'as man ;' when he parts with what is curiously termed 'superfluity of labour,' and becomes a passive machine, played on at the caprice of his species, his insensible perspiration is so much increased, his whole absorbent system so unduly excited, that doubtless few constitutions could endure such unnatural functional discharge, for any length of time, without clogging or failing entirely: he is therefore obliged to have recourse to flesh, and fermented liquors, as extra stimulants.

"I shall never forget the impression made on me one day, at seeing two labourers sit down, or rather recline against a bank, at one o'clock P. M. to a meal of bread and cheese, and a jug of water from an adjacent spring. They had been mending fences round the ample enclosures of a rich proprietor, who had added field to field, who had heaped up wealth, and could not tell who should gather it his mansion, surrounded with outoffices and court-yards, crowned the height which frowned over the valley where these men were taking their scanty repast; who, after many hours of incessant, preter natural toil, were going to slake their burning thirst, occasioned by its concomitant, profuse perspiration, in the pure element, refreshing to natural excitement, but to them in the highest

degree pernicious. On my remarking the hardness of the fare, and giving a trifle to purchase malt-liquor, one of them, whose head seemed prematurely silvered from care and suffering, said, in a voice tremulous from faintness, 'Ah! Sir, how easy it is for those who do not work as we do, to bid us be humble and meek, and not to hanker after the good things of this world: our parson only works once a week, and not over hard then; and last Sunday he told us to be sober and temperate in all things, to be sure not to be entrapped by gluttony and drunkenness; and when he said so, I saw Master nod in his pew, as much as to say, 'very true, mind that:' and then, they went to dinner together, on the fat of the land. But I'm thinking, if our squire and the parson instead of doing nothing all day, and getting a skinful of beef and wine at night, were to work with us for only one week, they would tell another story: it is easy for people with a full belly, to wonder how other folks can be hungry.'

"As to what we call accidents, bruises, cuts, dislocations, fractures, to how few would man be liable, if he did not act ridiculously, contrary to Nature! Still I am always proud to pay my humble tribute of acknowledgment to those whose lives are passed in the study of

malady, incidental and incurred; in cleansing from deepest stain, the catalogue of human ills: to such we are indeed indebted; their youth is consumed in laborious research and intense personal labour, their riper years spent in a great measure by the couch of poverty, sickness, and pain; and yet how seldom are their talents appreciated, their claims to public and individual gratitude duly weighed! One, at least, is sensible of the weight of eternal gratitude due to them for the honour they have conferred on human nature, in shewing by splendid successful example, how much evil may be removed by a patient thorough investigation of natural causes, a contempt of bigotry and prejudice and a hearty desire to extirpate error, by the introduction of truth, her opponent."

LETTER XIII.

THE next day L- said, "It is time you should see some individual instances of the hollowness of the system I have endeavoured to analyze; of the exquisite misery produced by man in a gregarious state, allowing inequality and gradation at wide intervals, to become the basis of his social compact. We will take a turn along the streets; I predict we shall go but a little way ere you will be struck with some particular objects of suffering humanity: observe the passengers we meet, and ask an explanation of any remarkable dress. or demeanour."

Out we went, and had scarcely walked a stone's throw, before we encountered one of the "species," in appearance the most grotesque and shocking: it was a lad of low, slight form, covered all over with a dust, black and offensive; his hair, his clothes, every pore of his body, were absolutely saturated with its particles; the only parts that retained à natural hue, were his teeth and eyes, which formed a striking contrast with the rest of his

figure: he shuffled along with gait painful and tottering, drawing his breath hard from cold, and tracking his pathwith blackness; followed by a companion in misery, smaller than himself, whose tears made furrows in the mask on his face, as he bent beneath a bag which seemed to contain a heavy portion of the particles which caused its blackness. As this vision brushed against us at the corner of a street, I caught the arm of L—, exclaiming, involuntarily, "My God! what is this? Are these human creatures, what is their occupation which has left but a mockery of the human form?""Yes," said L, "these are two of the 'genus homo' as we are, two children of human Nature, like thousands more, deserted by humanity two beings, born with the same capacity of enjoyment as ourselves, like us, heirs to all the happiness and pleasurable emotion, call it by what name you will, which are common to the human race, and of which their nature is susceptible."-"What then," said I, "is the meaning of their appearance, so disgusting, so dreadful? "_" The meaning," said he, "is very simple, and easily explained; in a word they are 'chimney sweepers. "And what's a chimney sweeper?" I enquired.

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"A chimney sweeper is a man, or rather a piece of mechanism, who picks up a bare sub