are now almost confined to the north of England. They are
small independent _proprietors_ of land, here called statesmen, men of
respectable education, who daily labour on their own little properties.
The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who live in a
country not crowded with population, if these men are placed above
poverty. But if they are proprietors of small estates, which have
descended to them from their ancestors, the power, which these
affections will acquire amongst such men, is inconceivable by those who
have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, farmers, and
the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of land serves as a kind of
permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet upon
which they are written, which makes them objects of memory in a thousand
instances, when they would otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain
fitted to the nature of social man, from which supplies of affection, as
pure as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn. This class of men
is rapidly disappearing. You, Sir, have a consciousness, upon which
every good man will congratulate you, that the whole of your public
conduct has, in one way or other, been directed to the preservation of
this class of men, and those who hold similar situations. You have felt
that the most sacred of all property is the property of the poor. The
two poems, which I have mentioned, were written with a view to show
that men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply. 'Pectus enim est
quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo
sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' The poems are faithful
copies from Nature; and I hope whatever effect they may have upon you,
you will at least be able to perceive that they may excite profitable
sympathies in many kind and good hearts, and may in some small degree
enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, and our knowledge of
human nature, by showing that our best qualities are possessed by men
whom we are too apt to consider, not with reference to the points in
which they resemble us, but to those in which they manifestly differ
from us. I thought, at a time when these feelings are sapped in so many
ways, that the two poems might co-operate, however feebly, with the
illustrious efforts which you have made to stem this and other evils
with which the country is labouring; and it is on this account alone
that I have taken the li