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contemplate their variety:-pastoral, passion, mock-have a better memory for his own faults? They are heroic, translation, satire, ethics,-all excellent, and but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitoften perfect. If his great charm be his melody, how ted from his catalogue are essential to the justice due comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translation? But I have made this letter too long. Give my compliments to Mr Bowles.

To J. Murray, Esq.

Yours ever, very truly,

BYRON..

Post scriptum.-Long as this letter has grown, I
find it necessary to append a postscript,-if possible, a
short one.
Mr Bowles denies that he has accused Pope
of a sordid money-getting passion;» but he adds «if
I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testi-
mony that might show me he was not so.» This tes-
timony he may find, to his heart's content, in Spence
and elsewhere. First, there is Martha Blount, who,
Mr Bowles charitably says, «probably thought he did
not save enough for her as legatee.» Whatever she
thought upon this point, her words are in Pope's
favour. Then there is Alderman Barber; see Spence's
Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax,
when he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs
and to Addison upon like occasions; and his own two
lines-

Aud, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive-

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to a man.

Is a review to be de

Mr Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a plaintive dedica- ! tion to Mr Gifford, in which he is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr Southey, it seems, the most able and eloquent writer in that Review,» approves of Mr Bowles's publication. Now, it seems to me the more impartial, that, notwithstanding that the great writer of the Quarterly entertains opinions opposite to the able article on Spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. voted to the opinions of any one man? Must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr Bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr Bowles, and have had as pleasant things said, and some as unpleasant, as could well be pronounced. In the review

of « The Fall of Jerusalem,» it is stated that I have devoted my powers, etc. to the worst parts of manicheism, which, being interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to Gifford. I believe that I observed in a

written when princes would have been proud to pen-letter to you, that I thought « that the critic might have sion, and peers to promote him, and when the whole praised Milman without finding it necessary to abuse army of dunces were in array against him, and would me;» but did I not add at the same time, or soon after have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast (apropos, of the note in the book of Travels), that I of independence. But there is something a little more would not, if it were even in my power, have a single serious in Mr Bowles's declaration, that he « would have line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other spoken» of his «noble generosity to the outcast, Richard publication? Of course, I reserve to myself the priSavage, and other instances of a compassionate and vilege of response when necessary. Mr Bowles seems in generous heart, « had they occurred to his recollection a whimsical state about the article on Spence. You when he wrote.» What is it come to this? Does know very well that I am not in your confidence, nor Mr Bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life in that of the conductor of the journal. The moment and edition of a great poet? Does he anatomize his I saw that article, I was morally certain that I knew the character, moral and poetical? Does he present us author « by his style.» You will tell me that I do not with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sneer at know him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. his vanity and duplicity? and then omit the good qua-He is not the person whom Mr Bowles denounces. Mr lities which might, in part, have «covered this multitude of sins?» and then plead that they did not occur to his recollection?» Is this the frame of mind and of memory with which the illustrious dead are to be approached? If Mr Bowles, who must have had access to all the means of refreshing his memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but if he did recollect, and omit them, I know not what he is fit for, but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of not recollecting» such prominent facts to be admitted? Mr Bowles has been at a public school, and, as I have been publicly educated also, I can sympathise with his predilection. When we were in the third form even, had we pleaded on the Monday morning, that we had not brought up the Saturday's exercise because « we had forgotten it,» what would have been the reply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so grievously that others

|

Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circum-
stance which occurred on board of a frigate, in which
I was a passenger and guest of the captain's, for a con-
siderable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentle-
manly young man, and remarkably able in his profes
sion, wore a wig. Upon this ornament he was extremely
tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a little rough,
his brother-officers made occasional allusions to this
delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a
young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discus-
sion, said, « Suppose, now, doctor, I should take off
your hat.» Sir,» replied the doctor, « I shall taik no
longer with you; you grow scurrilous.» He would not
even admit so near an approach as to the hat which
protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches
Mr Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an
editor, « they grow scurrilous.» You say that you are
about to prepare an edition of Pope; you cannot do
better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the
redemption of Pope from Mr Bowles, and of the public
taste from rapid degeneracy,

A Fragment.

