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second drags himself to the dunghill, and, without a soothing word or an alleviating office or an affectionate tear, gasps alone. It is at this appointed moment that their spirits break away! Two souls are on the wing! Two souls are tracking their way to their final account! Pursue, if you can, their course! Ascertain, if you can, their condition! Tell us, which is the monarch's, which is the beggar's, soul! By what impressions do you recognise, by what marks do you distinguish, them? You know not either by its robes or by its rags! All such things are left below. The funeral, of royal state and of pauper meanness, has committed their equal bodies to the earth, and their equal souls have been weighed in the balances of a common immortality!

CHAPTER III.

ON THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS OF THE LABOURING

COMMUNITY.

TIME was when our countrymen united every employment; they delved the soil, they wove the fleece. The consequence was, that the agriculture was as crude as the manufacture, and the manufacture was as humble as the agriculture. Great immigrations brought with them their trades, and established among us their staples. These were deemed so helpless at first, that they were defended by incorporation and privilege. But now our woollen, cotton, and silk, fabrications have drawn out an immense amount of artizans, and we commonly divide the people into agricultural and manufacturing. Cicero made the same distinction in his day; but while we quote him, we must not thoughtlessly prejudge the case between these classes as he has done. In his Oratoriæ Partitiones, sect. 25, he writes: "Et quoniam non ad veritatem solum, sed etiam ad opiniones eorum, qui audiunt, accomodanda est oratio; hoc primum intelligamus, hominum duo esse genera; alterum indoctum et agreste, quod anteferat semper utilitatem honestati; alterum expolitum,

Itaque

quod rebus omnibus dignitatem anteponat. huic generi laus, honor, gloria, fides, justitia, omnisque virtus; illi autem alteri, quæstus, emolumentum, fructusque proponitur, atque etiam voluptas, quæ maxime est inimica virtuti, bonique naturam fallaciter imitando adulterat."* The whole truth may be in neither allegation, and to balance the opposite columns something may be required to pass from the one to the other.

Perhaps in no land of earth is this distinction of labourers more marked and more equipoised than in our own. Rival interests are supposed to arise between them, and, however only putative, these keep them apart and excite frequent irritation. To adjust all questions of jealousy is the part of the statesman ; and he feels his way to be slow and difficult among the competitors. Perhaps a new light begins to fall upon him, a simple light, a light from heaven. If he will follow it, it will save him from a thousand perplexities. It teaches him to leave commerce to the

* "Since the Oration must be adapted not only for the announcement of truth, but to the opinions of those who listen, we ought to be fully aware that men divide themselves into two classes: the first, ill-taught and rustic, who always prefer the useful to the refined,—the second, the courtly, who set the highest value upon reputation. The whole intentness of the latter is upon fame, nobility, glory, faithfulness, justice, and every excellence: that of the former is on gain, advantage, acquisition, and even that grosser enjoyment, which is most opposed to virtue, and corrupts by its too successful imitation of happiness."

winds and the waves, husbandry to the clouds and the seasons: not to weaken their strength by bounties, nor to hamper their elasticity by protections.

These respective divisions of our population are characterised by particular features. It would seem that the difference is not accidental; but that it arises from the necessary circumstances of the parties, and from the nature of their several occupations.

It immediately strikes us, on comparing the two, that the one is always more condensed and the other more scattered. The first is more civic, the second more rural. The manufacturing town and the commercial port will sometimes exceed in the number of their inhabitants an entire county. It is a crowded hive of men. Every spot is covered with buildings : every nook teems with life. You gaze upon another scene. There are beheld, wide-diffused, the farmhouse and grange of the yeomanry, and the humbler dwellings of their servants. The roads are generally of a kind to prevent easy communication. The meetings of these sons of the soil are the hurried passages of the market. They exist by themselves.

Nor can it be denied that the thick settlement of a population is favourable to its intellectual development. Mind acts upon mind with a necessary force. This effect must be proportioned to proximity and collision. Both these influences are in operation in the supposed case. Men throng upon each other, and the claim of each requires a very nice attention.

Every interest is to be secured. Institutions come easily into existence. These soothe and elevate and polish. When men are dispersed, it is a too common misfortune that mental hebetude succeeds. Associations are almost impossible. Neighbourhood brings not its excitements to improve, nor its inconveniences to redress. A facility of life may induce its stupor.

Though agriculture is daily becoming a more scientific pursuit,--having its proper chymistry,-guided by new plans of tillage and draining,-receiving manures from distant shores,-holding out the hope of a very enlarged production,-yet, in the ordinary processes of its labour, it has been simple and unarousing. The annual drama awakes poet and moralist, but it can little raise the soul of the hind. He toils on, and, in his round of humble errands, there is little call for mental effort. His implements are scanty, and are not imaginative. The manufacturing labourer is always in sight of suggestions to thought and research. His motive power is as a fairy charm and a giant force; combining the grace of the altar's incense with the heaving of the volcano's fury. The presence of such an agency can scarcely fail to cause reflection.

Since it generally happens that a few powerful minds produce the movements of opinion around them, we need not wonder that the information of the town is generally larger than that of the country. spirits look for meet audience and remuneration. They are best supported by the many; out of the many

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