true-and both are false-true as individual pictures-alas! too many -false as general pictures of slavery, either in corn and cotton, or sugar and rum Islands. But here the misery is at our own doors-and within reach not only of our open eyes, but of our open hands-yet it groans and growls unheeded by those sensual sentimentalists that run in search of wretchedness that raves beyond and turn aside-not that they may not trample upon-but that they may escape relieving him-the beggar perishing on the pavement, within a few steps of their own porch. And this is Charity!

seas,

Under such a system, the political economist comes forward with his Manual of the Best Means of removing Misery and let us for a moment notice his nostrums-let Christopher North, in his Winter Rhapsody, follow John Ramsay M'Culloch in his-and let the world decide to which Rhapsodist the greater portion of common sense belongs whether in our poetical-prose, or his prose-prose, be embarked the rich est freightage of truth.

"The weavers and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham," quoth our rhapsodizing sage, possess infinitely more general and extended information than is possessed by the agricultural labourer of any county in the empire. And this is exactly what a more unprejudiced enquiry into the subject would have led us to anticipate. The various occupations in which the husbandman is made necessarily to engage, their constant liability to be affected by so variable a power as the weather, and the perpetual change in the appearance of the objects which daily meet his eyes, and with which he is conversant, occupy his attention, and render him a stranger to that ennui and desire for extrinsic and adventitious excitement which must ever be felt by those who are constantly engaged in burnishing the point of a pin, or in performing the same endless routine of precisely similar operations. This want of excitement cannot, however, be so cheaply or effectually gratified in any other way as it may be by cultivating-that is, by stimulating-the mental powers. The generality of workmen have no time for dissipa

tion; and if they had, the wages of labour in all old-settled and densely peopled countries are too low, and the propensity to save and accumulate too powerful, to permit any very large proportion of them seeking to divert themselves by indulging in riot and excess. They are thus driven to seek for recreation in mental excitement; and the circumstances under which they are placed, afford them every possible facility for amusing and diverting themselves in this manner. By working together, they have constant opportunities of entering into conversation; and a small individual contribution enables them to obtain large supplies of newspapers, and of the cheaper kinds of periodical publications."

This does not seem to us to be by any means an example of the successful application of Moral to Economical Science. The Rhapsodist attributes the mental inferiority of the agricultural labourer to the very causes which all other enquirers have agreed in considering of most beneficial influence on the moral and intellectual being of the peasant-to the various occupations in which he is engaged, under all varieties of weather-the perpetual change in the appearance of the objects which daily meet his eye-and all the alternations of employment which, throughout all the seasons of the year, enliven and diversify rural life. These, all other people we ever heard of, have agreed in thinking to be in themselves an innocent and salutary excitement; but the Rhapsodist laments that they leave the peasant a stranger to that far more beneficial ENNUI and desire for extrinsic excitement which is ever felt by those who are constantly engaged in burnishing the point of a pin! Why, worthy sir, if the feelings and thoughts-the moral and intellectual being of the peasant be awakened by his occupations-and who dare deny they are ?-what better excitement would you, a Christian moralist and political economist, desire that he should enjoy? The business is already done to your hands by the hands of nature

and little or nothing left to be done by you or similar sages.

Ennui! Why, we had no notion that this fashionable complaint had become epidemic among the weavers

and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham. How romantic a pensive cotton-spinner pining in ennui! The blue-devils plaguing the spinning-jenny and the power-loom, and moping in a pinmanufactory!

But our Rhapsodist could not have had all his wits about him when he represented his friends the weavers, and other mechanics, preyed upon by this moon-eyed demon. "By working together," quoth he," they have constant opportunities of entering into conversation." Have they? How then, our good but inconsistent and self-contradicting sir, can they be subject to ennui, though "engaged in burnishing the point of a pin?" They must be all as joyous as larksstored as their minds must be "by large supplies of newspapers, and of the cheaper kinds of periodical publications." Pray, sweet Rhapsodist, do explain to us how, and why, and wherefore, those extensively informed mechanics, all enjoying "constant opportunities of entering into conversation," should be the victims of ennui, and of the blue-devils?

