all know that, by only two or three Acts of Parliament, Henry VIII. did ten times as much as it would now, I hope, be necessary to do. If the duty were imposed _on me_, no statesman, legislator or lawyer, but a simple citizen, I think I could, in less than twenty-four hours, draw up an Act that would give satisfaction to, I will not say _every man_, but to, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred; an Act that would put all affairs of money and of religion to rights at once; but that would, I must confess, soon take from us that amiable _modesty_, of which I have spoken above, and which is so conspicuously shown in our works of free trade and liberality. The weather is clearing up; our horses are saddled, and we are off. RIDE, FROM BURGHCLERE TO PETERSFIELD. _Hurstbourne Tarrant (or Uphusband), Monday, 7th November 1825._ We came off from Burghclere yesterday afternoon, crossing Lord Caernarvon's park, going out of it on the west side of Beacon Hill, and sloping away to our right over the downs towards Woodcote. The afternoon was singularly beautiful. The downs (even the poorest of them) are perfectly green; the sheep on the downs look, this year, like fatting sheep: we came through a fine flock of ewes, and, looking round us, we saw, all at once, seven flocks, on different parts of the downs, each flock on an average containing at least 500 sheep. It is about six miles from Burghclere to this place; and we made it about twelve; not in order to avoid the turnpike-road, but because we do not ride about to _see_ turnpike-roads; and, moreover, because I had seen this most monstrously hilly turnpike-road before. We came through a village called Woodcote, and another called Binley. I never saw any inhabited places more recluse than these. Yet into these the all-searching eye of the taxing Thing reaches. Its Exciseman can tell it what is doing even in the little odd corner of Binley; for even there I saw, over the door of a place, not half so good as the place in which my fowls roost, "_Licensed to deal in tea and tobacco_." Poor, half-starved wretches of Binley! The hand of taxation, the collection for the sinecures and pensions, must fix its nails even in them, who really appeared too miserable to be called by the name of _people_. Yet there was one whom the taxing Thing had licensed (good God! _licensed!_) to serve out cat-lap to these wretched creatures! And our impudent and ignorant newspaper scribes talk of the _degraded state of the people of Spain_! Impudent impostors! Can they show a group so wretched, so miserable, so truly enslaved as this, in all Spain? No: and those of them who are not sheer fools know it well. But there would have been misery equal to this in Spain if the Jews and Jobbers could have carried the Bond-scheme into effect. The people of Spain were, through the instrumentality of patriot loan-makers, within an inch of being made as "enlightened" as the poor, starving things of Binley. They would soon