. And all those fine subtle paragraphs were larded out with receipts how to make money. There was an El Dorado in every sentence. To believe that paper, you would think no man had ever yet found a proper return for his pounds, shillings, and pence. You would have turned up your nose at twenty per cent. There was a great deal about Ireland – not her wrongs, thank Heaven! but her fisheries: a long inquiry what had become of the pearls for which Britain was once so famous: a learned disquisition upon certain lost gold mines now happily rediscovered: a very ingenious proposition to turn London smoke into manure, by a new chemical process: recommendations to the poor to hatch chickens in ovens like the ancient Egyptians: agricultural schemes for sowing the waste lands in England with onions, upon the system adopted near Bedford, net produce one hundred pounds an acre. In short, according to that paper, every rood of ground might well maintain its man, and every shilling be like Hobson's money-bag, "the fruitful parent of a hundred more." For three days, at the newspaper room of the Union Club, men talked of this journal: some pished, some sneered, some wondered; till an ill-natured mathematician, who had just taken his degree, and had spare time on his hands, sent a long letter to the Morning Chronicle, showing up more blunders, in some article to which the editor of The Capitalist had specially invited attention, (unlucky dog!) than would have paved the whole island of Laputa. After that time, not a soul read The Capitalist. How long it dragged on its existence I know not; but it certainly did not die of a maladie de langueur.

Little thought I, when I joined in the laugh against The Capitalist, that I ought rather to have followed it to its grave, in black crape and weepers, – unfeeling wretch that I was! But, like a poet, O Capitalist! thou wert not discovered, and appreciated, and prized, and mourned, till thou wert dead and buried, and the bill came in for thy monument!

The first term of my college life was just expiring, when I received a letter from my mother, so agitated, so alarming, at first reading so unintelligible, that I could only see that some great misfortune had befallen us; and I stopped short and dropped on my knees, to pray for the life and health of those whom that misfortune more specially seemed to menace; and then – and then, towards the end of the last blurred sentence – read twice, thrice, over – I could cry, "Thank Heaven, thank Heaven! it is only, then, money after all!"

STATISTICAL ACCOUNTS OF SCOTLAND

It is a term of very wide application, this of statistics – extending to everything in the state of a country subject to variation either from the energies and fancies of men, or from the operations of nature, in so far as these, or the knowledge of them, has any tendency to occasion change in the condition of the country. Its elements must be either changeable in themselves, or the cause of change; because the use of the whole matter is to direct men what to do for their advantage, moral or physical – by legislation, when the case is of sufficient magnitude – or otherwise by the wisdom and enterprise of individuals.

Governments, it is plain, must have the greatest interest in possessing knowledge of this sort; but they have not been the first to engage very earnestly in obtaining it. It would seem that, in all countries, the first very noticeable efforts in this way have been made by individuals.

In this country we have now from government more and better statistics than from any other source; for besides the decennial census, there is the yearly produce in this way of Crown Commissions and of Parliamentary Committees; and, moreover, there is the late institution of a statistical department in connexion with the Board of Trade, for arranging, digesting, and rendering more accessible all matter of this kind collected, from time to time, by the different branches of the administration. But before statistical knowledge became the object of much care to the government of this country, it had been well cultivated by individuals. So in Germany statistics first took a scientific form in the works of an individual about the middle of the last century: and in France, the unfinished Mémoires des Intendants, prepared on the order of the king, were scarcely an exception, since meant for the private instruction of the young prince. But without attaching undue importance to the fact of mere precedence, it may be said that, considering the chief uses of this kind of knowledge, it has received more contributions from individuals than could have been expected.

This admits of being easily explained. It has been well said that, while history is a sort of current statistics, statistics are a sort of stationary history. The one has therefore much the same invitations to mere literary taste as the other; and if the subject be not so generally engaging, the fancy way be as strong, and produce as pure a devotion to statistics as there ever is to history. More than this, the statist may care far less for his subject than its uses, – that is, he may choose to undergo the toil of researches only recommended by the chance of their ministering to the better guidance of some part of public policy, and therefore to the public good. The impulse is then not literary; nor is it legislative, for the power is wanting; it is simply patriotic, for so it must be considered, even when, in the words of Mr M'Culloch, the object is only "to bring under the public view the deficiencies in statistical information, and so to contribute to the advancement of the science."

This public nature of the aim of statistical works, and the unlikelihood of their authors choosing that medium to set forth anything supposed worthy of notice in the figure of their own genius, seem to have been recognised, except in rare instances, as giving to works of this kind a title to be well received, and to have their faults very gently remarked.

Again, it might be expected that the statistics of individuals should have a more limited range than those of governments; that they should refer to districts of less extent; and to the state of the country in fewer of its aspects. But the case is somewhat different. The statistics of individuals are often more national than local, and generally consist of many branches presented in some connexion; while those of governments are commonly confined to the single department on which some question of policy may chance for the time to have fixed attention.