But we ask our Rhapsodist, and surely one Rhapsodist may question another, without offence, on the common subject-matter of their Rhapsodies, is the peasant less disposed to cultivate his mind by reading or conversation at his own fireside, after his day's-darg in the field, than the artificer, or artisan, or mechanic of any kind, after his day's-darg in his crowded workshop? Or, is he less capable-more incapacitated for then and there doing so? We should think not. Let them be held equally disposed and equally capable-and no sincere lover of his kind, or of truth, will wish more for the one than for the other-yet few will deny that the rural labourer has some advantage here in the comparative calm, in the quiet and seclusion, and in the old-established simplicity of the primeval life of man, of which the spirit has not yet altogether left our land, and of which may the traces, however faint in too many places, never be obliterated.

The character of the peasantry of Scotland can speak for itself-nobly and well-and some of its finest spirits have by their genius consecrated to every feeling and thinking heart,

their habits, their manners, their cus toms, their affections, their living abodes, and the graves in the kirkyard, where

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!"

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Scotland has yet just reason to be proud of her peasantry, who can understand and rejoice in the pictures of their own life, painted by Ramsay, Hogg, Cunningham, and Burns. Our Rhapsodist may care little or nothing for any of these things; what he desiderates in the Scotch peasant is "more general and extended information," such as is possessed by the mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham; and from what sources-pray-is this kind of general and extended information of those mechanics derived? Our Rhapsodist has been so kind and considerate as to tell us, from a large supply of newspapers, and of the cheaper kinds of periodical works!" Not much amiss in their way, perhaps, sometimes-but why may not the peasant too occasionally drink from the same pure and consecrated source? "A large supply," indeed, he can hardly hope for, either in solitary hut or social clachan-he desires it notnor, in our poor opinion, would he be the better of it--but if whiggishly inclined, he can contrive regularly to see The Scotsman-now much more wholesome food for the poor man, be he mechanic or peasant, than it once was-and if he be a Torywhich we hope he is-then he may let the cheaper class of periodical works go to the dogs, and brighten his heart and his hearth with Blackwood's Magazine. But besides Maga and the Scotsman-who live like man and wife-that is like cat and dogthere are other works to be found in the "Peasant's Nest," which we fear may be too often looked for in vain in the dwellings of the mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birming ham, with all their more "general and extended information." Our peasants have their old songs and ballads that brighten up antiquity before their eyes-they have their fireside tales and traditions-they have histories, true or fabulous, or a mixture of truth and fable-no bad reading in its way-they have not seldom a few books of still more serious and

solemn import-What say you, Mr M'Culloch, to some volumes of sermons, odd or in sets-with other works on Theology or Divinity-perhaps natural as well as revealedforming on the window-sole of the spence, or on the top of the chest of drawers in the gudeman's ain room, or haply in the awmery, safe from moth, fly, or spider, a small moral and religious library, which, when they have read it all through once, they may e'en read again;-and to crown all-and oftener read of old than all, they have

"The big Ha'-bible, aince their father's pride."

It is no easy matter, we hold, to ascertain the comparative acuteness and intelligence of classes of men so very different from each other in all their habits, manners, and ways of life, as the mechanics of great manufacturing towns, and men employed in agriculture. We presume that in all things immediately appertaining to their own respective occupations, they are pretty much on a par; but the townsman will probably be more ready and communicative than the countryman, and more fluent in speech. Many things too, of a fleeting interest, he will know something about, probably not much-of which the other is entirely ignorant; and perhaps it may be said with truth, that his information is likely to be rather more miscellaneous. But can the quantity of mere knowledge possessed by the generality of weavers, or by the generality of rural labourers either, be very considerable? We suspect not. We must look, therefore, rather to the quality; and to us -we confess, though we speak if not hesitatingly, not dogmatically the quality of the knowledge of the rural labourer seems to be, in general, the better of the two-for his, in general, is a knowledge more strictly appertaining to his own essential interests-his interests not as a labourer only, anxious, and properly anxious, about the rise or fall of wages, and thinking himself, not so properly, acquainted with the laws by which they are regulated, but as a human being with a heart and a soul that can overflow with rational happiness, when the implements of labour are laid aside for the night, and he may, for an hour or so before going

