find diversion in reducing the superficies of England to the proportion which the present velocity of travelling makes it bear to that of forty years since. The result would probably show, that England is reduced to a tenth of its size at that period. Exeter was once (in relation to time) sixteen times more distant from London than now. One thing compensates for another. The discovery of New Holland and the interior of Africa makes the world grow larger and larger to the eye, in the same way that the velocity of communication, by drawing its parts nearer together, reduces its dimensions, and makes it grow little once more. I cannot help laughing at the efforts of despotism to arrest the progress of liberty, while liberty passes on, by the help of civilization, in a thousand

ways. The despots put me in mind of the stupid peasant of Metastasio, who runs

with eagerness to stop the torrent:

In vain he wastes upon the sands

His labour and his care,

For if in one place he withstands

The torrent's force; lo here! lo there!

Lo! in a hundred streams it breaks its way!"

If the press be chained, the truth still penetrates through the universities: if the professors there are persecuted and imprisoned, civilization comes in along with commerce: if, to obviate this, they adopt the prohibitive system, roads, roads alone are sufficient to bring the minds of men into contact and fermentation. There is no despotism so consistent in its means and ends, or, if I may be allowed the expression, so enlightened, as that of the Turkish government, which permits nei

208 ITALIAN EXILE IN ENGLAND.

ther printing nor universities, commerce nor roads; yet even the coffee-houses of Constantinople were by themselves sufficient to create an opposition to the Grand Seignior, notwithstanding he is own brother to the sun and moon!

TIME.

Indolence of the Spaniard-Importance of Time in England -The Funds-Machinery for saving Time and Labour but imperfectly imitated on the Continent.

"It was not by vile loitering in ease,

That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art,
That soft yet ardent Athens learn'd to please,
To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,
In all supreme, complete in every part:

It was not thence majestic Rome arose,
And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart.
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows,
Renown is not the child of indolent repose."

Thomson's Castle of Indolence.

IDLENESS is the luxury of the Spaniards, and a great luxury it is, for it is all waste.

It is a universal luxury, which is enjoyed by all, from the highest grandee to the most miserable water-carrier. The luxury, however, consists in the spending of an article of little or no value in Spain. The Castilian, who keeps so religiously to his word when his honour is in question, is never punctual to an appointment; because an hour more or less, in the life of a Spaniard, is only an hour less or more in eternity. If you propose to a Spaniard to set his hand to a thing at once, he answers you, however he may be interested in it, "To-morrow." Fatal to-morrow, which is repeated so often from day to day, till your patience is worn out! Fatal to-morrow, that has reduced the kingdom, once seated on a throne of gold, and crowned with precious stones, to rags and a dunghill! The very mantle in which