with gin; crowded together, when released from the confinement of the manufactory, in filthy apartments "without distinction of age or sex, and careless of all decency;" inhaling disease in every breath; and with all natural affection destroyed by utter wretchedness, so as to send their children, their young children, to toil sometimes "nearly forty consecutive hours twice a week, beside laboring from twelve to fourteen hours on those days in which night work is not expected."* Let us suppose him to have described those children, when staggering into involuntary sleep, driven to their task by blows, and to have given an account of the consequences of this task, the distortion of their bones, the twisting of their joints, constant disease, death by slow torture, and, worse, far worse than all, the annihilation of every thing intellectual and moral in the human being. He might have done all this, without exaggerating a word, upon sworn and uncontradicted evidence, printed by order of the House of Commons. Then let us suppose him to have concluded or introduced his horrible detail with saying, that he trusted he had no purpose of INSULTING the English nation in making it. - We do not know what the party for whom Mr. Hamilton wrote may think of him; but we do know what would be thought of such a writer as we have imagined by every party in this country.t

If any English friend were to ask us in conversation to give a candid opinion, how far this book of Mr. Hamilton's is to be trust

* We have used, in speaking upon this subject, the past rather than the present time, because a bill was, we believe, carried through Parliament at the last session, enacting that children under fourteen years of age should not be compelled to labor in a factory more than eight hours in the twenty-four. Whatever of this sort may have been done, is a matter of rejoicing; but it is evident that, for the distress which has been described, such remedies are but superficial.

+ In connexion with the subject of slavery there is a story told of Mr. Jefferson, which we are not disposed to shock our readers by quoting. The amount of it is, that a daughter of Mr. Jefferson by a slave was publicly sold as a slave at New Orleans. It is connected with a general assertion respecting that distinguished man, which again we shall not quote, but which we should have been slow to believe, till the evidence was before us, that any person pretending to the character of a gentleman would have made. Of the story to which we have referred we may say, that we have always been politically connected with the party in opposition to Mr. Jefferson; that perhaps there never was an individual in any country whose private moral character was made the subject of more bitter, searching, and public scrutiny; that we have heard and seen many stories to his disadvantage, some true, it is likely, and some false; but this story, which a stranger just visiting the country has, it seems, picked up, we never heard or saw before, nor can we find an individual to whom it was not equally unknown. It is, intrinsically, all but absolutely incredible. Undoubtedly, however, Mr. Hamilton can and will produce satisfactory evidence of its truth; for, if he cannot, no pilloried libeller ever deserved his situation more richly than the reporter of this story.

ed, we should reply, that the average of truth and fairness to be found in it is about the same which might be expected in a sour political pamphlet, written to effect a particular purpose, the author of which should regard his readers as having but little knowledge concerning the topics of which he treats. Throughout the work there is nowhere an approach to the views and feelings of an enlightened, candid, and philosophical mind, of an individual truly and wisely interested in the prospects of his race.

There are evils, great evils, in every country, vice and crime are every where to be found. We Americans are not exempt from the common lot; we do not live in Arcadia. At the present period we are passing through dark days. But when our condition is compared with that of other nations, it is indisputable, that the state of things in this country is by far the most favorable to the happiness of men, and to their moral and intellectual advancement, which the world has yet known. The responsibility imposed upon us is in consequence great; and we trust, that, whatever changes may take place, a large portion of the country will acquit itself worthily. We rejoice that our governments can do so little harm; that their good or bad administration is, comparatively speaking, a matter of so small importance. We regard it as their peculiar distinction, and one of the peculiar blessings of the country; a distinction and a blessing which we have hardly yet learned to estimate aright, and which a foreigner, and especially an Englishman, can scarcely comprehend; — for in England the government is looked up to, as able to do all good and remedy all evil. Yet much depends upon our statesmen of the better class; and it is earnestly to be desired that they may be high-minded and uncompromising, remote from paltry intrigue, and free from those artifices to gain momentary popularity which every man of sense sees through and despises. There is no office under our government, not even the highest, which is now a very splendid lure for ambition; but there is an opportunity here, as elsewhere, of acquiring historical reputation, the only kind of fame worth a wise man's thought. Great interests at the present moment are at stake; and it would be a noble spectacle to see men come forward with such principles and talents as to control the current of events. The experiment, there is no question about it, is to be tried in this country, whether men can live happily as freemen, or whether they must be governed in a greater or less degree by hereditary power, accidentally possessed by certain classes and individuals. So far the experiment has been successful; but it is not finished. We augur no ill as to the result; but we know of no great blessing that man can secure without strenuous efforts and a strong feeling of responsibility. It is an experiment in which all the wise and