On the occasion mentioned, the inquiries instituted in France were not so confined, but embraced all the points of chief interest in the state of the country. In England, nothing similar has been attempted; although, some years ago, it is known that a proposal to institute a general survey of Ireland – on the plan, we believe, of the Ordnance Survey of the parish of Templemore – was for some time under consideration of the government.

On the other hand, the instances of individual enterprise in this way to a national extent are numerous, both at home and abroad. Among the latter, Aucherwall gives the first example, and Peuchet probably the best; both treating of the country not in parts but as a whole, – not in one respect but in many. Of the same sort are the excellent statistical works of Colquhoun, M'Culloch, Porter, and others, relating to the British empire, and directed to many aspects of its condition. To these we add the Statistical Account of Scotland, – occupied with as many or more matters of inquiry, but not so properly national, since viewing not the country collectively, but its parochial divisions in succession.

One advantage belongs to the collection of statistics upon many points, which is not found in those that are limited to one. It is remarked by Schlozer in his Theorie der Statistik, that "there are many facts seemingly of no value, but which become important as soon as you combine them with other facts, it may be of quite another class. The affinities subsisting among these facts are discovered by the talent and genius of the statist; and the more various the knowledge he possesses, with so much the more success he will perform this last and crowning part of his task." The observation need not be confined to facts apparently unimportant: for even those, whose importance is at once perceived, may acquire a new value from a skilful collation. In either case, there seems a necessity for remitting the detached statistics collected by government to some such department as that in connexion with the Board of Trade; otherwise, the works of individual statists must continue to afford the only opportunity of tracing the latent relations of one branch of statistics to another.

The individual, however, who attempts so much, is in hazard of attempting more than any individual can well perform. For, besides this, he has to make another effort quite distinct – in the investigation of facts. All the needed scientific knowledge he may possess; but the same sufficiency of local or topographical knowledge is not supposable. The work so produced, therefore, cannot easily avoid the defects, either of error in the details of some branch, of unequal development of the parts, or of a superficial treatment of the whole. Against these dangers some writers have had recourse to assistance, inviting contributions from others favoured with better means of information than themselves; and to them attributing, in so far as they assisted, the entire merit and responsibility of the work.

This transference of responsibility is warranted by the necessity of the case – but it is unusual; and as it scarcely occurs except in works of the kind in question, it may happen that even a professing judge of such works, if the habit of attention be not good, may entirely overlook the circumstance.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, the obligation to individual contributions has been carried to the greatest extent; indeed, it is simply a collection of such contributions, and nothing more. This part of the plan was necessitated by another, in which the work is equally peculiar – namely, the distinct treatment of smaller divisions of the country, than have been taken up in any other work of the kind, having an entire country for its object. To obtain a body of parochial statistics, it was necessary to have recourse to persons well acquainted with the bounds, and intelligent, at the same time, upon the various subjects of inquiry. But to find such in nine hundred parishes would, of itself, have required much of that local knowledge, the want of which was the occasion of the search – had there not been a class or order of men among whom the desired qualification, in many points, might be supposed to be pretty generally diffused; and from whose favour to a project of public usefulness much aid might be expected. It was in this manner that the co-operation of the parochial clergy came to be suggested.

The Statistical Account of Scotland was originated, promoted, and superintended by the late Sir John Sinclair. The authors of such works, as one of the best of them remarks, should be careful to explain their motives in undertaking it – we presume, because undertakings of the kind are felt to be scarcely an affair of individuals. In this instance, a desire to promote the public good was at once professed and accredited by many other acts apparently inspired by the same sentiment. The devotion of Sir John Sinclair's life in that direction was complete, and the example uncommon. In this a late reviewer perceives nothing more than a restless pursuit of plans of no further interest to himself than as they bore the inscription of his own name. But whenever public spirit is professed, and by anything like useful acts attested, our faith, we think, should be more generous. On such occasions, if on any, it is right to waive all speculation upon private motives, and to presume the best – for reasons so well understood in general that they do not need to be explained. But if genius, with a bent to that sort of penetration, must have its freedom, we do demand that some token should appear of a belief in the possibility of the virtue which is denied.

It does not improve the grace of any such judgments that they are passed fifty years after the occasion; for, in the meantime, the work may have acquired merits which could not belong to it at first: – and so it has happened with the Statistical Account of Sir John Sinclair. Results may be fairly ascribed to that performance which were not intended nor foreseen, and which seem to have come from its very defects, as well as from the defects which it revealed in the condition of the country, and in the means of ascertaining what the condition of the country was. Its population-statistics were extremely imperfect; the census followed in a very few years. Its scanty and unequal notices of agriculture suggested the project of the County Reports; and to these succeeded the General Report of Scotland– a work still useful, and of the first authority in much that relates to the agriculture and other industry of the country. To take advantage of those capabilities which the statistical accounts had shown his country to possess, Sir John Sinclair originated the Agricultural Society. All of those things, and more, appear to have resulted from the Statistical Account. They are honours that have arisen to it in the course of time, and may be fairly permitted to mitigate the notice and recollection of its faults.

