se has been created out of a sheep pasture!--The benefit,
however, is merely to the individual! His pride and taste have been
gratified, and this gratification is called a benefit--yet with him
the benefit, if to him it really be so, begins and ends. But he
employs the neighbourhood, patronizes the arts, and encourages trade?
Granted,--but whence come his means? His wealth is not miraculous. It
has no exclusive or original properties. If he spend it at Putney, he
must draw it from other places, either from rents of land or houses,
or from interest of money, both the fruit of other's industry, and the
sign of corresponding privations in those who pay them!

For the sake of the elegant arts, which derive their encouragement
from the superfluities of the few, I am no enemy to any moderate
inequalities of means which enable men to become examples of the good
effects of industry; I merely object to the vulgar inference that
splendid mansions serve as signs of the increasing wealth of a
country. Better criterions would be the diffusion of plenty and
comfort--abundance of smoking farm-houses and well-stored
barns--#CHEAP PROVISIONS# and #DEAR LABOUR#--enough with moderate
exertions for home consumption, and something to exchange for the
luxuries of different climates. But it is no index of national
prosperity that elegant villas rise like sun-flowers, as gaudy as
unprofitable, while gaols are crammed with insolvents or needy
culprits, and poor-houses are filled with wretchedness! Poland
astonishes travellers by the splendour of its palaces; while in the
same prospect they are shocked at the huts of the people, exhibiting
the characteristics of English hog-sties! Let the increase of
splendour, therefore, be considered rather as a proof of the
derangement of social order, than as any sign of its triumph; and let
us not forget that, however much fine houses may benefit and gratify
the blameless and often meritorious occupants, they do not, as such,
serve as any signs of increased opulence in the community at large.

On arriving near the top of this road, I obtained a distinct view of a
phenomenon, which can be seen no where in the world but at this
distance from London. The Smoke of nearly a million of coal fires,
issuing from the two hundred thousand houses which compose London and
its vicinity, had been carried in a compact mass in the direction
which lay in a right angle from my station. Half a million of
chimneys, each vomi