If we have a longing to drink at Duddon River (Manchester tradesmen may be thirsty after a dusty week's work-sometimes), whose fault is it? And now, when there is some talk of our seeing these things which he has taught us to yearn for and to wish to understand, what does our Poet do, but turn us over for relaxation to "pantomime, farce, and puppet show?" Verily, the end is curiously discordant with the beginning.

By way of clenching our content in being shut out of the protected district (for he will allow a terminus at Bowness), Mr. Wordsworth winds up his letter by telling us, that "there must be privileges in recreations and amusements,"-lakes, that is, for Laureates, and tea-gardens for Manchester tradesmen-inquiring of the London squareholders, how they would like their paradises of pleasure, to be overrun by operative children, or lovers in paper caps and oilskin-covered baskets. Now, I never heard that the Public intended to scale the Poet's beautiful garden wall which he describes so beautifully, because some of them might have a fancy for a holiday ramble on the shores of the Mere, without the labour of a seven miles' walk from Kendal (one of my children is lame, yet he has a pretty notion, for all that, of landscape painting). And I have been foolish enough to fancy there was a "privilege" in being able to bestow ;-and to open as well as in shutting up, or barring out. My nephews and nieces, in London, are full of their pleasant days in Hampton Court Gardens, and Bushy Park at chesnut-tide; of their happy jaunts to Windsor, and Burnham Beeches,-thanks to the railway. Sir George Beaumont, Mr. Wordsworth's accomplished friend, thought it a privilege, seemingly, to help to educate the taste of the operatives of the metropolis, by bequeathing his pictures to the National Gallery. There is great Mr. Strutt too, of Derby, who has been making an Arboretum for his townsfolk. But what, according to the Laureate, can they know of treeswhat right have they to enjoy them?-how many of them have been born in nursery gardens? I would rather have the "privilege" of the Poet of former days, when inspired to preach, how

than the pride of his present seclusion, terrifying itself with a thousand imaginary fears of factory pale-faces, and begging all

landed proprietors, through the medium of the morning papers, to resist the unwashed rabble even unto Parliament.*

But I must have done. Book-keepers have not much time for writing to the magazines; and perhaps I may not be "disseminating my goose in my own proper sphere -as the poor old maid of quality phrased it, when angrily repulsing "a helping" from that savoury bird, sent in by a good-natured vulgar neighbour-in attempting a remonstrance, be it ever so humble. But I speak for many besides myself, who do not like to see a great man, in

* Mr. Wordsworth has, in his railway antipathies, humble but zealous imitators. This may be seen from the subjoined extracts from an advertisement headed "The Richmond and West-End Junction Railway." The genteel dwellers at Richmond-the intensely genteel-tremble for the sanctity of their terrace and park, and the sweet retirement of their pastoral meads. Therefore, they meet, with "the Rev. R. E. Copleston, Rector, in the chair," and resolve, among other things—

"That the proposed railroad from London to Richmond will not be attended with any advantage to the inhabitants of this parish (Barnes) either as regards the carriage of goods or passengers; but, on the contrary, will much diminish their present conveniences in these respects."

[When the inhabitants of Richmond can travel to Hungerford Market in the space of fifteen minutes, instead of an hour and a half, the convenience of such transit must, of course, be much diminished. It is self-evident.]

"That the said railroad, which it is proposed to carry across the roads in this parish at a level, will be attended with considerable inconvenience and danger.” [Show the inconvenience, Mr. Rector-prove the danger.]

"That there is no commerce at Richmond, or on the course of the proposed line, to render a railroad expedient or necessary.

"That its establishment would prejudicially affect the interests of private individuals, without accomplishing any public good."

[The commerce in luggage we grant to be little; but the commerce in living thousands who, in a few minutes, would escape from London streets to feel the influence of lovely scenery and fresh air,-would, we believe, be great, and profitable in a higher sense than that of money,—if, indeed, aught higher can be admitted by Rector Copleston and his "highly-respectable" flock.

But the railway would affect interests." Yes, it would affect the interests of the exclusively-genteel of Richmond-of the fastidiously-tasteful, who look upon the labouring poor, delivered from the closeness of a city, to enjoy the bounty of a beneficent nature, as eye-sores in the prospect; intruders on the Paradise of the "highly-respectable." Why should not Lazarus enjoy the same sun, and wander in the same green fields as Dives; eh, Reverend Mr. Copleston, Rector? In what Book, familiar to your Sabbath ponderings, is this forbidden ?-EDITOR.]

the evening of his days, casting discredit on the very principles and purposes which have been at once the pursuit and the ornament of his long and honourable career.

Ardwick, Manchester,

January 7, 1845.

(Errors excepted.)

HINTS ON MARRIAGE.

