advantageous, begins to foster dependence, and eats out the energy of a community; but their abundance has at any rate not had the effect of drying up the streams of private benevolence. At least £40,000 have been raised in Worcester at different periods of distress and necessity which have occurred since 1800, for the relief and aid of its own poor. There are many minor manufactures carried on in the county, especially the preparation of leather at Bewdley, Stourport, and Worcester, which need not be further particularised, and for the remaining towns and boroughs—these—like an honoured aristocracy—repose on their historical associations; the fame which the touches of a master hand, such as Fielding’s, may have cast around their name; or the remembrances of former activity and bustle. But I must not omit a passing notice of MALVERN, that gem of nature’s setting, on whose hills the purest air is breathed, the purest water drank, and the richest and most unique inland landscape to be seen in all England. Formerly what is called Malvern Wells was the only part of the hills at which visitors stopped, but for the last twenty years Great Malvern has been gradually growing as a place of resort, and is now a “town” by Act of Parliament. And whether for pleasure or for health it must continue to be resorted to, and to increase in fame and importance; for it abounds in nature’s simplest but most efficacious restoratives, and its beauties will bear repeated inspection, and will be appreciated just in proportion to the cultivation of the mind that dwells on them. Even from this hasty and cursory glance at the progress of the county during the first half of the nineteenth century, it will be apparent that Worcestershire has not been deficient in contributing her quota to the general prosperity. The age is remorseless in its demands; we cannot stand still. The years that are past press with all their accelerated momentum on the heels of those that follow and hurry them to a yet greater speed. But our resources are not exhausted, nor need we fear that they shall ever be. We do not trace the decay of nations to any failure in the material of greatness, but in the enervation of the mind that should develop it. It only remains for us, then, to be found in the practice of intelligence and industry—which make a people great—and of the virtues which make a people happy. PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS.