Or all the complaints which distinguish this complaining age, there are none that fall more frequently upon our ear, then those relating to servants, male and female, whose degeneracy-if those who proclaim it are to be believednever had a parallel in any former age of the world, nor can ever be exceeded in any age yet to come. What can be the meaning of this? Is the charge warranted, or not? If it is, as their can be no effect without a cause, there must be sufficient reason for it, and those who pass sentence are bound to show the grounds of their verdict. As I do not join in the chorus of condemnation, I have, of course, no concern with the production of the proof. Whenever the evidence is brought forward, I shall feel it my duty, nevertheless, to examine it with fairness and impartiality, as every judge does in a case in which he has no interest; for nothing ensures equity like indifference, whether in a court of conscience, or in a court of law, two very different courts, by the way, and in which the decisions of the one have very little concern with the other. Not that I mean here to cast any reflection on our judges; they are a class of men of whom I have the highest conceivable opinion, and it is a debt of justice I owe them to say, and I speak from long experience, that they always go straight forward whenever the magnitude of the object does not tempt them on one side. This, you will tell me is no great praise. Perhaps not. But I have known many magistrates forsake the straight path with no adequate inducement, but from a sheer love of showing their authority, or, in political cases, to please those above them; although without that welljustified hope of preferment which would alone justify the deviation. But then, I ought, even here, to acknowledge that these magistrates are unpaid, and when men are not paid for their service, why, if they are of no service at all, Í do not see that we are fairly entitled to find fault. They ought not to suffer in the estimation of the world for their judicial ignorance. If we will give

them ample power and no money, we must be content to pay for our parsimony. There is no help for it. If, for what is doing, we shut up our pockets, at what is done, we must shut our eyes. A wise policy might dictate a different course; but we should first put matters upon a different footing. When men's interests and inclinations are identified, they go on smoothly; place them in opposition, and they strike out into all manner of by-paths, and when wanted for honest service you never know where to find them.

You probably imagined when I began, that I was about to give you a dissertation on domestic servants. So I am. But there are various classes, and I begin with the highest first. "Honour to whom Honour." It is a wise motto. I am well aware that a prepossession in favour of rank and greatness is apt to blind the soundest understandings. But this prepossession, I lament to say it, is my great failing. Even when I have seen, as I sometimes have done, persons in high station who deserved to be subjected to the discipline of a hard-knotted cord; still, feeling as I do that I ought to take up my darkest pencil and sketch them to the life, I yet cannot help painting them couleur de rose, and throwing all there enormities into the shade. This is foolish I admit. Nay, I confess more, it is wrong; but such is my infirmity. I feel myself herein in the same predicament with St. Paul: "when I would do good, to do evil is present with me." One is glad to have one's frailty kept in countenance.

I have said there are servants of various order. I know indeed no instance in which the scale of distinction is so nicely and conspicuously marked. Academical graduates and under-graduates do not keep their dignities more separate, or their eminence more apart, than do those who move in the various degrees of subjection. The strictest attention is necessary in the apportionment of our respect. A horse-chestnut does not differ more from a chestnuthorse, than a household servant from

a servant of the household. A groom of the stole may be as worthless as a groom of the stable, but the one carries his head under a royal roof, and the other under a thatched rafter, and this makes all the difference in the world, in the estimate of their respective merits. A servant of the crown is usually a servant of all work, whereas in common life, a servant of all work is an idle animal, who can with great difficulty be made to do any work at all.

In America, where republican dignity and independence go hand in hand, a female, however humble her station, will not submit to hire herself as a servant. There is a something in the name revolting to a republican ear, always nicely tuned to epithets that carry with them any thing like subjection. She will hire herself to assist in the house, it being of course to be understood that her "service is perfect freedom." Now under a monarchy such as our own, there are certain niceties of phraseology in this respect, but these are coined for the ladies of the court exclusively, who though eager to get a place, are nevertheless desirous that the name should not be such as to convey the idea of servitude. Hence it is that we have maids of honour: a somewhat mysterious title, certainly; but, at the same time a very expressive one. Their very name implies that they are to have no followers; the usual stipulation in modern times with every female that presents herself to be hired, whether as cook, housemaid, lady's maid, or whatever other capacity she is destined to fill. It is quite clear that nothing can contribute so much to cherish a spirit of independence in the midst of servitude, as the thus excluding them from all approach and debarring them from all external association. If the unsocial separation thus imposed upon them, is not always agreeable to their own will, or conformable to the will of nature, it keeps them from getting entangled in the chains of matrimony, which no doubt it is the duty of all female servants to avoid. The cultivation of the affections ought not to be permitted to any whose lot it is to breathe the atmosphere of a kitchen. In the parlour every indulgence has its canonical warrant, but the feelings of human nature, and the felicities of human life were never intended to be known below

