1784, which saw the death of the above-named illustrious 66 man of letters."

"The schoolmaster is abroad!" is a phrase which, some years since, was used to express either a cause or a consequence of the "march of intellect." "The postman is abroad!" affirms a fact, to our ears, far more indicative of mental progress than the peripatetic achievements, whether literal or figurative, of any "schuledominie" from Busby to Louis Philippe,-from Plato to Andrew Bell.

Blessings on thee, Rowland Hill! Time would fail us, to enumerate the various persons who rejoice in thy penny benefaction. Stationers and paper-makers, with their auxiliaries, the dealers in rags and the pluckers of geese, all unite in the cry-"Honour to thee, Rowland Hill!"

There is a proverb, which, embalming the wisdom of our ancestors, assures us-"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good." The converse of this morsel of mental meteorology, we fully believe to be true; for, assuredly, it must be a very particularly "good wind that blows nobody ill." "The spicy gales of Araby the blest" could not do it: we are bound to say they carried some of the hot desert dust on their fragrant wings. And the flying mail-train, that outstrips the breezes, can't do it, so far as the editors of newspapers and magazines are concerned. They, much-enduring men! sigh hopelessly, as, seated at their desks, they contempiate the hundred-fold weight of communications which it behoves their devoted eyes, heads, and hands to read, examine, and reply to. To them, the very aspect of a red queen' s-head, or, worse still, a blue one, must be ominous of evil, suggestive of despair, as was that other royal visage, with the long, fair locks, and eyes of mournful beauty, to the Zimri of Huntingdon, "who slew his master."

It was otherwise in days of yore. Authors are poor, and the appalling announcement-"All communications must be post-paid," involving, as it frequently did, an outlay of several shillings, operated as a sad damper on genius aspiring to see itself in print. In the life of Southey, now publishing, we find many pathetic lamenta tions from the poet, on the subject of the large sums which the transmission of proofs cost him every year. In our time, a few shillings would defray the annual postal expenditure of the most prolific writer.

Besides editors, there is another class to whom the penny postage works more woe than weal,-we mean such dwellers in cities as, happening to be blest with a numerous and widely-distributed connection of country cousins, are made the regular, though unwilling medium of communication with dressmakers, shoemakers, inilliners, staymakers, and all others whose ministry may be deemed essential to the fitting out of a modern young lady. And touching these, the friend in town now-a-days is sure to receive some ten or twelve pink-medallioned billets, in lieu of the one carefully folded, business-like looking sheet of foolscap, with filled ends and triangular crossing, which duly posted, delivered, and paid for, was wont to constitute a whole month's correspondence between the fair cousins.

sealed and sent to the post, all within ten minutes. Then, a goodly-sized sheet was selected, and the subject matter carefully digested ere the words were suffered to flow from the pen. Red ink was summoned to perpetrate the crime of crossing, and even of a third triangular filling, ere the missive was carefully folded, sealed with wax, (no adhesive-wafered envelopes then!), and consigned to the post. Indeed, we remember to have seen one of these denselycrowded manuscripts, addressed by a lively, gossiping young lady to her sober, elderly, bespectacled aunt, who, feeling it too onerous a task for these useful implements, and the optics they aided, to peruse the entire epistle at one, or even two sittings, adopted the ingenious expedient of sticking in a pin, to mark the place where she left off; and then, at intervals, resumed the task, as one would go on with a lengthy chapter of Hume or Rollin.

After all, the question arises, whether the change, on the whole, has been for the better? Without hesitation, we reply-" It has." Ah! it is a pleasant thing to hear from one's kindred; to be brought nigh in the spirit, to those who are distant in the body. Have you never sat at the window, watching with an eager gaze for the postman's approach? and when the first glimpse of his wellknown figure appeared, have you not rushed to the halldoor, darted through the little fragrant garden (no stoping now to admire rose or pink, tulip or narcissus), and when, in answer to the earnest eye and outstretched hand, the unmoved messenger mechanically replied "Nothing for you to-night," have you not turned back with a bitter revulsion of feeling, sick for the " good news from a far country," which "is as cold waters to a thirsty soul?"