good, all philosophers, all patriots, and all friends of our race throughout the civilized world, have a deep concern. Should it fail, the best hopes that may be entertained for mankind must be abandoned. Whoever among us, from any personal or party interest or passion, may contribute to render it in any degree unsuccessful, is a traitor, not only against his own country, but against human nature. We must learn to think of ourselves, not proudly, but wisely; not to imagine that our blessings will be lasting, whatever we may be or do; but to feel that we are acting, not merely for ourselves, but in the common cause of mankind. A. N.

[From "The New Monthly Magazine,” No. 154.]

ART. VI. INHABITANTS OF A COUNTRY TOWN.

BY MISS MITFORD.

No. I.-A GREAT MAN IN RETIREMENT.

THE greatest man in these parts (I use the word in the sense of Louis le Gros, not Louis le Grand), the greatest man hereabouts, by at least a stone, is our worthy neighbour Stephen Lane, the grazierex-butcher of B. Nothing so big hath been seen since Lambert, the gaoler, or the Durham ox.

When he walks he overfills the pavement, and is more difficult to pass than a link of full-dressed misses, or a chain of becloaked dandies. Indeed a malicious attorney, in drawing up a paving bill for the ancient borough of B. once inserted a clause confining Mr. Lane to the middle of the road, together with wagons, vans, stage-coaches, and other heavy articles. Chairs crack under him, couches rock, bolsters groan, and floors tremble. He hath been stuck in a staircase and jammed in a doorway, and has only escaped being ejected from an omnibus by its being morally and physically impossible that he should get in. His passing the window has something such an effect as an eclipse, or as turning outward the opaque side of that ingenious engine of mischief, a dark lantern. He puts out the light like Othello. A small wit of our town, by calling a supervisor, who dabbles in riddles, and cuts no inconsiderable figure in the Poet's Corner of the county newspaper, once perpetrated a conundrum on his person, which, as relating to so eminent and well-known an individual (for almost every reader of the "H-shire Herald" hath at some time or other, been a customer of our butcher's), had the honor of puzzling more people at the Sunday morning breakfast-table, and of engaging more general attention than had ever before happened to that respectable journal. A very horrible murder (and there was that week one of the very first water), two shipwrecks, an enlèvement, and an execution, were all passed over as trifles compared with the interest

excited by this literary squib and cracker. A trifling quirk it was to keep Mr. Stacy, the surveyor, a rival bard, fuming over his coffee until the said coffee grew cold; or to hold Miss Anna Maria Watkins, the mantua-maker, in pleasant though painful efforts at divination until the bell rang for church, and she had hardly time to undo her curl-papers and arrange her ringlets; a flimsy quirk it was of a surety, an inconsiderable quiddity! Yet since the courteous readers of the "H-shire Herald were amused with pondering over it, so perchance may be the no less courteous and far more courtly readers of the "New Monthly." I insert it, therefore, for their edification, together with the answer, which was not published in the "Herald" until the H- -shire public had remained an entire week in suspense: 'Query - Why is Mr. Stephen Lane like Rembrandt?" "Answer - Because he is famous for the breadth of his shadow."

