population doubling every three years, and the newly enclosed lands in the possession of the present landholders? -I see! Souse over head and ears we go, and get out of it as we best can, as the author did when he left the good old highway, and ventured over dangerous ground with the calf. "My country's happy cottages abound No longer! Where they stood and smiled, uprear Ir is a very natural thought—and has occurred to thousands, as they have passed through some beautiful English village, and admired the thatched cottage, with its woodbine-covered porch, standing in the centre of its own 'e garden; or been struck with the long row of dilapi dated huts, that seemed to lean upon each other for support -it is a very natural thought, to wonder how the inhabitants obtain a livelihood. You see an old man working in his bit of garden-ground; that cannot support him: you behold an old woman, seated with her spinning-wheel in the open doorway; she cannot live by that. And, to draw a true picture of village life, as it really is in the present day, cannot be done without depicting much poverty, and many hardships. Nature is ever lovely; and in no country has she been more bountiful in scattering her beauties than in our own; but the carol of the lark, the hum of the bee, and the fragrance of hawthorn hedges and flowery fields, mingled with the aroma of old woods in summer walks, along peaceful footpaths, are not found— "Within the huts where poor men lie." The country has not the same charm for these as it has for those who with plenty come to retire there, and to the accumulated savings, gathered by years of successful commerce in the city, bring that keen appetite for change, which is pleased with every thing that differs from what they have been accustomed to. To the peasant, the scene is just the same he looks on the fields, and they recall years of ill-paid labour; he has toiled in them, early and late, and is not a shilling the richer than when, twenty years ago, he first became a tiller of the soil. The woods but remind him of short days and reduced wages, when he bound faggots or made hurdles, and the cold pierced to his very bones. The retired citizen is freed from such painful associations: he has been used to streets, close air, and high brick-walls; and now he feels like a liberated prisoner: he can stay within doors when the weather is unfavourable, and go ramble where he chooses when it is fine. If he works in his garden, it is for amusement; if he walks, it is either for pleasure, or the benefit of his health; if he surveys his fields, and overlooks the poor labourers he employs, it is that he may hedge in comfort more closely, and bring all his wants within the circumference of his newly purchased domain. Bakers and butchers call at his door; the drayman delivers his barrels, the wine-merchant his cart-load of bottles; the cheesemonger and grocer are punctual in their calls: he has but to command, and all he requires is there. The labourer, in the opposite lut, shut out from his wealthy neighbour by the high iron palisade, and separated from him by the width of the road, finds it difficult to obtain "bread" for his family; and sometimes he wonders how it is. He has worked hard all his life; in the busy time of harvest he has laboured beyond his strength; his wife has done her utmost to assist him; and he has marvelled to find his home so clean, when she and the children have been out all day gleaning. Eight or nine shillings a-week in winter, and ten or twelve in summer, have been the very utmost of his earnings, saving in the few weeks of harvest, when he all but worked day and night; and he is one of those who has the very highest wages (as a labourer) in the village. His character is without a stain; his master would trust him with "unnamed treasure," if he had it; he never troubled the parish for a farthing; he could have credit any where-but he is an Englishman; he scorns to be beholden to any one, and he scorns to complain. He takes his piece of brown bread, and his bottle of milk-and-water, or small-beer, sold at fourpence the gallon, out with him in the morning in his basket; he hedges, ditches, and ploughs all day upon this, worse than felon fare; he comes home at night, and brings with him the little billet of wood, sufficient for the fire on the following day; he has his agrimony-tea, with his wife and children, and, if in winter, it may be the luxury of a round of toast, with dripping on it, or a basin of milk, which the farmer has given them for fetching, and this is thickened with a little flour, and perhaps followed with a dessert of boiled potatoes, of which he possesses a few bushels of his own growing. His children lay their dear, innocent hands on the patched knees of his breeches; he closes his eyes, and hears them say their prayers, bids God bless them, kisses their innocent lips, and holds the youngest child while his good wife takes the others to bed. She returns, and they sit talking, whilst the wood-fire lasts, of what they shall do. Little George wants a pinafore, and Emma a frock; Nell's feet have been on the ground for days. He does not know what they are to do; they must not touch the money laid aside for rent; they cannot live on less,-agrimony-tea, milk (when his master can give it them), dripping, when they can afford it; bacon occasionally; bread they must have, and potatoes they will hardly make "last out." Can she get any weeding? no-he dare not ask, when so many are at work on the roads. She will go a bean-gleaning; though they are never ready until the frost comes, in the last bleak days of autumn. But George must have a pinafore, Emma a frock, and little Nell her old boots mended. We pass on to another, employed by the parish to break stones on the road. He works by the piece, and in winter earns six or seven shillings a-week,-in summer, eight or nine. Out of this he has to find rent, clothes, coal, candle, and soap, and support himself, a wife, and four little children. If the farmer's labourer, with constant employment, can but just make ends meet and tie," how does he manage, whose income is so much smaller? Look at him in winter, seated by the roadside: a little cushion, stuffed with hay, placed on the stones, is his seat; numbed and |