hand, told me that Lady Baring gave her the clothes, and had her taught to read and to sing hymns and spiritual songs. As I came through the Strattons, I saw not less than a dozen girls clad in this same way. It is impossible not to believe that this is done with a good motive; but it is possible not to believe that it is productive of good. It must create hypocrites, and hypocrisy is the great sin of the age. Society is in a _queer_ state when the rich think, that they must _educate_ the poor in order to insure their _own safety_: for this, at bottom, is the great motive now at work in pushing on the education scheme, though in this particular case, perhaps, there may be a little enthusiasm at work. When persons are glutted with riches; when they have their fill of them; when they are surfeited of all earthly pursuits, they are very apt to begin to think about the next world; and, the moment they begin to think of that, they begin to look over the _account_ that they shall have to present. Hence the far greater part of what are called "charities." But it is the business of _governments_ to take care that there shall be very little of this _glutting_ with riches, and very little need of "charities." From Stratton I went on to Northington Down; then round to the South of the Grange Park (Alex. Baring's), down to Abbotson, and over some pretty little green hills to Alresford, which is a nice little town of itself, but which presents a singularly beautiful view from the last little hill coming from Abbotson. I could not pass by the Grange Park without thinking of _Lord and Lady Henry Stuart_, whose lives and deaths surpassed what we read of in the most sentimental romances. Very few things that I have met with in my life ever filled me with sorrow equal to that which I felt at the death of this most virtuous and most amiable pair. It began raining soon after I got to Alresford, and rained all the evening. I heard here, that a Requisition for a County Meeting was in the course of being signed in different parts of the county. They mean to petition for Reform, I hope. At any rate, I intend to go to see what they do. I saw the _parsons_ at the county meeting in 1817. I should like, of all things, to see them at another meeting _now_. These are the persons that I have most steadily in my eye. The war and the debt were for the _tithes_ and the _boroughs_. These must stand or fall together now. I always told the parsons, that they were the greatest fools in the world to put the tithes on board _the same boat_ with the boroughs. I told them so in 1817; and, I fancy, they will soon see all about it. _November 18._