f truth, and that
great energies of intellect often serve but to strengthen prejudices,
and give mischievous force to aberrations of reason.

The tomb of Sir Hans Sloane caught my eye as I passed the corner of
the church-yard, but not in so good a condition as the improved value
of his estates might warrant one to expect. It is surmounted by the
mystic symbols of the _egg_ and _serpent_, in a good style of
sculpture. Part of the church is precisely what it was when the
Chancellor More regularly formed part of its congregation.

In crossing the bridge to Battersea, I was called upon to pay toll,
and was informed, that this bridge is _private_ property.--A bridge
across a great river, in a _civilized_ country, _private_
property!--Is not this monstrous, thought I, in a country in which
seventy millions of taxes are collected per annum, and which has
accumulated a debt of nine hundred millions since the accession of the
house of Guelph? Yet, if bridges remain private property, #FOR WHAT
BENEFIT# has so much money been expended? Have bridges, or hospitals,
or schools, or houses for the poor, been built with the money?--It
seems not!--Have roads been made--canals cut--rivers widened--harbours
improved?--No, these are private and interested speculations! What
then, I exclaimed, has been done with it?

If this bridge cost twenty thousand pounds, one million of the nine
hundred would have built fifty such bridges!--Yet, the war in the
Peninsula, for the purpose of setting up the bigotted Ferdinand in
place of the liberal Joseph, costs the country three millions per
month; or as much as would build a hundred and fifty fine bridges over
the principal rivers of the empire! Another three millions would build
a hundred and fifty great public hospitals for the incurable poor! A
third such sum would make fifty thousand miles of good roads! And a
fourth would construct three thousand miles of canal, or ten or twelve
such as the Grand Junction Canal! That is to say, all these
_substantial_ benefits might be produced to the country by a few
weeks' cost of the war in the Peninsula; a war of such doubtful
benefit, either to England, to Spain, or to humanity!

At the distance of a hundred yards from Battersea Bridge, an extensive
pile of massy brickwork, for the manufactory of Soap, has recently
been erected, at a cost, it is said, of sixty thousand pounds. I was
told it was inaccessible to strangers, and therefore was obliged to
conte