these things he has to bring with him, besides his ordinary articles of furniture. Imagine the trouble, the inconvenience, and the expense, which the poor fellow and his wife have to encounter before they can put this shed of a hut into anything like a habitable form. This year I saw a family of eight-husband, wife, two sons, and four daughters-who were in utter discomfort and despair of putting themselves into a decent condition three or four weeks after they had come into one of these hovels. In vain did they try to stop up the crannies, and to fill up holes in the floor, and to arrange their furniture in tolerably decent order, and to keep out the weather. Alas! what will they not suffer this winter. There will be no fireside enjoyments for them! They may huddle together for warmth and heat coals on the fire, but they will have chilly beds and a damp hearthstone."* But we have pictures connected with the condition of the poor agricultural labourers of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Gloucestershire, equally sad in their particulars, with the super-addition of other even more tremendous afflictions, if any can be more tremendous. Such details are given that all surprise ceases at any amount of debasement to which they may sink, struggling on from hand to mouth, descending from coarser to coarser food, substituting, in many instances, an infusion of burnt crusts for tea. Since 66 1760, 3740 bills for enclosing commons have passed; in many instances this may seem to be a benefit, but to the agricultural labourer it is generally an unmitigated loss. Thus the peasantry sink from misery to misery; their occupation calls for no thought-the mind is never developed the powers are sluggish—and inert ignorance is for the most part not, as in towns, the character of some-it is the property of the class-masters and servants. The farmer and the labourer are frequently alike ignorant of all which it most concerns them to know; the truths of religion-the facts and doctrines of revelation-the great laws of Nature-the grave purposes of their existence-their duties their rights the meaning of the great firmament hung over them, and fretted with golden fires" in the solemn night-the whereabouts of the wonderful old worlds, the Indies and the Americas beyond the deep-all these are a blank page to them, and their mind is blank; they have written-Nature has written-nothing there; they have followed the guidings merely of brute instinct; they have never heard voices of sublime import speaking to the soul, have never felt the thrillings of that storm within the soul inquiring for a faith, and in agony till she found it; they exist like a rock in the waste of ocean; they know their master as a dog knows his whipper-in and his kennel, and yet their masters taunt us with the ignorance of the towns, and mourn over the palmy glory of the days of old. CHAPTER V. THE WRONGS OF THE PEOPLE. PROLOGUES OF QUOTATIONS. "An Indian and a Kentuckian once made an agreement to hunt in company, and divide equally the game which they might chance to kill. Unfortunately a crow and a wild turkey were all they shot. 'Well,' said the Kentuckian, at the end of the day, as we are to divide equally, you take the crow and I'll take the turkey; or, I'll take the turkey, and you take the crow.' How's that?' inquired the Indian. The Kentuckian, in rapid accents, repeated his proposal, to which the Indian, after a blank and puzzled look, consented, but with the remark, It sounds all very fair; but, somehow or other, you always get the turkey, and I always get the crow.' This is an admirable illustration of the mode not only in which the Americans have treated the Indians, but in which the aristocracy in all countries and ages have dealt with the people." JOHN HAMPDEN, JUN.—" Aristocracy of England.” "The world is under the direction of two antagonist principles, the desire to keep and the desire to take away. The past history of the world is in the main a history of the conquest of the latter principle; and it is only in comparatively modern periods that the other has made head against its antagonist with any marked success. The foreign and domestic policy of those who are styled the ancients may be summed up in the maxims, that every thing possible was to be taken by force from foreign nations, and every thing produced by the industrious at home was for this purpose to be at the service of the takers." T. PERRONET THOMPSON." Exercises," vol. ii. CHAPTER V. A Battle with a Bee-Antiquity and Prevalence of Wrongdoing-Dr. Woodward-Pope-Prevalence of WrongJudicial Wrong-War, and the Injustice of the Taxation Induced by it-Butler-Customs-Alienation of Commons-Social Injustice-Malthus-The People parties to their own Debasement-A General Election-Want of Freedom-Freedom Defined-Natural Rights--Discussion of the Principle of Political Change-Physical Force-Conservatism-The Jacquerie of France-Importance of Wise Political Teachers-Theorists-Hopes for the Future Stationary State of Society-The Tardiness and Youthfulness of Civilization- Evanescence of Impressions of Right or Wrong Rebuked. SINCE I penned that somewhat common-place little parable of the bee-hive, a chapter or two since, I have been engaged in a long conflict with a bee. Passing over one of the wild moors in the east of Yorkshire, one bright summer day, I had to force my way through a lovely patch of yellow broom, where a poor honest bee was heartily drinking his cup of honey, and piping his merry song; he fancied in the wayfarer a foe, and, the very picture of hot-headed ignorance, he unsheathed his sting, and made a fierce attack upon me. What could I do? the sting of a bee is no way desirable. On he came, sounding his battle-charge, darting round about me-now seeking to settle here, |