THE Poet says nought could relieve,
Or fill in Adam's heart the void,

Till he obtain❜d a lovely Eve

His Paradise was unenjoy'd;

But there midst flow'rs and verdant leaves
Grew untaxed food for many Eves.

By Nature gifted happily,

Eve charm'd with ev'ry word and look,
Her Handmaids Grace and Modesty,

Her mirror the dear running brook :
And Adam pretty things might say—
No Milliners had he to pay.

When Eve receiv'd the Angel Guest,

And cull'd with taste the choicest food,
Adam well-pleas'd enjoy'd the feast;

Calling his Eve and all things good.
Well might the Host in converse shine,
Whose feast was costless, yet divine.
Then fair Ones, beautiful as Eve,
Would you, like her, the heart subdue ?
Your fashionable follies leave,

Have many virtues-fancies few :

For know a woman disenchants

Less by her faults than by her wants.

E. R.

130

PEASANTS AND PHEASANTS.

ARCADIA ! 'Tis a pleasant sounding name-the quintessence and the seventh heavens of ruralism; bringing up, before the eyes of smoke-surrounded men, visions of nature's greenery; warbling in their ears the blended lullaby of birds and clear streams; suggestive of blue skies and golden bars of sunshine, lighting the solemn forest shades; the whole fair picture telling of contented lives, passed in slumbering groves and flowery meads; breathing the simple richness of the old poetry; merry with the gambols of Dryads and Fauns, and exalted by the rural majesty of the great god Pan!

And here in England do men strive to reproduce the picture. Here are orators and writers still enamoured of rural simplicity, of rural innocence; prating much of the healthy labour of the fields; drawing broad contrasts between the jarring clash of the smoky factory-bell, and

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn ;"

between dim lane and alley and green hedge and furrow; between the burly countryman and the pale-faced dweller in cities. Much we hear of pleasant rural sports-of heaven's healthy breezes, rich only with the scents of nature's laboratory; highly do we hear extolled the bold peasantry of England-their rose-clustered cottages their neat little gardens; and many a hypocritical wish is flung up to heaven for the calm retirement of a country lifethe liberty and the ecstacy of solitary communion with nature—the fellowship of simple beings, untutored in the corruptions of swarming towns, generation after generation, as rudely honest, as simply good, as the "forefathers of the hamlet.'

This is a language and a tone fashionable at present. Couleur de rose is a hue much in request among a certain class of describers, glittering varnish meetly gloses that false paint.

But let us have reality: stern, unpoetic, unarcadian reality. Look over the land in these cold winter days. Look on drear, wet fields-on cottages, picturesque to gaze at, but through the thousand chinks of which the bleak wind comes moaning, and the driving rain and sleet make their way; think a moment of the

domestic economy of such places, portrayed by letters and narratives, published in every-day papers; think of the family of six, or seven, or eight, living-no, not living, but kept from dyingsometimes not even that-by a pittance of six, or seven, or eight shillings per week; hear the miserable details of the slow starvation they endure-of that existence in which lard is a luxury not every day obtainable-in which hard dry bread, and very little of that, is the dole which alone keeps actual famine from the door; think of the hungry days, the cold, shivering nights endured, monotonous in their misery-the present comfortless, the future hopeless; think of mental darkness-the pitchy darkness of ignorance settled down upon physical suffering-making it more cheerless still; and tell us whether that is not a terrible picture to place beside your fair Arcadian prospect.

And it is true: the one is imagination-the other a black fact. Who will question the suffering-the dense ignorance of the serfs, who hew wood and draw water? And if they be questioned, to the questioner we reply," Look at that lurid glare, that lights the night sky for miles and miles around; look at waving fields and dark woods, and cottages and farms, all standing clearly out in the fierce illumination; listen to the shouting of terrified men, and the screams of houseless wives and mothers, and the plunging and snorting of cattle flying from the rustling flames ;-hear and see all this-this blaze, kindled by Captain Swing's torch-this widespread desolation, wrought by desperate unreasoning men, in their wild schemes of revenge; look at this baleful light of incendiarism, and take your answer out of that.'

Of all the crimes that bad men commit, there is none more sinful than that of the rick-burner. But what can you expect?. what offspring can you hope for from ignorance and want?

Here is a strong hale man, with limbs like iron bars, and sinews like iron wires: and they are as willing as strong. Hoe, or spade, or bill, he can wield right manfully, but there is no work; or if there is, the pittance paid for it is not sufficient to drive away want. He sits moodily in his dreary dwelling; ignorance and wretchedness are tugging at his heart. He cannot reason; he has not been taught; the mind in him has not been fostered. he can feel. There are children about him--hungry, crying children; little wretches, growing up to suffer all he has suffered. There is their mother: a weak, worn woman; ground down by fasting. There may he sit the live-long day, the fiends of hunger

But