June 17, 1816.

duct of my intended journey. It was my secret wish! In the year 17, having for some time determined that he might be prevailed on to accompany me: it was on a journey through countries not hitherto much fre- also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy rest quented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friendlessness which I had observed in him, and to which the whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus Darvell. He was a few years my elder, and a man of considerable fortune and ancient family-advantages which an extensive capacity prevented him alike from undervaluing or overrating. Some peculiar circumstances in his private history had rendered him to me an object of attention, of interest, and even of regard, which neither the reserve of his manners, nor occasional indications of an inquietude at times nearly approaching to alienation of mind, could extinguish.

animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, and his apparent indifference to all by which he was more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. This wish I first hinted, and then expressed : his answer, though I had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure of surprise-he consented; and, after the requisite arrangements, we commenced our voyages. After journeying through various countries of the south of Europe, our attention was turned towards the East, according to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred upon which will turn what I may have to relate.

The constitution of Darvell, which must, from his appearance, have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and be neither declined nor complained of fatigue, yet he was evidently wasting away: he became more and more. silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived to be his danger.

We had determined, on our arrival at Smyrna, on an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis, from which I endeavoured to dissuade him, in his present state of indisposition-but in vain: there appeared to be an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his man

on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but I opposed him no longer and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary.

I was yet young in life, which I had begun early; but my intimacy with him was of a recent date: we had been educated at the same schools and university, but his progress through these had preceded mine, and he had been deeply initiated into what is called the world, while I was yet in my noviciate. While thus engaged, I had heard much both of his past and present life; and, although in these accounts there were many and irre concilable contradictions, I could still gather from the whole that he was a being of no common order, and one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid remark, would still be remarkable. I had cultivated his acquaintance subsequently, and endeavoured to obtain his friendship, but this last appeared to be unattainable; whatever affections he might have possessed seemed now, some to have been extinguished, and others to be concentred that his feelings were acute, I had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them; still hener, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another, in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. We had passed half-way towards the remains of Ephe It was evident that he was a prey to some cureless dis- sus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of quiet; but whether it arose from ambition, love, re- Smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and temorse, grief, from one or all of these, or merely from nantless track through the marshes and defiles which a morbid temperament akin to disease, I could not dis- lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken cocover there were circumstances alleged which might lumns of Diana-the rootless walls of expelled Christiahave justified the application to each of these causes; nity, and the still more recent but complete desolation of but, as I have before said, these were so contradictory abandoned mosques-when the sudden and rapid illand contradicted, that none could be fixed upon withness of my companion obliged us to halt at a Turkish accuracy. Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil: I know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though I could not ascertain the extent of the other-and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existence. My advances were received with sufficient coldness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree, that common-place intercourse and moderate confidence of common and every-day concerns, created and cemented by similarity of pursuit and frequency of meeting, which is called intimacy, or friendship, according to the ideas of him who uses those words to express them. Darvell had already travelled extensively, and to him I had applied for information with regard to the con

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cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner in this wilderness. The only caravansera we had seen was left some hours behind us; not a vestige of a town or even cottage, was within sight or hope, and this « city of the dead» appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants.

In this situation, I looked round for a place where he might most conveniently repose:-contrary to the usual aspect of Mahometan burial grounds, the cypresses | were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, and worn with age: upon one of the most considerable of these, and beneath one of the most spreading trees

Darvell supported himself, in a half-reclining posture, with great difficulty. He asked for water. I had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency-but he desired me to remain; and turning to Suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquillity, he said, « Suleiman, verbana su,» (i. e. bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right: the janizary obeyed. I said to Darvell, « How did you know this?» -He replied, « From our situation; you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs : I have also been here before.» «You have been here before!-How came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?»

To this question I received no answer. In the meantime, Suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. The quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and I conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and I urged the attempt. He was silent-and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. He began.