After the lapse of fifty years, Scotland had ceased to be the country represented in the old Statistical Account; for the greater part of what is proper to such a work is, as we have said, changeable and changing. It contained not a little, however, which remained as true and as interesting as at first: the topography, the physical characters, the civil divisions of the country were the same; all that had been said of its history, whether local or general, might be said again as seasonably as before. It occurred, then, to those to whom the author had presented the right of this work, to attempt to restore it in those parts which time had rendered useless, preserving those which were under no disadvantage from that cause. This, as we learn, was the plain, unambitious intention of the New Statistical Account of Scotland. It was projected and carried on during ten years by a Society, whose object it is to afford aid, where aid is needed, in the education of the children of the clergy of the Church of Scotland. Nothing could be more foreign to that object than to engage in a work of national statistics; nothing more natural than that, in their relation to the clergy, and with their interest in the first work, they should propose to renew it in the manner mentioned. A society expressly formed for statistical purposes, and not restrained like the Society for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy, would probably have proposed something different – something more new; it might have been expected to produce something more excellent – though, even in that case, the demand of excellence would have been limited by the consideration, that the means of completely investigating the statistics of a country are not at the command of any statistical society that exists. A modernisation, so to speak, of the first work appears to have been the idea of the second.

It has been executed, however, in the freest style, and scarcely admitted, indeed, of being accomplished at all in any other manner. In such cases, it is seldom that the adaptation is effected by mere numerical changes; the whole statement, in form, manner, and substance, behoves to be remodelled. Then, certain parts of the original may have been deficient, and become more evidently so by the changes that have since ensued in the state of the object: here the task is less one of correction than of supplement. For example, the very interesting and full accounts of mining and manufacturing industry which abound in the new work are nearly peculiar to it, and have scarcely an example in the old. One entire section of the latter, that of natural history, has been developed to an extent not attempted in the former, nor indeed in any other statistical work. These are rather noticeable licenses, on the supposition of the aim being as moderate as professed, and they go far to form a new and independent work – having nothing in common with the first, except the parochial divisions and the obligation to the clergy, as respects the plan; and as respects the matter, only the small part of it which is historical, and therefore not obsolete.

We observe, accordingly, that the society who promoted the new work have put it forward as taking some things from the old, for which they are not responsible, but as containing far more which must form a new and separate character for itself. In both respects, we think they have viewed the work with a proper reference to the conditions under which it was produced.

In other points, the new Account has improved upon the old, and might be expected to do so. It has more matter, by a third part, neither less suited to the place, nor more diffuse in the statement; and, as befits a work of reference, the arrangement is more orderly and more uniform. It is, on the whole, more carefully and better written, and shows, on the part of the reverend contributors, a remarkable advance in the many sorts of knowledge requisite to the task. If the comparison were pursued further, it might be said that some contributions to the first are not surpassed in the value of what they contain; while, from the greater novelty of the task at that time, as well as from the greater freedom of the method, they are somewhat fresher and more genial in manner. The later work, if fuller, more exact, more statistical throughout, possesses that advantage at the cost of appearing sometimes more like a collection of returns in answer to submitted points of inquiry, – a character, however, by no means unsuitable to a compilation of the kind. In all other points a decided superiority must be attributed to the new Account.

Our remarks at this time shall be confined to the plan of the new Account, and to the general description of its contents.6

The chief feature of the plan is the distinct treatment of each parish – producing a body neither of county nor of national, but merely of parochial statistics. This was the design, and there is much to recommend it. It is the last thing that can take the aspect of a fault in statistics, to view the matter in very minute portions; for thus, and thus only, it is possible to arrive at an accurate knowledge of the whole. There can be no good county statistics which do not suppose inquiries limited, at first, to lesser divisions of the country, and which do not express the sum of particulars taken from subdivisions that can hardly proceed too far. If such minor surveys do not come before the public, they are presumptively carried on in private. But, in the latter case, they are the more apt to be superficial, as they can be so with the less chance of being noticed; they are apt to take aid from mere computation of averages; they are apt, also, to result in that vague description which is the master-vice of statistics. "In this town, there are manufactures which employ many hands; in this district, vast quantities of silk are produced. These," says Schlozer, "are pet phrases of tourists, who would say something, when they know nothing; but they are not the language of statistics." The parochial method stands, then, on two good grounds: it is inevitable either in an open or a latent form; and it favours the collection of sufficient data for those specific enumerations which are the true worth and the characteristic grace of this branch of knowledge.