The above remarks apply principally to the condition of the middle classes. If they be true, as we see no reason to doubt, it will at once be evident that things have altered for the worse, notwithstanding the enormous spread of our manufactures, the creation of our machinery, and the constant and continuous labour of more than a century and a half. But there are other considerations which we must not keep out of view, if we wish to arrive at a thorough understanding of this matter. Mr Macaulay has devoted the most interesting chapter of his history to an investigation of the social state of England under the Stuarts. Many of his assertions have, as we observe, been challenged; but there is one which, so far as we are aware, has not yet been touched. That is, his picture of the condition of the labouring man. We do not think it necessary to combat his theory, as to the delusion which he maintains to be so common, when we contemplate the times which have gone by, and compare them with our own. There are many kinds of delusion, and we suspect that Mr Macaulay himself is by no means free from the practice of using coloured glasses to assist his natural vision. But there are certain facts which cannot, or ought not, to be perverted, and from those facts we may draw inferences which are almost next to certainty. Mr Macaulay, in estimating the condition of the labouring man in the reign of King James, very properly selects the rate of wages as a sound criterion. Founding upon data which are neither numerous nor distinct, he arrives at the conclusion, that the wages of the agricultural labourer of that time, or rather of the time of Charles II., were about half the amount of the present ordinary rates. At least so we understand him, though he admits that, in some parts of the kingdom, wages were as high as six, or even seven shillings. _The value_, however, of these shillings--that is, the amount of commodities which they could purchase--must, as Mr Macaulay well knows, be taken into consideration; and here we apprehend that he is utterly wrong in his facts. The following is his summary:--