claimants. If he have no children he has probably numerous relatives; if he die intestate, and have neither children nor relatives, his property falls to the crown, which is pretty sure to disburse and diffuse it. In proportion to the magnitude of the heap the heirs find themselves exonerated from toil. They live only to enjoy, not to accumulate. Rarely is an avaricious father succeeded by an avaricious son; accumulation, as the rule, is at an end with the individual, and according to the course of Nature the equality which he had disturbed is in a great measure restored at his death.

The law, however, steps in at this point, and tries to stop the dispersion. It has created great feudatories to serve the crown, and it tries to keep up their semblance. William the Conqueror divided all the land amongst his chief followers, giving 846 manors to one, to another 400, and so on. He disposed of the whole of England; the reigning monarch possesses a very small portion of it. The crown has now become a mere powerless bauble, for which the people pay an enormous price; but the principle of maintaining great seigneurs, noble and rich families, a proud and opulent Episcopacy as the supports and companions of the sovereign, still prevails in the law. Though the estates granted by the Conqueror have been divided into many smaller portions by the progress of commerce and the incidents of inheritance, that has been accomplished in spite of the law. It has always aimed at preserving an aristocracy of wealth, after the royal power, to which aristocracy was originally an appendage, has been merged in the parliament. To attain this object primogeniture is cherished and entails consecrated. Every foolish and avaricious man is enabled at his death to counteract the natural diffusion of his wealth. He gives it all to one by the authority of the law, and continues it in possession of an eldest son for many generations. In spite of Nature, and with a manifest violation of the rights of posterity, the law tries to keep together the vast accumulations of honest but avaricious industry, and of disreputable fraud. It does not succeed, but it inflicts an incredible quantity of evil on society.

The present condition of landed property in this country, as well as in Ireland, is one proof of its failure. Much of it has passed from ancient families into the hands of mortgagees and monied purchasers. Numerous as are the nominal owners, compared to the followers of William, on whom it was bestowed, they are but shareholders. The land of England is mortgaged almost as much

as that of Ireland, and every man who has a lien on it shares the rent with the owner. The colossal fortunes heaped up in one age are often dispersed, and contribute in the next age to the heaps of fresh adventurers. The Thellusons have made way for the Ark. wrights and the Barings, and the accumulations of a Beckford have been scattered by his successor. There are few examples of families continuing in trade like the Barings and the Smiths, after their chiefs have made princely fortunes. Younger branches may carry on the business, and, probably, the next Lord Ashburton, the present one being a younger son of the first Sir Thomas Baring, like the present Sir Thomas Baring, will amass no more. Though the second generation of Rothschilds continue their names in the firm, they are also men of fashion, keep stag-hounds, and, probably, spend their incomes. The Churchills, whose ancestor received a princely domain from the nation, are now poor as rats; and we can say at once, that nothing from the public purse, as the reward for public service, will be added to the fortune of the Duke of Wellington by the Marquis of Douro. So it is with naval heroes, Lord Chief Justices, Lord Chancellors, and First Lords of the Treasury. Their sons rarely or never tread in their footsteps, or increase their fortunes. To preserve them, while others, by professional services or successful commerce, accumulate other heaps, is all they can accomplish. In general, then, those who receive the great fortunes acquired in trade, or in professions, give up industry and accumulation, and are soon merged in the disbursing and diffusing classes. The law tries in vain to arrest this course, and fails to preserve in families the accumulated fortunes that primogeniture and entails are intended to preserve.

To uphold the power of the landed aristocracy against commerce, which diffuses wealth, the Corn Laws were maintained. The Bank of England monopoly, granted by the law, is an accumulation of money power, which it tries to preserve by ever-renewed restrictions. The increase of money and the increase of creditcirculation tend to diffuse wealth through society. Country bankers were sharing largely and increasingly with the Bank of England in the profit to be made by borrowing many millions from the public at large, on promises to pay portions of it on demand. Their customers shared these advantages with the customers of the Bank of England. Then a law was passed by Sir Robert Peel to limit their loans from the public, and confine this advantage as much as possible to the Bank of England. To evade the

law, the country banks issued bills to pay within a certain number of days; and the latest effort of the administrators of the law, to check the diffusion of wealth by this means, is a circular of the Chancellor of the Exchequer threatening the Bankers with new restrictions. The increase of a credit-circulation, by which those who have little or nothing, and, expecting to make something by their own exertions, borrow from those who have much, is obviously a means of diffusing wealth, as well as of encouraging its production; and the continued attempts made by the legislature to hem that in may be taken-like the laws of primogeniture and entails, and corn-laws-as examples of persevering activity in thwarting the natural tendency to equality of distribution.

