future events, by candid, scientific reflection and research, and by fair analogous reasoning.

"In addition to what I have advanced on this head, you are further to understand, that besides being divided into the two classes of rich and poor, which we will call 'division of quantity,' and which we have already considered, modern society is parted into three farther grand compartments, which we may well term 'division of quality.' The first is that party which for the time being holds the reins of Civil Government, of foreign influence and balance of power; of particular sects of religious belief and worship, of all sorts of exclusive emolument and enjoyment, from whatever source arising. The second, are those who, generally speaking, possess not these advantages; who soaring superior to all prejudice, anxious only to be happy in the equable diffusion of happiness by means of the establishment of all possible practicable equality are eager to give and receive every information tending to develope truth, without regard to forms, which daily experience and reflection demonstrably prove to be false, and fertile in misery; who see in every society founded on the principle of gradation upwards, from the Pauper to the Sovereign,

the self-sown seeds of disunion, of premature decay, and disastrous dissolution. The third and last, infinitely superior in number to the joint amount of the other two, consists of all those in subjection to the first, by various dependencies; of those, who from want of time, inclination, or mental energy, never reflect at all; who are content to take things as they find them; to believe that, as they term it, 'what must be, must.' If the second party dare to speak, (even thought is attempted to be proscribed), their conviction that there must be something wrong in a system which gives exclusive power and pleasure to only a few, that is to the first, these latter have recourse to what they have found an excellent expedient to stifle the cry; they sound the trumpet of alarm in the ears of the third, saying, ‘Listen not to those wretches, they are bad men.' They enlist under their standard, and rally round them, every natural weakness, every artificial relation and feeling by which man's bosom can be stimulated; they work on the timid, the proud, the avaricious, the superstitious, by every device of fear, jealousy, and horror: to the weak they say, 'the factious and disaffected, (the second) will obtain a revolution and cut all your throats:' to the proud they will annihilate all distinctions :'

:

to the avaricious 'they will pilfer your coffers :' to the superstitious, 'they aim at nothing less than the overthrow of the throne and the altar.' To all these in congregation, 'beware of suffering innovation on the institutions sanctified by time, by glory, by wealth, by truth.' And yet I blame them not, for they have great possessions which they profoundly wish to keep entire from sacrilegious hands, from philosophic marauders and hitherto they have contrived to do so, by using a combination of mechanical operation, which is every day growing more disjointed and inadequate, from the opposed leverian force of general, extended information. What does the history of all society of the nature I have pointed out, present, but a succession of revolt and bloodshed, of a prolonged and wearisome struggle between assumed power labouring to maintain ascendancy above, and subjection striving for extrication from beneath?"

LETTER XXII.

"I SHALL premise, however," continued L"that the honest mind which endeavours to alleviate or remove the sources of the unhappiness so palpably visible in the unnatural lot of the greater portion of mankind, or even to trace their windings, is too often daunted at the onset; too apt to shrink from the ridicule, which those interested in continuing the present systems, invariably throw on its laudable attempt; from the malign aspersions, the invective which they heap, as of course, without remorse, on all who incline to step forward in the cause of suffering humanity. The man who resolutely divesting himself of habit and prejudice, of the false impressions imbibed from early childhood, resolves to know Truth, if haply she may be found, is sure to be assailed, threatened, mimicked, and insulted, with abuse the most pitiful and inane, with derision the most paltry, stupid, and futile, wholly unworthy of the exaltation to which human attainment boasts to have arrived. 'His honesty is decried as presumption, his avowal

of naked truth as sedition; his exposure of existing abuse, as demoralization.' It is diligently whispered to timidity, ignorance, and bigotry, "Take heed, beware of that man, he fears neither God nor devil;' or some such sweeping clause of excommunication. He who endeavours to reform, has undertaken a task mighty indeed; he has to encounter and combat against the combined forces of habit, interest, prejudice, selfish pride, idleness, avarice, and bigoted superstition, a tolerably formidable array; to wage an unequal contest against this precious septemvirate, this 'holy alliance,' who, linked hand in hand as twin sisters, have danced roughshod round the world, kicking up their heels and playing all sorts of harlequinade, jigging merrily to an accompaniment of sighs and groans. But contemplative philosophy is not dismayed; she sees through the links of this chain of Dames;' after patiently waiting, a long sad interval, forced to suspend her own sweet strain, from the prevalence of the jingle which has unceasingly and furiously fiddled round them, regardless of time and expression; she at last sees their lassitude, their exhaustion: they have danced their best and begin to pause for respiration; they have lost their first graceful attitudes and precision of movement; their