Then, as you sauntered slowly through the garden, perchance the fresh odour rising from your favourite bed of lily of the valley lured you to stoop and inhale the soothing fragrance; and then, as if borne on the wing of that pale flower's incense, the hope arose,-"In twelve hours the next post will come, and there must be a letter." The hours passed-slowly enough-did they not? The letter came,-and do you not remember with what dancing steps you bounded through the garden, and with what tremulous fingers you culled a delicate nosegay to perfume and adorn the room prepared for her, your only sister, who, that blessed letter tells you, is now so much recovered from her sharp sickness, that she is able to travel, and will be with you on that very same bright evening of May.

How often, again, does the sound of the postman's impatient knock send a thrill to the waiting heart of a mother or a wife within. How hurriedly is the seal broken, and the red-stamped envelope cast heedlessly aside, while the precious contents of the inclosed sheets of note-paper are rather devoured than read. Now, this gratification is a cheap and every-day luxury: the poorest mother can receive from her son those tidings for which her heart is yearning, as freely as the visiting of the summer breeze. And is not this a right noble and queenly present from a Sovereign to her Subjects? Is not the promotion of a nation's joy, by the cultivation of the We seldom now think of preserving letters, except people's social affections, a worthy object of legislation? those on business, or any which we especially value. In Through the operation of the Penny Postage, a glad former years they were rarely destroyed; for, irrespective interchange of Thought is promoted, a rapid transmission of the money which they cost-and people do value what of Knowledge secured, and a free circulation of intellithey pay for more highly than that which costs themgence daily takes place, from one end of our kindom to nothing-the epistles themselves were more carefully the other. written, more full in detail, and compressed in style, so as to contain the maximum amount of intelligence that could be crammed into a single sheet. In those days envelopes were not-and how significant the difference be tween the outward appearance of letters now and then. Now the tiny sheet (Victoria size) is filled with its farasunder lines of angular ms and ns, and down-sweeping long-tailed ys and gs, slipped into its scented envelope,

Therefore, with heart and voice join we in the cry"Honour to thee, Rowland Hill!"

THE shouts of playful childhood are eloquent of the heart's sweet music-there are no sounds that gush forth so full of the active, springing, overleaping joy that knows no boundary; and the associations with their gleeful melody are those of the purest pleasure.

OUR FOOD-GROUNDS.

In an artificial state of society, it is sometimes necessary to work our way back to first principles. In the course of society's progress, we are sometimes apt to lose sight of these; and there is no remedy for us but to go back to the right road, and thus to correct our blunders.

One of the patent facts of man's animal life is, that his subsistence is mainly derived from the soil. This is the case in the most artificial, as in the rudest state of society. The millionaire and the naked savage are equally dependent on the few square yards of soil which supply the staple of their food, and nothing can be substituted for it.

[PRICE 14d.

may ever again arrive, when cotton-goods will not sell, and, consequently, manufacturers will cease to pay operatives wages for making them; whether "gluts" may occur, and operatives be discharged, as has over and over again happened in the nistory of manufactures up to this time (nor do we see much probability of this ceasing, as other nations, like ourselves, increase their annual product of manufactured goods); still, we think this may be urged with truth, that it is much safer for a man to be placed in direct contact with his own bit of food-ground, than to arrive at its produce through the round-about medium of the demand of some far-off people for the cotton and hardware stuffs, which he now hires himself out for wages to manufacture.