Many more such examples might be quoted, but it will suffice to return to the example of Ireland. All the relief vouchsafed to the suffering people seems studiously administered and vociferously demanded in Parliament, less with a view to serve the people than to save the landlords. On no account are the waste lands, which might afterwards be valuable to the landowner, though now worthless, to be given up to the people, who might, by having them to till, be at once enriched. On no account are the landowners in future to be made as in England-wholly responsible for the subsistence of the people on their estates. By some means or other, either by loans, or gifts, or continual advances, a great part of that responsibility is to be assumed by the state. On no account are the people to be allowed to help themselves. All the schemes for the future improvement of Ireland assume as their basis an increase in the means of the landowners. By their instrumentality, and for their profit, the land is to be drained and cultivated. To add to the value of their property, and enable them to sell portions of their estates to advantage, Railways were to be made by the credit or money of the state. The humanity of the legislature is subservient to its desire to save the landlords. The destruction of the potato crop, by dividing the produce, is tantamount to a division of the land amongst the people. The rent must be given up for their support; but the legislature opposes that. Pursuing the same policy that it has for ages pursued, from the settlement of primogeniture under Henry I. to the circular of the Chancellor of the Exchequer against country bankers, it is plotting and devising how it may still thwart nature, and maintain a great inequality of property in Ireland. All the evils of unequal distribution; all the lassitude, ennui, and arrogance of the rich; all the overspanned

toil and indurated feelings of the poor; most of the ignorance and much of the crime which the legislator essays to remove, may be traced to his continual efforts, as in this instance, to counteract the equal diffusion of wealth amongst all the families and all the children of men. He strives against himself, and is for ever busy putting down crimes by one hand, and fostering them by the other.

THE NIGHT OF TEARS.

"Speranza-voi ch' entrate."-DANTE.
SLOWLY roll the hours of night,
Lingers long the rosy dawn,
To the kindly mother, lone,
Waiting for the welcome light,
And the sweet lark's matin-tone;
Worn and spent, disconsolate,
Watching by her loved one lying
Fever-racked and slowly dying.
Little deems she gentlest spirits
Tend upon her child alway;
But her heart is rent by sorrow,
And she longeth for the day.
Fainter, fainter breathes the daughter;
Scarcely heaves the anguished breast,
Soon shall sink the wrecking storm,
And the wearied heart have rest.
Now she goeth to the casement,
Awhile to ease her of her care,
Museth long-the weeping mother-
If Death can mar heaven's glories fair:
Now, she looketh to the stars
Gemming the calm brow of night,
And wondereth if her sainted child
Shall dwell amid those isles of light:
Now, she taketh holiest Book,
Full of richest words of love,
Whispereth gently to her daughter
Of blest spirit-lands above;
Now, from her deep mother-heart,
Utters soul-expressing prayer;
And the angels guard that chamber,
And the Love of God is there!

Haverhill.

Holy, earth-pervading presence,
Soul of the undying All,

Conscious when the star-worlds move,
And when roses softly fall.

Far, beyond the eastern hills,
Struggling with the murk of night,
Glimmers out the morrow's dawning,
Herald of the gladsome light.
And the "golden eye of day"
Opens on the homes of men,
The hind arises to his toil,
And life's murmur wakes again.
Now, within that saddest chamber
Love no more her vigil keeps ;
Weeping-weeping sits the mother;
"The maiden is not dead-but sleeps."

They ever live, our loved ones parted,
The spirit-life refined and high;

All creatures change, and droop, and perish :
Man only does not die.

The Night of Tears is passed for ever-
And, as twilight melts in day,

Hope proclaims immortal beauty,
And joys which cannot pass away.
Glad the mother takes the emblem,
Binding up her broken heart,
And foretelling times of gladness
When they who love shall never part.

JOHN HAMILTON DAVIES.

A WORD OR TWO ON WORDS.

LANGUAGE is the faculty of expressing by words the emotions, desires, and necessities of our mental and physical existence. Language, however, in its general design, is not perhaps limited to human beings, but extends probably to the meaner portions of animated creation. Animals and birds have doubtless the power of obtaining by their peculiar utterance the assistance and companionship of their fellows. But to man, formed in the image of his Maker, was given the surpassing power, beauty, and worth of words. The excellence of language is commensurate with its