66 cover at once the finest farming I had ever seen, and "the only land light-house that was ever raised."*

As a hundred years ago, the lands were too often untilled, so were the cultivators of the land too often untaught. Throughout England, the education of the labouring classes was most grievously neglected, the supineness of the clergy of that age being manifest on this point as on every other. It would be very easy to adduce many cases of deplorable ignorance and consequent credulity at that period both in individuals and in whole villages or parishes. A few will suffice, however, to establish my conclusion. - A remarkable man, in after years the chief of a religious sect,- William Huntington, -describes himself as the son of poor parents in the Weald of Kent. Without any instruction during his first childhood, he found his vacant mind fill with silly fancies. "There was," says he, "in the village an “exciseman, of a stern and hard-favoured countenance, "whom I took notice of for having a stick covered with "figures, and an ink-bottle hanging at his button-hole. "This man I imagined to be employed by God Almighty "to take an account of children's sins!"† A person of far superior merit and attainments, Hannah More,

declares that on first going to the village of Cheddar, near the cathedral city of Wells, "we found more than "two hundred people in the parish, almost all very poor; 66 no gentry; a dozen wealthy farmers, hard, brutal, and "ignorant.. We saw but one Bible in all the "parish, and that was used to prop a flower-pot!" Traces of ancient superstition were sometimes found to linger in the congenial darkness. Thus, in Northamptonshire, "Miss C. and her cousin, walking, saw a fire “in a field, and a crowd around it. They said, ‘what is "the matter? Killing a calf. What for? To stop

*Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. p. 287. This column,-the "Dunston Pillar," is now, I believe, the property of the Earl of Ripon.

† Life of William Huntington, S. S. (that is, Sinner Saved), by himself, in his "Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer," p. 35. ed. 1793. He adds, "I thought he must have a great deal to do to find out all the sins of children, and I eyed him as a formidable being, "and the greatest enemy I had in all the world."

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"the murrain.' They went away as quickly as possible. "On speaking to the clergyman, he made inquiries. The "people did not like to talk of the affair, but it appeared "that when there is a disease among the cows, or when "the calves are born sickly, they sacrifice, that is, kill "and burn, one for good luck." *

Pass we next to Suffolk. There, in the village of Wattisham, and in the year 1762, it chanced that six children of one family died in quick succession of a sudden and mysterious illness, their feet having first mortified and dropped off. Professor Henslow, who resides at no great distance from Wattisham, has given much attention to the records of their case, and has made it clear in his excellent Essay on the Diseases of Wheat, that in all probability their death was owing to their imprudent use of deleterious food - the Ergot of Rye. But he adds, that in the neighbourhood, the popular belief was firm, that these poor children had been the victims of sorcery and witchcraft.†

Among the principal means which, under Providence, tended to a better spirit in the coming age, may be ranked the system of Sunday Schools. And of these, the main praise belongs to Robert Raikes. There are indeed some previous claims alleged on behalf of other persons, especially Miss Hannah Ball, at High Wycombe, in 1769. But certainly, at least, the example did not spread at that time. The elder Mr. Raikes being printer and proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, had been brought before the House of Commons, in 1729, for the offence, as it was then considered, of reporting their debates. His son, born in 1735, became in due time his successor in his business. Struck at the noise and riot of the poor boys in his native streets, Raikes the younger established the first of his Sunday Schools in 1781. Thus, in one of his early letters does he explain his views - further carried

* Communication addressed to Jacob Grimm, and inserted by him in his Deutsche Mythologie, p. 576. ed. 1843. With his usual learning, he proceeds to show the genuine descent of this practice from a primæval Celtic rite. See also in White's Selborne (p. 295. ed. 1837), the stories of the seamed pollards and shrew-ash.

† Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. ii. p. 16. See the second volume of this History, p. 126.

out in our own day by Lord Ashley's care: "I argue, "therefore, if you can loiter about without shoes and a 'ragged coat, you may as well come to school and learn "what may tend to your good in that footing. All that "I require are clean hands, clean face, and the hair "combed. . . . . I cannot express to you the pleasure I "often receive in discovering genius and innate good dispositions among this little multitude. It is botaniz"ing in human nature."*

The benevolent exertions of Mr. Raikes were well seconded and widely diffused. His Schools received the early patronage and aid of several eminent Prelates, especially Dr. Porteus, at that time Bishop of Chester. Adam Smith bore his testimony to them in these remarkable words: "No plan has promised to effect a change "of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the Apostles." Thus it happened that schools on Mr. Raikes's plan soon started up in almost every county. In London they owed their first secure establishment to the zeal of Mr. William Fox, a wholesale draper, assisted by Mr. Jonas Hanway, a gentleman who had first risen into notice by the publication, on a most ample scale, of his Journey to Persia in 1753 — who, since that time, had been forward in all works of benevolence, as in the foundation of the Magdalen Charity in 1758- and who will be remembered as a philanthropist long after he is forgotten as a traveller.†