Our own impression is, that a population such as ours, Simple and clear though this truism may appear, it is which depends for its subsistence entirely on wages, paid lost sight of in the complicated arrangements of modern for so much hired labour-those wages ceasing when the society in England; and, in times of great social suffer- demand for that labour stops, or is diverted in some other ing, instead of endeavouring to remedy matters, by going direction-must necessarily be an unsafe population, back to first principles, and placing man in closer connec- liable to great misery in times of depressed trade and tion with the source of his animal sustenance-the land-commerce, and, even in their ordinary state, hovering on we go on producing, faster and faster, illimitable quantities of manufactured stuffs, which cannot be eaten, and which, probably, will not exchange for food, at the time when food is wanted. We view things through the manufacturing eye, regarding the multiplication of manufactured products as the great business of life; and if not as food, then at least as the equivalent of food, for which we desire to exchange them.

Now, this course can go on prosperously only for a certain period in the history of any nation. Our machinery has become so perfect, and our steam-power so gigantic, that there are positively no limits to the multiplication of manufactures; and, though the world were ten times more populous than it is, the machinery of Lancashire alone would be more than sufficient to supply its inhabitants with cotton goods; and so on, in course of time, with every other description of manufacture.

Besides, other nations will manufacture as well as we do; all European nations have, of late years, enormously increased their productive powers, and will continue to do so; each is striving at least to manufacture its own commodities; nor is there any reason why they should not so strive. "England-the workshop of the world," is every day becoming a less true definition of our country; and we shall be mistaken if the Exhibition of 1851 does not illustrate the progress recently made by other countries in art and manufacture, in a very striking light.

At all events, whether our markets be curtailed or not by the competition of other nations, this fact remains, hat no amount of production of manufactures can ever enable us to dispense with the plot of food-ground on which our subsistence depends. And whether the time

the very borders of poverty and destitution. If they have no direct connection with their food-ground-the land,-they will be comparatively helpless and dependent at all times; eager to sell their labour for money to whoever bids highest for it; or, if no bidder offers, then they have no alternative but to sink hopelessly into the wide-gaping mouth of pauperism and misery.

Now, in this country, the tendency of things has steadily been in this dangerous direction, and we have taken few or no steps to remedy it. Our population has enormously increased during the last century, but it has all flowed into the towns; the new population has added itself to the multitudes of hired labourers already there. The rural population has remained nearly stationary, and the number of owners of land-those who have a direct interest in the food-ground-has been steadily decreasing. The land has been getting into fewer hands every year. Small properties have disappeared in every direction, and been agglomerated into large ones. ascertained in 1815, that properties which, only forty years before, had belonged to 250,000 families, had become concentrated in the hands of 32,000 proprietors, and of these, 6,000 belonged to Corporations, and as many to the Church!

It was

It is probable that, but for the rapid expansion of the manufacturing industry of England in the interval, which gave accommodation and employment to the increased population in the towns, this country might have had to pass through such another course of revolutions as France has had to endure, or have sunk into the pauperized state of modern Ireland. But there was another way of remedying the mischief,-that which was adopted by Prussia, and most of the German states, by Holland and Belgium, by Tuscany, Norway, Sweden, and other continental

countries, and it was thus-by wise legislation to place the peasantry, who cultivated the soil and gave it its value, in a position to become, peaceably and legally, its independent owners.

We may cite the case of Prussia, as an example of this course. The plan of giving the peasants the right of ownership was the creation of two eminent statesmen and ministers-Baron Stein and Prince Hardenberg. The Prussian peasantry had previously been in a wretched condition of serfage, almost as bad as that of the Irish peasantry now. The new law, promulgated in 1807 and completed in 1821, did away with the law of entail, and thereby allowed landlords to sell their lands, while, at the same time it gave the tenant the power, by a surrender of an equitable third of his holding, if on a perpetuity lease, or of half, if on a lease for a term of years, to acquire a right of property in the remainder. He might, at his option, pay the value of that third, or one-half, as the case might be, and so retain possession of the whole in fee.

