be entirely free. I mean that kind of rank which arises from the different degrees of wealth and of intellectual refinement. These must introduce a style of living and of conversation, the former of which a poor man cannot attain, while an ignorant one would be incapable of enjoying the latter. It seems to me that from these causes, wherever they may exist, circles of society, strongly discri minated, must inevitably result. And one of these causes exists in full force in Virginia; for, however they may vaunt of "equal li berty in church and state," they have but little to boast on the subject of equal property. Indeed there is no country, I believe, where property is more unequally distributed than in Virginia. This inequality struck me with peculiar force in riding through the lower counties on the Potomack. Here and there a stately aristocratick palace, with all its appurtenances, strikes the view: while

all around, for many miles, no other buildings are to be seen but the little smoky huts and log cabins of poor, laborious, ignorant tenants. And, what is very ridiculous, these tenants, while they approach the great house, cap in hand, with all the fearful trembling submission of the lowest feudal vassals, boast in their court-yards, with obstreperous exultation, that they live in a land of freemen, a land of equal liberty and equal rights. Whether this debasing sense of inferiority, which I have mentioned, be a remnant of their colonial character, or whether it be that it is natural for poverty and impotence to look up with veneration to wealth and power and rank, I cannot decide. For my own part, however, I have ascribed it to the latter cause; and I have been in a great degree confirmed in the opinion, by observing the attentions which were paid by the most gen

You know the circumstances in which his lordship left Virginia: that so far from being popular, he carried with him the deepest execrations of these people. Even now, his name is seldom mentioned here but in connexion with terms of abhorrence or contempt. Aware of this, and believing it impossible that

was indebted to his

father, for all the parade of respect which was shown to him, I sought, in his own personal accomplishments, a solution of the phenomenon. But I sought in vain. Without one solitary ray of native genius, without one adventitious beam of science, without any of those traits of soft benevolence which are so universally captivating, I found his mind dark and benighted, his manners, bold, forward and assuming, and his whole character evidently inflated with the consideration that he was the

son of a lord. His deportment was so evidently dictated by this consideration, and he regarded the Virginians, so palpably, in the humiliating light of inferiour plebeians, that I have often wondered how such a man, and the son too of so very unpopular a father, escaped from this country without personal injury, or, at least, personal insult. I am now persuaded, that this impunity, and the great respect which was paid to him resulted solely from his noble descent, and was nothing more than the tribute which man pays either to imaginary or real superiority. On this occasion, I stated my surprise to a young Virginian, who happened to belong to the democratick party. He, however, did not choose to admit the statement; but asserted, that whatever respect had been shown to ...., proceeded solely from the federalists; and that it was an unguarded evolution of their private attachment to mo

narchy and its appendages. I then stated the subject to a very sensible gentleman, whom I knew to belong to the federal phalanx. Not willing to degrade his party by admitting that they would prostrate themselves before the empty shadow of nobility, he alleged that nothing had been manifested towards young.. beyond the hospitality which was due to a genteel stranger; and that if there had been any thing of parade on his account, it was attributable only to the ladies, who had merely exercised their wonted privilege of coquetting it with a fine young fellow. But notwithstanding all this, it was easy to discern in the look, the voice, and whole manner, with which gentlemen as well as ladies of both parties saluted and accosted young

..., a secret spirit of respect

ful diffidence, a species of silent, reverential abasement, which, as it could not have been excited by his personal qualities, must havǝ