te property. One enclosure covered all the fields of the
community, and all submitted to regulations made by the free voice of
the people.

If one was sick, or employed in the service of the colony, or absent
on business of his own at planting or harvest time, his portion was
not therefore neglected: his ground was planted, or his crop was
gathered, by the associated labor of his neighbors, as thoroughly and
carefully as if he had been at home. His family had nothing to fear;
because in the social code of the simple villagers, each was as much
bound to maintain the children of his friend as his own. This state of
things might have its inconveniences and vices--of which, perhaps, the
worst was its tendency to merge the family into the community, and
thus--by obliterating the lines of individuality and personal
independence--benumbing enterprise and checking improvements: but it
was certainly productive of some good results, also. It tended to
make people careful each of the other's rights, kind to the afflicted,
and brotherly in their social intercourse. The attractive simplicity
of manners observable, even at this day, in some of the old French
villages, is traceable to this peculiar form of their early
organization.

It would be well if that primitive simplicity of life and manners, could
be combined with rapid, or even moderate improvement. But, in the
present state of the world, this can scarcely be; and, accordingly, we
find the Frenchman of the passing year, differing but little from his
ancestor of sixteen hundred and fifty--still living in the old
patriarchal style, still cultivating his share of the common field, and
still using the antiquated processes of the seventeenth century.

But, though not so active as their neighbors, the Americans, they were
ever much happier. They had no ambition beyond enough for the passing
hour: with that they were perfectly contented. They were very patient
of the deprivation, when they had it not; and seasons of scarcity saw
no cessation of music and dancing, no abridgment of the jest and song.
If the earth yielded enough in one year to sustain them till the
next, the amount of labor expended for that object was never
increased--superfluity they cared nothing for: and commerce, save such
limited trade as was necessary to provide their few luxuries, was
beyond both their capacity and desires. The prolific soil was suffered
to retain its juices; it was reserved for another peo