Whence comes this change, ungracious, irksome, cold? Whence this new grandeur that mine eyes behold?-- The widening distance that I daily see? Has wealth done this? Then wealth's a foe to me! Foe to my rights, that leaves a powerful few The paths of emulation to pursue. Beneath the overwhelming sense of his position, that he belongs to a neglected, despised caste, he is, in the locality alluded to, truly a dull fellow. That the peasant there is not an ass or a sheep, you only know by his standing on end. You hear no strains of country drollery, and no characters of curious or eccentric humor; all is dull, plodding, and lumpish. But go forth, my masters, to a greater distance from the luminous capital of England; get away into the Midland and more Northern counties, where the pride of greatness is not so palpably before the poor man's eyes--where the peasantry and villagers are numerous enough to keep one another in countenance; and there you shall find the English peasant a "happier and a wiser man." Sunday-schools, and village day-schools, give him at least the ability to read the Bible. There, the peasant feels that he is a man; he speaks in a broad dialect, indeed, but he is "a fellow of infinite jest." Hear him in the hay-field, in the corn-field, at the harvest-supper, or by the village ale-house fire, if he be not very refined, he is, nevertheless, a very independent fellow. Look at the man indeed! None of your long, lanky fellows, with a sleepy visage; but a sturdy, square-built chap, propped on a pair of legs, that have self-will, and the spirit of Hampden in them, as plain as the ribs of the gray-worsted stockings that cover them. What thews, what sinews, what a pair of _calves_! why, they more resemble a couple of full-grown _bulls_! See to his salutation, as he passes any of his neighbors--hear it. Does he touch his hat, and bow his head, and look down, as the great man goes by in his carriage? No! he leaves that to the cowed bumpkin of the south. He looks his rich-neighbor full in the face, with a fearless, but respectful gaze, and bolts from his manly breast a hearty, "Good day to ye, sir!" To his other neighbor, his equal in worldly matters, he extends his broad hand, and gives him a shake that is felt to the bottom of the heart. "Well, and how are you, John?--and how's Molly, and all the little ankle-biters?--and how goes the pig on, and the garden--eh?" Let me hear the dialogue of those two brave fellows; there is the soul of England's brightest days in it. I am sick of slavish poverty on the one hand, and callous pride on the other. I yearn for the sound of language breathed from the lungs of humble independence, and the cordial, earnest greetings of poor, but warm-hearted men, as I long for the breeze of the mountains and the sea. Oh! I doubt much if this Bold peasantry, a country's pride,