« This is the end of my journey, and of my lifecame here to die but I have a request to make, a command-for such my last words must be. You will observe it?»

<< Most certainly; but have better hopes.»>

« Why ?»

«You will see.»

a The ninth day of the month, you say?»

<< The ninth.>>

As I observed that the present was the ninth day of the month, his countenance changed, and he paused. As he sate, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak, perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be stedfastly regarding us. I know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. Darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke-I know not whether to himself or to me-but the words were only, «T is well!»

« What is well? what do you mean?»

« No matter you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. You know the rest of my injunctions.»>

He then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. After these were finished, he exclaimed, « You perceive that bird? »

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He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, « It is not yet time !» As he spoke, the stork flew away. My eyes followed it for a moment; it could hardly be

<< I have no hopes, nor wishes, but this-conceal my longer than ten might be counted. I felt Darvell's death from every human being.»>

weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and,

<< I hope there will be no occasion; that you will re- turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was cover, and--» dead!

« Peace! it must be so : promise this.>> « I do. »

I was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken-his countenance in a few minutes

« Swear it by all that»--He here dictated an oath became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid of great solemnity.

a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had

<< There is no occasion for this-I will observe your no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day request;—and to doubt me is——»

<< It cannot be helped,-you must swear. »

was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indi

I took the oath it appeared to relieve him. He removed a seal-ring from his finger, on which were some Arabic characters, and presented it to me. He pro-cated: the earth easily gave way, having already received ceeded

<< On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the Bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.>>

some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre. Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless.

Parliamentary Speeches.

DEBATE ON THE FRAME-WORK BILL, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 27, 1812.

MY LORDS-The subject now submitted to your lordships for the first time, though new to the House, is by no means new to the country. I believe it had occulong before its introduction to the notice of that legisLORD BYRON rose, and (for the first time) addressed lature, whose interference alone could be of real sertheir lordships, as follows: vice. As a person in some degree connected with the

THE order of the day for the second reading of this pied the serious thoughts of all descriptions of persons, bill being read.

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suffering county, though a stranger not only to this House in general, but to almost every individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I must claim some portion of your lordships' indulgence whilst I offer a few observations on a question in which I confess myself deeply interested.

chinery, in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted, might have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant; yet in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in warehouses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen equally diminished,

To enter into any detail of the riots would be super-frames of this description tend materially to aggravate fluous: the House is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. During the short time I recently passed in Nottinghamshire, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day I left the county, I was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening, -as usual, without resistance and without detection.

once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only les guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new |

death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them : their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employments pre-occupied, and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject of surprise.

the distress and discontent of the disappointed sufferers. But the real cause of these distresses and consequent disturbances lies deeper. When we are told that these men are leagued together, not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare of the last eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort? that policy which, originating with « great statesmen now no more,» has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth Such was then the state of that county, and such I generation! These men never destroyed their looms have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But till they were become useless, worse than useless; till whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an they were become actual impediments to their exertions alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have in obtaining their daily bread, Can you, then, wonder arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled that, in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted distress. The perseverance of these miserable men in fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but abso-far beneath that of your lordships, the lowest, though lute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which I allude, the town and countey were burthened with large detach-capital punishments must be devised, new snares of ments of the military; the police was in motion; the magistrates assembled ; yet all the movements, civil and military, had led to-nothing. Not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men, liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men who had been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the times they were unable to maintain. Considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames. These machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. By the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employ-out examination, and without cause, to pass sentences ment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus by wholesale, and sign death-warrants blindfold. But executed was inferior in quality; not marketable at admitting that these men had no cause of complaint; home, and merely hurried over with a view to exporta- that the grievances of them and their employers were tion. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by the alike groundless; that they deserved the worst; what name of « spider - work.» The rejected workmen, in inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at method chosen to reduce them! Why were the military these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements called out at all? As far as the difference of seasons in mechanism. In the foolishness of their hearts they would permit, they have merely parodied the summer imagined, that the maintenance and well-doing of the campaign of Major Sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole industrious poor were objects of greater consequence proceedings, civil and military, seemed on the model of than the enrichment of a few individuals by any im- those of the Mayor and Corporation of Garratt.-Such provement, in the implements of trade, which threw marchings and counter-marchings! from Nottingham the workmen out of employment, and rendered the to Bullwell, from Bullwell to Banford, from Banford to labourer unworthy of his hire. And it must be con- Mansfield and when at length the detachments arrived fessed, that although the adoption of the enlarged ma- at their destinations, in all « the pride, pomp, and cir