the first floor. It is of course very natural that we should expect the hearts of servants to overflow with kindness and gratitude, when those feelings, if they exist at all, are confined within doors, having no earthly object beyond the threshold upon which they can be exercised. All who have any knowledge of human nature must perceive that this is the result to be expected, and therefore it is that one cannot help wondering to find such general complaints prevailing as to the indifference of servants to the happiness and comfort of their employers, and their disregard to the interest of the family with which they live. Gratitude is the virtue of a cultivated mind; and what occupations tend so much to improve the mind as cooking, and scouring, and washing, and working? all which are not only most edifying in themselves, but keep up those habits of incessant and perpetual industry, which it is so important to cherish and so praiseworthy to acquire. Many have been put out to service at thirteen and fourteen years old, with the daily opportunities which they must have had of acquiring information— what an intellectual as well as moral progress must they necessarily make in the course of the next ten or fifteen years, which brings them to the maturity of womanhood!

It will sometimes happen that females are to be met with whose minds no length of servitude can thoroughly enlighten, that drudge on from youth to age, and from morning till night, without ever rising a jot sooner than when they went to bed, or ever going to bed with a single atom of understanding, picked up in the progress of the day. No doubt it is marvellous that with the rays of knowledge beaming in upon them so profusely, they should live on as if in the obscurity of twilight; such wilful obstinacy excites no resentment, and very justly. We are quite justified in abusing servants as dull and ignorant and stupid, it being clear to common sense that those whom we hire to do the meanest offices and to labour for the lowest wages, ought to be sensible, intelligent, and enlightened. It is to be sure rather unlikely that we should be able to procure any servants at all, if those who serve us in that capacity possessed those higher qualities of mind which qualified

them for superior situations; and so far, we have great reason to be satisfied that so many are to be found that are different in ability, in quickness of comprehension, and those various other endowments which, were they gifted with or had they acquired, they would seek to fill adequate situation, and leave us to do our own house-work, and be servants to ourselves.

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With respect to men-servants, they appear to furnish still more grievous cause of offence than the other sex. seems agreed on all hands that they are almost without exception, idle and vicious. When we consider the pains taken in every great house to make them diligent and virtuous, one cannot but lament that so much moral teaching should be so unhappily thrown away upon them. All which passes before their eyes, and before their ears, must tend beyond measure to edify them, and to impress with a strong sense of relative obligation and religious duty. It is no doubt owing to the scenes they witness, and the instruction they imbibe, that we find the servants of the great in the present day forming the advanced guard in the march of intellect. So initiated are they in the mysteries of high life, and so completely do they identify themselves in their own estimation with the fashionists of whose establishment they form a part, that they imagine themselves to be "bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh" and it must be admitted that between high life below stairs, and high life above stairs; if the parts are not cast with equal efficiency, they are played with equal skill. The farce differs from the fact, only as the dexterity of imitation. The great drama of the drawing-room is played in the kitchen, if not with equal elevation of character, at least, with equal breadth of effect. The tree of liberty, once so scarce, now flourishes every where, and gives promise every where of immortal fruit. England in time will, as in America, have "helpers," but the race of servants is fast going out. We are in the midst of great changes; that they will be all of them changes for the better, may, I think, be predicted without the gift of prophecy. Our forefathers groped their way in the dark to a state of ease, and comfort, and contentment. have arrived at the light of midday,

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which enables us to spy out all imperfections, and there is no imaginable imperfection which we have not-one and all-every mother's son of us--both the will and the wisdom to rectify. Solomon complained that there was nothing new under the sun. But the many revolutions which our earth has made round it since his day, has produced a very different state of things. I suspect there will soon be nothing old under the sun. New laws, new systems, new doctrines, new manners, and modes of thinking, and there is no probability that the change, whatever it may be, that comes uppermost, will be of any longer duration, we are likely to be blessed with a continual feast of novelty, and that which was always valued as the spice of life," will become our daily food. All this is very desirable.

We have besides every thing to expect from the progress of patriotism. Every man is now either a patriot or a saint; either a Sir John Hobhouse, or a Sir Andrew Agnew, unluckily these sort of pretenders clap on more sail then they can fight under. But cant religious, and cant political, are the order of the day. The servants of government, and the servants of the Lord, are about to divide the world between them. The reliance of the one is on the mask of patriotism, of the other on the show of sanctity. There is hope that with the aid of the standing army, and the new police, they may, in time, make good their supremacy. The prospect is cheering. We can make no stipulation with them, as we can with domestic servants, that they shall have "no followers ;" unless, indeed, some such pious knight as Sir Andrew, should take a hint from one of the Merry Wives of Windsor: "Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in parliament for the putting down of men." This seems to be the only effectual remedy; and that it might be carried into effect, is clear from the recent conduct of the new police, under the inspiring auspices of the home secretary. If the devout Sir Andrew should bring in a bill to this effect, every friend to religion, and social order, must wish it success. Let the police be privileged to break the bones of all who break the sabbath; and you enforce at once a reverence both for the law and the gospel.