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The length of his shadow, although by no means in proportion to the width, for that would have recalled the days when giants walked the land, and Jack, the famous Jack, who borrowed his surname from his occupation, slew them, was yet of pretty fair dimensions. He stood six feet two inches without his shoes, and would have been accounted a tall man if his intolerable fatness had not swallowed up all minor distinctions. That magnificent beau idéal of a human mountain, "the fat woman of Brentford," for whom Sir John Falstaff passed not only undetected, but unsuspected, never crossed my mind's eye but as the feminine of Mr. Stephen Lane. Tailors, although he was a liberal and punctual paymaster, dreaded his custom. They could not, charge how they might, contrive to extract any profit from his "huge rotundity." It was not only the quantity of material that he took, and yet that cloth universally called broad was not broad enough for him, it was not only the stuff, but the work, the sewing, stitching, plaiting, and button-holing without end. The very shears grew weary of their labors: two fashionable suits might have been constructed in the time, and from the materials consumed in the fabrication of one for Mr. Stephen Lane. Two, did I say? Ay, three or four, with a sufficient allowance of cabbage, - a perquisite never to be extracted from his coats or waistcoats, no not enough to cover a pen-wiper. Let the cutter cut his cloth ever so largely, it was always found to be too little. All their measures put together would not go round him; and as to guessing at his proportions by the eye, a tailor might as well attempt to calculate the dimensions of a seventy-four-gun ship, as soon try to fit a three decker. Gloves and stockings were made for his especial use. Extras and double extras failed utterly in his case; as the dapper shopman spied, at the first glance of his huge paw, a fist which might have felled an ox, and somewhat resembled the dead ox-flesh, commonly called beef, in texture and color.

To say the truth, his face was pretty much of the same complexion, and yet it was no uncomely visage either; on the contrary, it was a bold, bluff, massive, English countenance, such as Holbein

would have liked to paint, in which great manliness and determination were blended with much good humor, and a little humor of another kind; so that even when the features were in seem.ng repose, you could foresee how the face would look when a broad smile, and a sly wink, and a knowing nod, and a demure smoothing down of his straight shining hair on his broad forehead gave his wonted cast of drollery to the blunt but merry tradesman, to whom might have been fitly applied the Chinese compliment, " Prosperity is painted on your countenance."

Stephen Lane, however, had not always been so prosperous, or so famous for the breadth of his shadow. Originally a foundling in the streets of B, he owed his very name, like the Richard Monday" of one of Crabbe's finest delineations, to the accident of his having been picked up, when apparently about a week old, in a by-lane close to St Stephen's churchyard, and baptized by order of the vestry after the scene of his discovery. Like the hero of the poet, he also was sent to the parish work house; but, as unlike to Richard Monday in character as in destiny, he won, by the real or fancied resemblance to a baby whom she had recently lost, the affection of the matron, and was by her care shielded not only from the physical dangers of infancy, in such an abode, but from the moral perils of childhood.

Kindly yet roughly reared, Stephen Lane was even as a boy eminent for strength, and hardihood, and invincible good humor. At ten years, old he had fought with and vanquished every lad under fifteen, not only in the work house proper, but in the immediate purlieus of that respectable domicil, and would have got into a hundred scrapes, had he not been shielded, in the first place, by the active protection of his original patroness, the wife of the superintendent and master of the establishment, whose pet he continued to be; and, in the second, by his own bold and decided, yet kindly and affectionate temper. Never had a boy of ten years old more friends than the poor foundling of St. Stephen's work house. There was hardly an inmate of that miscellaneous dwelling, who had not profited, at some time or other, by the good-humored lad's delightful alertness in obliging, his ready services, his gayety, his intelligence, and his resource. From mending Master Hunt's crutch, down to rocking. the cradle of Dame Green's baby, from fetching the water for the general wash, a labor which might have tried the strength of Hercules, down to leading out for his daily walk the half-blind, half-idiot, half-crazy David Hood, a task which would have worn out the patience of Job, nothing came amiss to him. All was performed with the same cheerful good-will; and the warm-hearted gratitude with which he received kindness was even more attaching than his readiness to perform good offices to others. I question if ever there were a happier childhood than that of the deserted parish-boy. Set aside the pugnaciousness which he possessed in common with other brave and generous animals, and which his protectress, the matron of the house, who had enjoyed in her youth the advantage of perusing some