[18] It is only a short time since that Vincent, of London notoriety, made a successful visit to South Wales, lecturing in the Baptist chapels, wherever he went, on the Claims of the Age, on the Rights of Woman, on the Claims of Labour, and the other usual clap-trap subjects. At Swansea, though it is a poor compliment to the good sense of its inhabitants, he actually succeeded in getting one of his meetings presided over by a gentleman who had once been mayor of the town, and he lined his pockets at the expense of not a few persons calling themselves respectable, and pretending to be people of discernment. The lecturer, in his hand-bills posted on the walls of Swansea and Tenby, called himself simply Henry Vincent; but in the smaller towns, such as Llanelly and Caermarthen, he gave himself out as Henry Vincent, _Esquire_! Most of the leading gentry and nobility of Wales are, strange to say, dabblers in Whiggism and amateur radicalism; many of the M.P.s are to be found on the wrong side in the most disgraceful divisions: the corporations of the country are of an unsatisfactory character, and disaffection prevails extensively in many of the chief towns. We believe that a great deal of all this has arisen from the folly, the neglect, the bad example, and the non-residence of the natural leaders of the Principality. Welsh landlords, like Irish--though not so bad as the latter--are uncommonly unwilling to loosen their purse-strings, except for their own immediate pleasures. Scores of parishes have no other representative of the upper classes in them than a half-educated and poorly paid resident clergyman: agents and lawyers ride it roughly and graspingly over the land; the people have few or no natural leaders within reach; they pay their rents, but they get little back from them, to be spent in their humble villages. Their only, and their best friend, as they imagine, is their preacher--one of themselves, elected by themselves, _deposable_ by themselves. They come in contact with a _sharp_ lawyer, a drunken journalist, a Chartist lecturer, a Latter-day Saint--can the result be wondered at?