What an exaggerated picture!

"Methinks we hear some gentle spirit cry."

Yes it is exaggerated far beyond the truth-as a picture of the common condition of the common people. But not more so-not so much so-as the pictures of female negro slaves, kneeling, with fettered legs and arms, under the cart-whip of Saracen-headed overseers. Both are trueand 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 seas, and turn aside-not that they may not trample uponbut that they may escape relieving him-the beggar perishing on the pavement, within a few steps of their own porch. And this is-charity!

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 McCulloch 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 richest 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 inquiry 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 dissipation; and if they had, the wages of labour in all oldsettled 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 inquirers 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 eyeand 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 po

litical 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 pin-manufactory!

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 larks-stored 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 customs, their affections, their living abodes, and the graves in the kirkyard, where

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!"

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 not-nor, 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 Tory, which we hope he is then he may let the cheaper class of periodi cal 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 dog-there 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 Birmingham, 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 traditionsthey 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 importwhat 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 revealed-forming 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 miscellaBut 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 twofor 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

neous.