The first effect of the new law was, greatly to raise the value of landed property; and the ultimate effect was, to elevate the whole peasant population from the position of pauperized serfs to that of self-dependent owners of the land which they cultivated. There is only one opinion as to the blessed results of these salutary changes all over the Continent; whereas in Bohemia, and one or two other small States, where the old feudal arrangement has been preserved, misery and wretchedness still prevail, just as in Ireland.

We could cite columns from the late works of Kay, Laing, Howitt, and others, on the point, were it necessary. Coupled with education, the possession of land by the peasant populations of Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, and other countries, has elevated them in point of character, comfort, intelligence, social power, and usefulness, and enormously extended the food-producing powers of their respective nations.

no man can be more industrious. It would be the
same if you gave the Irish peasant an interest in his
own soil.
"It is

The Irishman has a passionate love of land.
not correct," says De Beaumont, "to say that in Ireland
the people desire the land. They covet it-they mutilate
it-they tear it in pieces. and quarrel about its shreds--
they seize it by violence and crime." But how is it that
in Ireland the peasant cultivator is so wretchedly poor
and miserable, while in Germany, in Norway, in France,
and in Belgium, the peasant is so prosperous, happy, and
contented? The simple solution is this: that the conti-
nental peasants labour for themselves, on the land which
is their own, enjoying the fruits of their honest industry;
whereas the Irish peasant labours for others, on land
which is not his own, and almost all the fruits of which
are abstracted from him, to be spent by others, for the
most part out of the country.

The mischief which has been wrought in Ireland, by the operation of the laws which tie up the land of the country in the hands of a few rich persons, has, as we have seen, been also striking its roots into English society. Ireland, with a population of eight millions, has only ten thousand proprietors of land, to protect whom, requires not fewer than thirty thousand soldiers; but the propor tion in England is not greater; and, in Scotland, there are only three thousand proprietors. But for our manufactures, England and Scotland would, by this time, have been as bad as Ireland: and even now, it becomes us to prepare for manufacturing reverses, when all the world has started manufacturing, with their greatly cheaper labour, and lower taxation. We must work our way back to our food-grounds, without which the labouring classes of no country can secure a position of strength and selfdependence.

How is this to be done? The allotment system has been suggested and tried; and, doubtless, it is capable of doing much good. Still, it is but a palliative measure. It is " doing for" the labourer, instead of letting him do for himself. Emigration also has been recommended. But that remedy lies very far off, and our population increases faster than we can find ships for them. No! our remedy is at home. There is land enough in OLD ENGLAND, sufficient for all our people. There are tens of thousands of acres of waste land in the country, capable of cultivation, which ought to be placed within reach of those who are willing and able to possess and to cultivate it.

Mr. Kay was once travelling through Bohemia with an intelligent Prussian landlord, who entered into conversation with him. "What a strange spectacle," he observed, "it is to see this fine country so badly cultivated, and the peasants so poorly housed. Look, too, what great tracts of land are left entirely uncultivated. You do not see anything like this in those parts of Prussia where the peasants are educated proprietors. There they are prosperous, and the lands are beautifully cultivated. Here, a great part of the land is waste, while the peasants are the miserable serfs of great lords, who spend their rents at a distance from their estates. If Bohemia were only Equitable legal measures are also needful on the part cultivated like Prussia, it would be one of the richest of the legislature. All unwholesome restraints on the countries in Europe. But it never can be properly culti-division or sale of land ought to be removed; the feudal vated under the present system." Mr. Kay also ob- shackles, which now enchain the soil, should be broken; serves, that even in Prussia itself, the difference between entails and law of primogeniture abolished; the title of the condition of the peasants in those parts of the question made clear and certain; the conveyance of procountry where the land is subdivided, and in those parts perty simplified and rendered inexpensive; the registry where the peasants are merely day-labourers on the great of all transfers in the public books open to inspection, estates of rich landowners, is very remarkable. In the as in the United States: and thus, by simplifying the former, the peasants are prosperous, hopeful, and indus- forms, the purchase of small properties would be made trious, are dressed comfortably, have roomy and well- as practicable as that of great ones. To this might be built houses, and have all the manners and appearance added a law, making redeemable, at a money price, as in of independent men; while in the latter, they are pau- Prussia, every rent in perpetuity,—a practice already perized, wretchedly lodged, miserably clothed, and exhi- recognised in our own country, in tithe commutation and bit no symptoms of improvement. land-tax redemption; and why not in redemption of the land itself?