to bed, refresh himself with an hour's reading, an hour's thought, or an hour's conversation with his household. Mere information, such as an intellectual weaver may possess― however useful and honourable to him-cannot of itself constitute real worth; and we must find something else in him of far higher value, before we can speak proudly of his character. We must not, in our estimation of a man's worth,rate too highly his mere knowledge, however "general and extensive," after the fashion of that of the more enlightened among the weavers and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, or Birmingham. It is a tendency of the times to do so; and philanthropists seem now-a-days satisfied, if the lower orders be what is called tolerably intelligent, not looking into their hearts with a humane concern for that far better well-being, without which they may be good men in the market, but any thing but good men in their own houses-and seldom or never at church. This is not said with any view of disparaging plans for the Education of the People; for he who would deny education to any one of his brethren, would thereby shew that his own had been neglected or perverted ; but it is said with the view of condemning as worthless-or worse than worthless —such education as our Rhapsodist eulogizes, one derived from "a large supply of newspapers, and the cheaper kinds of periodical works ;" or if that be not his meaning, an education which, when "perfected," induces the "weaver or other mechanic," whom it has enlightened, to devote all his leisure hours to such sources of that " more general and extended information," by which he is made so very inferior a being to the poor peasant who may rarely see but one newspaper, and that one not till it be as old at least as the full moon. Granting then, for a moment, to our Rhapsodist, that the "weavers and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham," are generally much more acute-which, now that the moment is gone, we beg leave most peremptorily to deny, and utterly to "reprobate the idea"

than the peasants of the Carse of Gowrie, or the shepherds of Tweddale-that acuteness would weigh little with us in our estimate of the

worth of their character; for such sort of acuteness is very often found to belong to men of little or no moral feeling, and of the most profligate habits. It is not a quality-however useful it may be-that of itself excites much respect; nor ought it, on any account, to be singled out as the quality by which we are to try, as by a test, even the intellectual-much less surely the moral characters-of different orders of men.

With regard to the general and extended information of the weavers and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham, we confess ourselves somewhat sceptical. Very remarkable men sometimes appear among them; and generally speaking, their information is creditable to the class. But Scotland this day as of old—and we speak of Scotland, simply because we happened to be born and now live there has many men among her rural population of a far higher and nobler stamp. Perhaps to the formation or upholding of such characters, a rural life is essential. Setting them out of the question-such peasants, shepherds, and herdsmen as would try the intellectual strength of both us Rhapsodists, and haply give us a fall --and whose moral and religious character is worthy not of admiration but reverence; the inhabitants of the country-in the northern part of our island-have hitherto been far better educated than those of any of the towns in Britain, and taking one with another, have been a higher order of human beings. The education that made them so, has never been of the kind eulogised by our Rhapsodist; for, by his own account, they have never had "a large supply of newspapers, and of the cheaper sort of periodical works."

Our Rhapsodist, in speaking of human nature, speaks like an Oracle. We do not mean that he speaks as if he were inspired; but, sitting like a priest, on the stuffed leather of a tripod, in the penetralia of his own study-shrine, he thence, in a gruff voice, coughs forth responses, which, wise as they may look, are far indeed from setting at rest the General Question. Thus, our Oracular Rhapsodist declares that the mechanics in large towns are not permitted by the laws of human nature to divert themselves by indulging in

riot and excess. "The propensity to save and accumulate is too powerful!" That propensity, powerful as it is, it seems to us, who are no Sir Oracle, is often met by another as powerful, and

"When Greek meets Greek, then comes

the tug of war !"

We mean the propensity to spend and scatter. Many, it is true, are the close-fisted fellows among mechanics in large towns-absolute misers— who contrive to sneak through social life without ever paying their shot. Such scamps are generally sober-they have not the souls to get drunk. But treat them to blazes of blue ruin-and they make their first appearance, with distinguished success, in the character of David's Sow. But how many open-handed lads there are, who are miserable till they have melted their wages-whether paid in paper or gold-into the curse of life! The common run of mechanics are neither misers nor spendthrifts-but anxious, from the dictates of reason, to save and accumulate, and desirous, from the dictates of passion, to spend and scatter

and hence their mixed and melancholy life-its lights and shadowsone week drunk and another soberfor nature permits, nay, impels, her children to display inconsistencies of conduct that must often perplex our Rhapsodist, in his most dogged determination to see all men who live in large towns, in old-settled countries, not only unable, from low wages, to divert themselves, by indulging in riot and debauchery, but not permitted to do so, by "the powerful propensity to accumulate and save;" all setting their faces against every kind of intoxication, whether of women or wine; and by the saving grace of the "auri sacra fames," our Rhapsodist's darling quotation from the Classics,) led past the temptation of the open doors of sin!

That mechanics, in great towns, in old-settled countries, have seldom wages high enough to enable or induce any great part of them to indulge in dissipation, we must, in spite of our Rhapsodist's imperious dictum, say that nobody who knows any thing of the ruinous fluctuations incident to manufactures through commerce, can for a moment believe. That the majority are tolerably well