clad, filthy, and degraded children, playing | have introduced many more and stronger in the dirty kennels; with their numerous statements made by him, which have been gin-palaces, filled with people, whose hands omitted because they were too long to be and faces show how their flesh is, so to quoted. Mr. Kay is neither Chartist nor speak, impregnated with spirituous liquors, Socialist. He is a graduate of Trinity Colthe only solaces, poor creatures, that they lege, Cambridge, a Barrister-at-law, and has have!—and with poor young girls, whom a travelled over Europe for eight years under want of religious training in their infancy an appointment from the Senate of the Uniand misery, has driven to the most degraded versity of Cambridge, as Travelling Bacheand pitiful of all pursuits." lor of the University, commissioned "to

"

evidence of such a man should be authoritative, but we will continue our quotations.

Of 1600," pauper children in Lon-travel through Western Europe in order to don, "who were examined, 162 confessed, examine the social condition of the poorer that they had been in prison, not merely once, classes of the different countries." The or even twice, but some of them several times; 116 had ran away from their homes; 170 slept in the lodging houses;" 253 had "It is undeniable that morality has declined lived altogether by beggary; 216 had nei- in our days with the progress of knowledge."t ther shoes nor stockings; 280 had no hat or "One word more, and we have done. On cap, or covering for the head; 101 had no many questions of practical duty, men are linen; 349 had never slept in a bed; many now affecting to be wiser and better than the had no recollection of ever having been in a Bible. Plans of social progress and imbed; 68 were the children of convicts." provement are rife, that have an air of trans"The further we examine, the more pain-cendental refinement about them, unknown ful, disgusting and incredible does the tale become.

to the homely morality of the Word of God. We are becoming too sentimental to endure. "We see on every hand stately palaces, to that even the murderer shall be put to death. which no country in the world offers any And now we are for bettering God's ordiparallel. The houses of our rich are more nance of marriage itself; and we see a fine gorgeous and more luxurious than those of romantic tender charm in an alliance of any other land. Every clime is ransacked brothers and sisters, on which God has to adorn or furnish them. The soft carpets, stamped his curse. What may such things the heavy rich curtains, the luxuriously easy betoken? Are they ominous of such uncouches, the beds of down, the services of bridled lawlessness and lust as marked the plate, the numerous servants, the splendid days before the Flood? Are they signs of equipages, and all the expensive objects of the days not unlike these that are to precede literature, science, and the arts, which crowd the coming of the Son of Man ?'' the palaces of England, form but items in an ensemble of refinement and magnificence, which was never imagined or approached, in all the splendor of the ancient empires.

"The task of restoring health and soundness to a society so fearfully diseased as ours unquestionably is, is on all hands acknowledged to be at once the noblest and "But look beneath all this display and luxu- the most imperative to which citizens or ry, and what do we see there? A pauper-statesmen can now direct their energies."§ ized and suffering people.

"Society, such as it now is in England, will not continue to endure, &c."

"The last battle of civilization is the severest: the last problem the knottiest to solve.

*Kay. chap. I., vol. I., p. 4.

† Saisset. Sur la Philosophie et la Religion du XIX. Siècle. p. 222.

North British Review. No XXIV. Art IX. Feb. 1850. p. 299-300. Am. Ed.

Edingb. Rev. Oct. 1819. Art. VI. p. 497-8. Engl. Ed. Chateaubriand. Essays on English Literature. Paris. 1838, cited by Kay.

Out of all the multitudinous ingredients and increase them ten-nay, twenty-fold. We influences of the past; out of the conquest contribute these merely as a confimation of of nature, and the victory of freedom; out Mr. Fitzhugh's position, that really and conof the blending and intermixture of all pre-fessedly free society has proved a calamivious forms of polity and modifications of tious and irremediable failure in the princihumanity, has arisen a complex order of so-pal communities of Christendom. We close ciety, of which the disorders and anomalies with an extract from the greatest of all poliare as complex as its own structure. We are tical authors, and the wisest of all statesnow summoned to the combat, not with ma-men, which is not merely applicable to the terial difficulties, nor yet with oppressors, question of free or slave labour, but to the nor with priests, but with an imperfect and whole philosophy of modern societies. diseased condition of that social world of "Se voi noterete il modo del procedere which we form a part; with pains and evils degli nomini, vedrete tutti quelli che a ricappalling in their magnitude, baffling in their chezze grandé ed a gran potenza pervengono, subtlety, perplexing in their complication, o con forze o con frode esservi pervenuti : and demanding far more clear insight and e quelle cose dipoi, che eglino hanno o con unerring judgment, than even purity of pur- inganno o con violenza usurpate, per celare pose, or commanding energy of will. This la brultezza dell' acquisto, quello sotto falso conflict may be said to date from the first titolo di quadaquo adonestano. E quelli i French Revolution; and it has been increas-quali, o per poca prudenza, o per troppa ing in intensity ever since, till it has sciocchezza, fuggono questi modi, nella serreached to a vividness and solemnity of in-vitù sempre e nella povertà affogano: perterest, which surpasses and overshadows the che i fedeli servi, sempre sono servi, e gli attractions of all other topics, &c. &c." nomini buoni sempre sono poveri : nè mai England's rapidly acclerating decline is escono di servitù se non gl' infedeli ed audaci, a very remarkable and mournful phenome-e di povertà se non i rapaci e fro dolenti non, it is a mortal sickness for which there Perchè Dio e la natura ha poste tutte le foris no remedy. I liken the English of the tune degli nomini loro in mezzo, le quali più present day to the Romans of the third cen- alle rapine che all industria, ed alle cattive tury after Christ."t che alle buone arti sono esposte. Di qui nasce che gli nomini mangiano l'un l'altro, e vanne sempre col peggio chi può meno."*

The analogy might be extended to nearly all modern civilization.

