their expenses.” But these are now few and far between; and they are certainly “nooks of the world,” far from manufacturing towns; for my experience coincides with that of Captain Lloyd, as given in his “Field Sports of the North:”--“Manufactures, of whatever nature they may be, may certainly tend to enrich individuals, but, to my mind, they add little to the happiness of the community at large. In what parts of any country in the world, are such scenes of vice and squalid misery to be witnessed, as in manufacturing districts?” What he adds is very true--that, though it may appear singular, yet it is a fact, that the farther we retreat from great towns and manufactories, a greater degree of comfort is generally to be observed amongst the peasantry. It is, indeed, a strange relief to the spirit of one who has known something of the eager striving of the world, to come upon a spot where the inhabitants are passing through life, as it were, in a dreamlike pilgrimage, half unconscious of its trials and evils--an existence which, if it have not the merit of great and triumphant virtue, has that absence of selfish cunning, pride, sorrow, and degradation, which one would seek for in vain amid more bustling scenes. To find the young, soberly and cheerfully fulfilling their daily duties--nowhere affluence, but everywhere plenty and comfort observable--and the old, in their last tranquil days, seated in their easy chairs, or on the stone bench at their doors, glad to chat with you on all they have known on earth and hoped for in heaven--why, it would be more easy to scathe such a place with the evil spirit of the town, than to raise it in the scale of moral life. The experiment of improvement there, you feel, would be a hazardous one. It were easy and desirable to give more knowledge: but not easy to give it unaccompanied by those blighting contaminations that at present cling to it.