Charles Mackay, who, two or three years ago, passed some months in New-York, and who is known for his very candid and intelligent book upon the United States, entitled "The Western World," has gone to India, as an agent of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of inquiring into the state and prospects of Indian cotton cultivation. Mr. Mackay has had experience in the collection of statistical information; he has lived long enough abroad to know that essential differences sometimes lurk beneath external resemblances in the social arrangements of two countries, and to be on his guard against the erroneous inferences to which ignorance of this fact leads. He is naturally acute, energetic, and cautious. For the difficult task of investigating and reporting upon the condition of an important branch of industry, and the circumstances which are likely to promote or retard its progress among a community so different from the English as that of India, he is probably as well fitted as any man who could have been selected. The foundation of the British Indian empire and the establishment of the United States as an independent nation, were contemporary events. The loss of her American colonies helped to concentrate the attention and exertions of England upon her Indian dominions. The progress made by British India since 1760, in civilization, material wealth, and intelligent enterprise, is barely perceptible; while the United States have expanded from a few obscure colonies into a nation second only to Great Britain in the value and extent of their commercial relations, second to none in intelligence and successful enterprise. The Anglo-Norman inhabitants of the "Old Thirteen" provinces have made the valley of the Mississippi, and the prairies beyond it, which little more than half a century ago were mere wastes, the thronged abodes of a vigorous and wealthy European population. They have done this without the aid of the aboriginal tribes, who have proved irreclaimably addicted to their nomade habits. The Anglo-Normans who rule British India have had to deal with a country thickly peopled with races far advanced in civilization, though of a peculiar character; yet, in every respect, the results of their efforts lag far behind those visible in America. To place the difference in a most striking point of view, it is only necessary to contrast the cotton produce and the mercantile marine of British India with those of the United States. There is actually a more fully-developed steam navigation between Panama and California than between Bombay and China. The causes of these results are plain enough to us, but to the English they are enigmas. The mission of Mr. Mackay will scarcely end in a revelation of the truth, that liberty and independence have kept healthy the blood in the vigorous limbs of the Americans, while trammels and vassalage have deadened the energies of the Indies; but it may have an important influence upon the question whether the East India Company's charter shall be renewed, and it certainly will develop much information interesting to the cotton-growers of the United States.
Mr. De Quincey is one of the greatest of the elder race of literary men now living in Great Britain, and we believe he is in no very affluent circumstances. The bestowal of a pension by the Government upon Mr. James Bailey, an editor of the classics, residing at Cambridge, on the ground of his "literary services," causes The Leader thus to refer to the author of "The Opium Eater"—
"Where is Thomas De Quincey's pension? Some may not regard him, as we do, the very greatest living master of the English language; some may think lightly of those fragmentary works and fugitive articles with which he has for more than thirty years enriched our literature; but, whatever may be the individual estimate of his services, one fact is patent, namely, that you cannot mention De Quincey in any circle of the British Islands, pretending to literary culture, but his name will sound familiar; in most it will awaken responses of gratitude for high pleasures bestowed, in none will it arouse indignation of high power to base uses. Now, this we call a clear case for national beneficence. He has done the state service, and they know it; but they will not reward it."
Apropos of pensions: Upon the whole, we have the best exchequer in the world, and to soldiers we have evinced no special lack of liberality. To give five hundred dollars a year to Mr. Audubon, R. H. Dana, Moses Stuart, Edward Robinson, H. R. Schoolcraft, James G. Percival, C. F. Hoffman, and some half dozen others, would be something toward an "honorable discharge" of the country's obligations in the premises, and probably no slight addition to the happiness of men who have added much to the real glory of the nation, while it would cost less than a morning's useless debate in Congress. In a recent letter to Lord Brougham, on a cognate subject, Savage Landor exclaims:
"Probably the time is not far distant when the arts and sciences, and even literary genius, may be deemed no less worthy of this distinction than the slaughter of a thousand men. But how, in the midst of our vast expenditure, spare so prodigious a sum as five hundred a year to six, and three hundred a year to six more!"
A Mr. Chubb has published in London, in a small volume, a paper which he read before the Institution of Civil Engineers, on the construction of locks and keys. It embraces a history of the lock and key from the earliest ages, illustrated profusely with wood cuts. It forms an instructive and entertaining essay; but we think Mr. Chubb might have learned something more of the subject in the lock factories of Newark and this city.
Mr. Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature has been translated into German, and is announced for publication by Brockhaus.