Tremendous catastrophes have come to pass, and there is no resistance, not a semblance of great men, no joy or enthusiasm, no hopes for the future, except that the time will one day come, when by means of mutual instruction every peasant boy shall be able

man affections.

to read. The truth of the thing is the un-from the rose; and thus it is that too often from the veiled destitution of the populace, who are sweetest sources comes the blight of happiness and huresolved to bear it no longer, and this again paves the way for a revision of property;

Il ne faut que savoir attendre, dans cette vie: sous la which is not, indeed, something new under neige il y a de la verdure, et derrière le plus épais nuage the sun, but has been unheard of for centu-le ciel est bleu. ries past, and even now seems quite inconceivable to our politicians, who have set property, in the place of God, in the Holiest of Holies, &c, &c."t

We cannot venture to extend our extracts, though we have the materials before us to

Was there ever seen a smile on the lip with which the upper part of the face agrees not in expression, that was not evidently frigued and forced, to be the disguise of a mind ill at ease and a sick spirit? The mind looks through the eyes, and the brow should smile in unison with the lip, to show the joy incere.

There is perhaps no pang so acute, no sentiment so

Westminster Review. No. CXI. Art. III. Jan. 9. 1852. | humiliating to the heart of woman, as the consciousness

of awakening distrust, when she most deserved to have inspired confidence.

when the trees sigh and whisper to each covered, and the huge blocks of ice that surother, or when mountain torrents rush down rounded it spoke of the rigors of an almost rocky steeps into the deep ravines? Do they polar winter, and the leafless branches of a know aught of the mysteries that lie among stunted tree stretching its short arms over it, the everlasting hills, or have they heard seemed a melancholy reminiscence of the what the sea says unceasingly in the ear of long departed summer. Over all was a the earth? While I was thus musing the leaden, unsympathizing sky, through which shadows of evening deepened, the fair, young no ray of sunshine pierced, and on which no moon hung her silver bow in the twilight cheerful beam played. I was never weary sky, and a gentle breeze shook around me looking at this picture, and slight as its merit the odorous petals of a musk rose and the may have been, it served to recall to me all ephemeral flowers of the jasmine. that we owe to the painter in revealing to us

I heard my cousin's voice talking merrily upon canvass, the high messages of truth and with some visitors in the parlor, but as I felt beauty. I thought of the long array of imno disposition to join them, I entered the mortal names that have glorified art, and in house and sat alone in the library. Two all ages and countries, spoken through it to candles burned upon the table making a little the heart of man. What depths of religious circle of light in the large room, but casting fervor it has expressed: what visions of unfaint and uncertain gleams upon the books fading loveliness it has rendered tangible and arranged in cases against the walls. Two permanent. How many of the natural beausmall pictures hung over the fireplace. One ties of God's earth have been caught by it, was a bit of Alpine landscape by a German and transfixed in a glow of color, and a grace artist. It represented the side of a moun- of form that no season can change, and no tain with the deep gorge that separated it clime alter.

from the base of a neighboring peak. The Then I looked around upon the written rocks, the short grass, and the wildness of thoughts of the great and wise who have the narrow ravine were so like nature, that lived through all time. Before me was the you were sure there must be such a spot in recorded poetry and eloquence of Greece, reality, and that some one must have looked the classic writings of the Latins, the exupon it, and felt the grandeur of its loveli- pressions of the fresh literature of the modness and the awe of its unbroken solitude. ern Germans, and brighter than all, I saw the The companion-picture had been purchased contributions that English poetry, and hisin St. Petersburg. It was a Russian scene tory, and philosophy, and science have made in the depths of winter. In the back ground to the sum of human knowledge. My mind was a large and straggling village, white and reverted to the words that philanthropy and cold, and half buried in snow drifts. In the piety have dictated, in all languages and fore ground a group of peasants were en- under all forms of culture. What earnest gaged in a barbecue. The fire was kindled appeals have been made to man as a responin front of a picturesque looking house, at sible agent, and how, under the influence of the door of which, stood a maid, with a broom strong emotion and imagination, has the pen brushing the snow from the steps. The faces opened to him the secrets of death and the and attitudes of the peasants were strikingly grave, placing him almost within the veil expressive. One of them cast fagots on the that separates the transient and the earthly fire, and the ruddy glow contrasting with the from the eternal and the heavenly. And snow, and illuminating portions of the group, this, said I, is a common place world. Surely gave them a strange and fantastic appear- it is only the thoughtless who call it so. They forget of what great events it has been On the right, a woman was drawing water the theatre. The very air that now visits from a well, not a well, such as we read of us with balm and refreshment, once bore in ancient pastorals, shaded by palm trees, upon its wings the fragrance of Eden, and and where the dark eyed maidens of the perhaps stirred amidst its trees, when the orient came at even-tide for the refreshment Lord God walked there in the cool of the of their flocks. This fountain was rudely day, or perchance it passed over the sacred

ance.