"

It stands to reason that it should be so. Let a man know that what he cultivates is his own, and he will work with tenfold more assiduity, cheerfulness, and success. He will never be idle, but always laborious, as the German peasant proprietor is. Give a man," says the old saying, secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will make an Eden of it give him an Eden, on a short lease, and he will make a desert of it." Look at Ireland, and see what yearly tenancy of other men's land has brought that people to. But plant the Irishman on his own bit of food-ground in Canada, the States, or Australia, and

Such measures as these would give a new life to the old and wearied heart of our country; inspire with bounding hope the souls of our poor and toiling masses in the large towns, and also of the now wretched serfs, Iso miserably vegetating on our great feudal properties; and they would, in a very few years, place our industrious population on a par with the best populations of Europe or the world.

A CHILD'S MEMORY OF THE SEA.

"I stand again beside thee as I stood,

In panting youth, watching thy billows break,
Fixed by the strong spell of thy headlong flood,
Even as the bird is charm-bound by the snake."
ELIZA COOK.

Ir rises up before me like a dream! The fisherman's
cottage, out of which we peeped in the early morning,
stood about twenty yards from the shelly strand, upon a
flat ledge of rock, which barely afforded space for it and
a half a dozen more little huts, while almost close behind
them sprung up a tall brown cliff, which extended all
round the little bay. Down the face of this cliff, in an
oblique direction, ran a steep, narrow road, which by
dint of hard labour had been made practicable as a cart
road; but, few indeed were the vehicles of any kind that
ever ventured down into that sequestered little haven.
A narrow patch of grass lay between the row of cottages
and the sand, which in spring looked green and fresh,
and there in a morning the fishermen spread out their
nets, and sat mending them at their leisure. The boats
lay hauled up on the beach beyond, and about them we
scampered and played with the wild fisher children.

At high water, the waves came far into the bay, and at spring-tides they almost laved the grass patch before our cottage. A ledge of rocks which enclosed the little haven securely protected the bay from the heavy seas which rolled in from the cast, though sometimes, in high winds, the waves broke over these with tremendous roar, and then the waters of the bay were covered with foam, and the spray hovered like a thick mist all round the bottom of the cliffs. There was one great projecting rock at the eastern point, where the waves, by constant beating, had worked their way and hollowed out a long deep arch, through which wave after wave would dash with tremendous force and terrific roar, spending their last effort on the great black rock which lay within the hollow of the bay, and which dashed the waters back again to meet the next coming wave. In the dark nights, the noise of the sea bursting through this narrow inlet had a solemn and awful grandeur, and often I lay awake in fear, haunted by the dread of its power, and lest the sea furies, who seemed to be struggling to gain an entrance there, should burst the rocks and carry devastation before them. But the morning would come, and there through the arch lay the far-off sea smiling under the sun, and the fishing boats, heavily laden, came sporting in through the narrow entrance of the bay; the women and children all afoot to beckon to the hardy fishermen a cheerful welcome home. The last night's storm had subsided into a gentle breeze, and there was only the long measured swell of the ocean rolling along, its surface broken by little tiny waves sparkling in the sunshine. Far through the arch, lying a great way off along the coast to the east, there stood out into the sea a tall white promontory, one of the boldest headlands along that bold and precipitous coast. Once or twice I saw the sun rise out of the sea behind it; a faint streak of purple along the distant ocean-line heralded his coming, then a glimmer of golden light glanced along the waters, and then the edge of the glorious orb heaved slowly up as from the deep, the distant bluff crowned by its taper light-house, standing black against the now glowing sky beyond.