The progress of Agriculture at this period was greatly aided by the exertions of Arthur Young. As a working farmer in his youth he had applied himself with zeal to the improvement of tillage, and what he had begun as a profession ever afterwards continued his pursuit. He first attracted the attention of the public in 1768, by an account of a Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties. The success of that experiment soon produced a Tour to the Northern Counties, in four volumes, and then another, of the same length, to the Eastern. These books were read the rather from their clear and lively

* Robert Raikes to Colonel Townley, November 25. 1783. History of Sunday Schools, by Lewis G. Pray, Boston, U. S. 1847. See especially pp. 133-160.

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style, and proved of great practical importance from the contrasts which they drew, and the emulation which they excited. In 1780 he also described, in print, a Journey which he had made to Ireland, and in 1784 commenced his Annals of Agriculture, a periodical in monthly parts. Among the many contributions to that useful work came several from George the Third, in fact, though not by name. More than a year elapsed ere Young discovered that his unknown correspondent, Mr. Ralph Robinson, of Windsor, who sent him accounts of a farm at Petersham, was no other than the King.

It may be worthy of note, that in Norfolk the system of large farms-a system sometimes imputed as a blot in the great agricultural improvements pursued at a later period by Mr. Coke, of Holkham-has on its side the high authority of Arthur Young. "Great farms," says he, "have been the soul of the Norfolk culture; split "them into tenures of an hundred pounds a year, and "you will find nothing in the whole county but beggars "and weeds." Even in his time, as he declares, the husbandry in Norfolk had advanced to a much greater height than he had seen any where else in England over an equal extent of soil.*

But far superior to Arthur Young-superior as the researches of a Newton are above, though supporting and supported by, the observations of an Astronomical Table-stands the name of Adam Smith. Born at Kirkcaldy, in 1723, he was for many years Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow; and his great work, "The Wealth of Nations," first appeared in 1776. That year may well deserve, on its account, to rank as an era in political science. Even at the moment of its publication, Dr. Johnson, though he was no friend of Adam Smith, though they had once a personal altercation at the house of Mr. Strachan, most properly rebuked the shallow criticism of Sir John Pringle, that an author who had never been in trade could not be expected to write well upon that subject, any more than a lawyer upon physic. On the contrary, "there is nothing," said Johnson, in a true statesman's spirit,

* Eastern Tour, vol. ii. p. 161. ed. 1771.

"which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy "than trade does."* And such illustration, such philosophy did, in rich measure, this great work supply. To say of the "Wealth of Nations" that it has faults and errors is only to say, in other words, that it is the work of man. But not merely did Adam Smith found the science of Political Economy; we might almost say of him that he completed it, leaving, at least as some have thought, to his successors, not so much any new discoveries to make, or any further principles to prove, but far rather conjectures to hazard and consequences to pursue.

It was not long ere some of the main doctrines of Adam Smith found adherents and disciples not only in Scotland, but in England, not only in England, but in France. In France they were, to some extent, engrafted on a small sect or party known by the name of "Economists," and founded by Dr. Quesnay, who had died in 1774. The most eminent man at Paris who at first adhered to them was Turgot; the most eminent man in London, the Earl of Shelburne. With such men it was not long ere these doctrines left the domain of theory, and came, at least in some degree, to be tried in active life.

It was owing to Adam Smith, and to men like Adam Smith, that Scotland, in his time, was, on many points, in practical advance of England. Education, at least in the more populous districts, was then certainly better cared for. At Edinburgh the school of Medicine was then perhaps the best in the world. Its literary circle of that period has not often, in any country, been exceeded. In the improvement of tillage the Lothians took the lead, and kept it. Nearly all the good gardeners came at that time from the north of Tweed. Even Dr. Johnson could not gainsay them this praise; he could only qualify it by a sarcasm on the badness of their native climate. Things which grow wild here," said he, "must be cul

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*Life by Boswell, under the date of March 16. 1776.

The best account of Dr. Quesnay is to be found in the Journal de Madame du Hausset, first printed in the "Mélanges d'Histoire et de Littérature," (Mr. Crawford's) in 1817. See also the note at p. 276. "Les Economistes l'appelaient le maître et disaient comme "jadis de Pythagore le maître l'a dit."