honest father can find no work. Arrange in imposing groups the corpses of children that have perished in her manufactories. Bring in the men, women, and children, chained together naked in her coal mines. Let the rags and tatters be the Crown jewels, and take Pomp through the Museum, and bid her behold her appropriate trophies. Such a Tower would fill all London. Yet it would be more appropriate, more significant, than the other for England's present wealth and grandeur grow as really out of this suffering and destitution, as it formerly did out of her armies and navies; or in other words, out of the sufferings and destitution of foreign foes. Idle and profligate pomp must live on open or secret spoils; but spoils are not to be got without inflicting wrong and suffering somewhere; and indeed a greater sacrifice of life is now demanded to sustain the feudal spirit and worthless magnificence of England, than when whole ranks were mowed down by the scythe of war. But one who looks at England as she now is, must be struck with the moral change which is so rapidly working throughout her population. The reverence for symbols is fast passing away. The people no longer shout when the coronet flashes by. They will no longer fight that a lazy lord may wear another star or ribbond. A feudal chieftain can no longer lead his vassals like sheep to the slaughter, to gratify his pride, or appease his revenge. Men begin to think for themselves: of every project of government the subjects ask "Cui bono?" Even they, thick-headed as their oppressors would fain have us believe them, are able to perceive some inconsistency in such piles of wealth being got without labour, and squandered without profit, while they who slave in sorrow die without bread. Before this cry for bread titles and symbols disappear. Want sweeps distinctions to the grave. Famine is the greatest leveller on earth. Its hand will strike a lord as quick as a peasant. It will send its cry into the very heart of the palace as soon as into a hovel. Men dare ask for bread any where of any man. When men have abundance they want glory; when they lack bread glory cannot satisfy them. England seems now to stand as the representative head of the monarchies of Europe, and she is leading the van in the solemn conflict through which each is destined to pass-the conflict which is to decide whether governments shall be for the few or the many, the rulers or the ruled. In that conflict which no earthly power can long delay, thrones are to sink, the long lines of kings disappear, and titles and estates vanish away. It is well England is thrown first into this great arena, for she will pass the trial with a moderation and a firmness we could not expect of other nations; and when she comes forth from it, the question will be settled for the continent and the world. BOOK THE SECOND. EMBRACING A VIEW OF THE GENERAL CONDITION OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE IN PAST AGES-THEIR BURDENS AND SUFFERINGS. In past ages, the People-never having conceived the idea of a social condition different from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever ranking with its chiefs-submitted without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable visitations of the arm of God.-De Tocqueville. The Poor were not the authors of the system which has ruined their freedom, their industry and their morals.-Edinburgh Review. The sternest Republican that ever Scotland produced, was so struck with this reflection, (the increase of pauperism, ignorance and crime,) that he did not hesitate to wish for the re-establishment of Domestic Slavery, as a remedy for the squalid wretchedness and audacious guilt with which his country was overrun.Quarterly Review. BOOK SECOND. GENERAL CONDITION OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE IN PAST AGES-THEIR BURDENS AND SUFFERINGS. I HAVE somewhere seen it stated, that the great Hampden, just before he died, remarked, while conversing with a friend on the condition and prospects of the English Nation, " with how much astonishment will the men of future times read the history of the injustice and oppression of Kings and Tyrants." A striking fulfilment of this prediction is furnished in our own age. As the darkness which gathered over the human mind in former centuries passes away, no inquiries become so earnest as those which relate to the rights, privileges, and destiny of man; rights of which he has always been robbed; privileges he never dared to hope for, and a destiny of whose glory he never dreamed. Every age has what is called its great principle or motive, which more than all others controls 1 |