It has been stated, that the persons in the temporary possession of frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon inquiry, it were necessary that such! material accessories to the crime should be principals | in the punishment. But I did hope, that any measure proposed by his majesty's government, for your lordships decision, would have had couciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous inquiry, some deliberation would have been deemed requisite: not that we should have been called at once with

such objects demand it. I have traversed the seat of
war in the Peninsula, I have been in some of the most
oppressed provinces of Turkey, but never under the
most despotic of infidel governments did I behold
such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my re-
turn, in the very heart of a Christian country. And
what are your
remedies? After months of inaction,
and months of action worse than inactivity, at length
comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nos-
trum of all state-physicians, from the days of Draco to
the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking
the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course
of warm water and bleeding, the warm water of your
maukish police, and the lancets of your military, these
convulsions must terminate in death, the sure con-
summation of the prescriptions of all political Sangra-
dos. Setting aside the palpable injustice, and the
certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital
punishments sufficient in your statutes ? Is there not
blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be
poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against
you? How will you carry the bill into effect? Can
you commit a whole county to their own prison?
Will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men
like scarecrows? or will you proceed (as you must to
bring this measure into effect) by decimation? place
the country under martial law? depopulate and lay
waste all around you? and restore Sherwood Forest
as an acceptable gift to the crown, in its former condi-
tion of a royal chase and an asylum for outlaws? Are
these the remedies for a starving and desperate popu-
lace? Will the famished wretch who has braved your
bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? When death
is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will
afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity?
Will that which could not be effected by your grena-
diers be accomplished by your executioners? If you

cumstance of glorious war,» they came just in time to witness the mischief which had been done, and ascertain the escape of the perpetrators; to collect the « spolia opimas in the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women, and the bootings of children. Now, though in a free country, it were to be wished, that our military should never be too formidable, at least to ourselves, I cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots,-had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the county. At present the county suffers from the double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. In what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now for the first time the House has been officially apprised of these disturbances! All this has been transacting within 130 miles of London, and yet we, « good easy men, have deemed full sure our greatness was a-ripening,» and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. But all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and your executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citizens.-You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the « Bellua multorum capitum» is to lop off a few of its superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of concilia-proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? tion and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob! It is the mob that labour in your fields, and serve in your houses,-that man your navy, and recruit your army, that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget, that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. And here must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of Providence or the parish. When the Portuguese suffered under the retreat of the French, every arm was stretch-consequences. ed out, every hand was opened, from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their granaries. And at this moment, when thousands of misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardships and hunger, as your charity began abroad it should end at home. A much less sum, a tithe of the bounty bestowed on Portugal, even if those men (which I cannot admit without inquiry) could not have been restored to their employments, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. But doubtless our friends have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief; though never did

Those who have refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. With all due deference to the noble lords opposite, I think a little investigation, some previous inquiry, would induce even them to change their purpose. That most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, temporising, would not be without its advantages in this. When a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporize and tamper with the minds of men; but a deathbill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the

Sure I am, from what I have heard, and from what I have seen, that to pass the Bill under all the existing circumstances without inquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. The framers of such a Bill must be content to inherit the honours of that Athenian lawgiver, whose edicts were said to be written not in ink but in blood. But suppose it passed; suppose one of these men, as I have seen them,-meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your Lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stockingframe-suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever

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