stairs--it would be a solecism to say a
flight--up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their
firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all the generations of the
Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been mustered rank and file, though
not the phantoms of all the wretched they had bartered to support their
state, unless these airy substances could shrink and expand, like
Milton's devils, to suit the occasion.

The sight of the presence-chamber, and of the canopy to shade the
fauteuil which aped a throne, made me smile. All the world is a stage,
thought I; and few are there in it who do not play the part they have
learnt by rote; and those who do not, seem marks set up to be pelted at
by fortune, or rather as sign-posts which point out the road to others,
whilst forced to stand still themselves amidst the mud and dust.

Waiting for our horses, we were amused by observing the dress of the
women, which was very grotesque and unwieldy. The false notion of beauty
which prevails here as well as in Denmark, I should think very
inconvenient in summer, as it consists in giving a rotundity to a certain
part of the body, not the most slim, when Nature has done her part. This
Dutch prejudice often leads them to toil under the weight of some ten or
a dozen petticoats, which, with an enormous basket, literally speaking,
as a bonnet, or a straw hat of dimensions equally gigantic, almost
completely conceal the human form as well as face divine, often worth
showing; still they looked clean, and tripped along, as it were, before
the wind, with a weight of tackle that I could scarcely have lifted. Many
of the country girls I met appeared to me pretty--that is, to have fine
complexions, sparkling eyes, and a kind of arch, hoyden playfulness which
distinguishes the village coquette. The swains, in their Sunday trim,
attended some of these fair ones in a more slouching pace, though their
dress was not so cumbersome. The women seem to take the lead in
polishing the manners everywhere, this being the only way to better their
condition.

From what I have seen throughout my journey, I do not think the situation
of the poor in England is much, if at all, superior to that of the same
class in different parts of the world; and in Ireland I am sure it is
much inferior. I allude to the former state of England; for at present
the accumulation of national wealth only increases the cares of the poor,
and hardens the heart