Right over against the mouth of our bay, and about a mile from shore, stood a great, rugged, conical crowned rock, precipitous on its eastern side, which was bleached by endless beatings of the surf, and sloping gradually towards the west, where an old wall and a few ruins marked the traces of some ancient castle and its surrounding fortifications. The place had been used as a prison in the bygone days of religious persecutions, and it was now the frequent resort, in summer time, of gay pleasure parties, some of whom set out from our bay, and others from the nearest little seaport town. The precipitous side of the

rock was the haunt of innumerable gulls, guillemots, wild ducks, and solan geese, whose wild screamings grew perfectly deafening when a sportsman discharged his fowling piece in their midst. They almost darkened the air with their numbers, and seemed frantic as well as furious in their rage at the invaders of their fastnesses. From our little bay we could observe the proceedings of these pleasure seekers for hours together, watch the boat as it disappeared behind the rock, listened to the crack of the guns and saw the wheeling clouds of birds rising up over the summit of the crag, then hail the boat as it rowed round the steep face of the island into full sight again; and sometimes, on the party landing in our bay, they would leave behind them a lamed gull, which was esteemed by us as an almost unspeakable prize.

I remember well, one brilliant morning, a gay party setting off in high spirits to visit the rock. I have since thought it must have been a bridal party. There were two beautiful girls among them, whom I took to be sisters, from their striking resemblance to each other. They seemed the happiest and merriest of the lot, and had a joke and a smile for everybody; the party had baskets full of provisions and drinkables, and the kettle and store of dried sticks which they put into the boat, showed that they intended to have a long day's pleasure on the rock. A blind fiddler, whom they had brought with them from the neighbouring town, was also there; grey hairs hung round his face, and though he saw not, but gazed into the sky as if feeling for light, he seemed to be not less happy than the gayest of the party. The two girls I spoke of proposed a dance on the tuft of green sward, before putting to sea-"it looked so inviting." But their proposal was overruled, and they embarked. They laughed, and joked, and sung songs as they cleared the little strait between the rocks, and I sat listening to their fine voices, mingling with which I could detect the clear tones of the blind man's violin, until only the shadow of a sound reached me, and then it was mingled with the quiet murmur of the tide among the rocks. I watched the boat as it neared the landing place, when suddenly I saw a commotion among the party; there was a rush to one side, the boat had nearly capsized, and I saw that several persons had fallen over the side, and were struggling in the water. But they were close to the rock, and the greater part jumped on shore. I then saw some of them running along the ledge of rock as if looking for some one still in the water; hands were raised as if in piteous agony; minutes elapsed and still the frantic emotion continued. At last I saw some one stretching out a boat-hook into the waves, and slowly drag up some heavy object into the boat. After a few minutes the party re-embarked, and rowed back into our little bay. There were no more songs, nor laughter; their faces, when I could recognise them, were bathed in tears, and the face of one I saw not at all. As the boat grounded, I perceived that a female form lay motionless on the rowers' seat; it was that of one of the beautiful sisters, whom I had seen but an hour ago so full of laughing glee. She was borne heavily into our cottage by a fisherman, but it was too late to restore her. It was all over with the lovely girl, and a deep grief now settled down upon that formerly so merry party.

Many ships daily sailed past the entrance to our bay, and we learned to know them by their rig and their build. There was the tidy little king's cutter, spanking along with her streaming pennant floating in the breeze. Then there was the swift smack, with her great after-sail, bowling along through the waves, which she dashed from her bows in foam. There was the brig and the schooner with their peculiar rig, their cross sails, and their canvas laden masts, and sometimes, though this was more rare, the large ship of war floating along majestically, scarce seeming to care for the heavy waves that beat against her sides. A great commotion one day possessed our little