glittering equipage or marble house of his wealthy neighbour. But to seek the regulation of this matter by tumult and spoliation would be the extreme of madness. There never has been, and there never will be a country without this same division into rich and poor. Attempts have, indeed, been made for a season, to have every thing in common; somewhat after the visions of Robert Owen; but they have always failed. This was tried two hundred years ago among the romantic settlers of Virginia; but the bubble soon burst, for none were gainers but the drones, and it was soon proclaimed as a law, that "he who will not work shall not eat." The sure and direct way to competency and even wealth, is the quiet pursuit of a good trade or calling. In no country is this more true than in our own, where there are no legal barriers against the rising of the honest poor; where there are no titles of nobility, no law of primogeniture, no entail of estates. A few glaring exceptions there may be, but, generally speaking, the wealth of this country has been acquired by indefatigable industry: our rich men have been working-men. Or, suppose it to have been their fathers who were the working-men; is my reader the man who would cut off his own sons from all the advantages of what he has earned? It is idle, it is ruinous, in such a country as ours, to set the poor against the rich. For who are the poor? If you mean the drunken, the profligate, the idle, our gamblers, sharpers, and sturdy beggars; certainly it is not for their behoof that you would make a division of property. Who are the poor? If you mean the hard-working tradesman or ope rative he does not need your help, and if he is wise he will not ask it; because he is rapidly passing out of the ranks of the poor into those of the rich. Nor would it be possible to draw a line separating the one class from the other, without placing on each hand those who were rising or falling from either side. Whose interest, then, is it to excite prejudices between rich and poor? Not that of the industrious; not that of the poor man who has sons, who may rise to the utmost elevation known among us; not that of the quiet man who desires security of property for himself and his neighbour; but only of the grasping and designing rogue, who, like a thief at a fire, wishes to profit by the general confusion. All these suspicions and heart-burnings between one class and another are evil and disastrous. There can no more be an absolute level in society than in the ocean; and there is no great class of men which is not necessary to the good of all the rest. The reader of history will remember the famous story of Menenius Agrippa, a Roman consul and general, as related by Livy. The populace were up in arms against the nobles, and had intrenched themselves on one of the hills of the city. Agrippa appeased them by the following fable: "Once on a time, when each member of the human body could speak for itself, the members became dissatisfied with the belly; which, said they, does nothing but lie in state, and enjoy the fruit of our labours. They resolved, therefore, upon a strike, and determined to stop the supplies of this luxurious organ. The hands stopped work, and would bring no food to keep him from starving; the mouth would receive no provision; the feet came to a perfect stand-still; in a word, all business was stagnant. There was great perseverance in this combination, until at length a universal emaciation took place, and it was seen that there was no such thing as living without the kind offices of this indolent and aristocratic consumer of victual." XXXVI. HOME PLEASURES. "I crown thee king of intimate delights, COWPER. THE family relation implies community of interest; as there is a common stock, so there are common sorrows and common joys. Put a dozen people together in a house, and let each lead the life of a hermit: this would be no family, even though they might be blood relations. There is more of domestic life even in the steerage of a packet-ship, where like seeks its like, and little congenial groups are formed before the voyage is over. The true glory of home is in the middle region of civilization: it is absent alike from the highest and the lowest. What can be more cheerless than the sullen selfishness of the Indian wigwam; where the relentless savage wraps himself up in indolent dignity, while the squaw and the children are spurned, as unworthy of a look-unless it be the elegant and fashionable household of the prince or noble, where each is independent of the other, and has his separate equipage and peculiar friends. Compare with this the cottage of the poor labourer, who returns at twilight to be welcomed by every human being, and every domestic animal; who tells over, or hears, all the occurrences of the day, and who feels that there is no interest which he does not share with every one around him. There is more value than all believe, in the simple maxim, Let family enjoyments be common to all. If there are few who deny this, there are still fewer who act upon it in its full extent. Something of it, as I have said, there must be, to make a family at all. We occupy the same house, sit around the same fire, and eat at the same table. It would seem churlish, and almost inhuman, to do otherwise. But I am for carrying the matter much farther, and for knitting more closely together those who cluster around the same hearth; believing that every influence is evil which severs father from child, and brother from brother. morsel that is eaten alone becomes sooner or later a bitter morsel. The Members of the same household should feel that they are dependent on one another, and should be as free to ask, as ready to give, assistance. Each should rise in the morning with the impression, that no duty of the day is more urgent than to make every individual happy, with whom he is brought into contact. And this contact should be sought, not shunned. It is a bad sign, when |