to have it go well, and keep correct
time, every single wheel and pivot must
receive due respect and attention, and be
allowed free liberty to move according to
the great original design.

Therefore, the nations of the world had
much better agree to lend each other a helping
hand, than to make disdainful and repulsive
gestures, or even to shake their fists in each
other's faces. I say emphatically, a helping
hand; for what is any exchange of benefits
or goods but an exchange of concentrated
labour? Does not the Chinaman who gathers,
dries, and twists the tea-leaves, give a hand's
turn to the English seamstress who drinks
the infusion made from them? Do not the
farmers who grow Norfolk barley, and the
brewers who brew it into pale bitter ale, lend
a helping hand to their friends in India, who
are to drink and enjoy it at the end of its
voyage? Is not the exportation of the wine
and brandy of France a simple export of the
labour of Frenchmen and the sunshine of
France, for which we can return a friendly
day's work in the shape of flannels, coals,
cutlery, sugar, calicoes, and muslins?

But our governors have not allowed us to
perform these neighbourly offices; at least,
not of late years. In former days, there might
be found in Great Britain such a thing as
a claret jug; not a smart cut-glass decanter
with no other honorary distinction than a
glass handle and a glass spout, but a real
earthen claret jug, to fetch up wine from the
cellar to the parlour. At present, claret is
not drunk in parlours, only in dining-rooms.
But,—say the anti-revolutionists,—you have
plenty of beer. Why can't you be content
with that? Would you open the flood-
gates to a deluge of cider and wine; thereby,
probably, diminishing the consumption of
our national beverages, ale and porter, and
ruining the brewers, the maltsters, and the
farmers?

Yes! And should rejoice were such diminished
consumption the consequence. There
are plenty of ways in which we could avoid
the "ruin," and plenty of shapes in which we
might repay the debt to our creditors on the
other side of the water. Consider this. We
are all of us, both French and English, loudly
complaining, with too good reason, of the
scarcity and dearness of our solid viands.
At the very same time, we English alone are
obliged to have recourse to our very best
lands to supply our drink. The French, by
favour of their superior climate, derive nearly
all their beverage either from their worst
soils, or from a crop of apples growing in the
air, which prevent neither culture nor pasturage.
The sands of the Sologne, as barren
as those of Norfolk and Suffolk, which serve
only for rabbit warrens, yield, by the agency
of the vine and genial summers, as many
pounds' worth per acre as ours do shillings.
In England, the greater part of the wheat-
producing lands in every course yield also
barley, sometimes as often as once in four
years. If our hills, rocks, sand, shingle, and
our steep declivities gave us our liquor, could
we not apply these richer soils to something
better than the production of malt? But a
hand's turn from France will help us to do
so to a certain degree; although, perhaps, not
so effectively as was once supposed. And I
only require an answer to this question: With
one-fourth nearly of our best lands occupied
by barley, can we grow as much mutton, beef,
and bread, as if we were under no necessity of
growing any barley at all? This wheel, at
least, in the European machinery wants well
oiling, and freedom of action to set it going
in right good earnest.

Clans, cliques, and classes of society, of
whatever importance they may consider
themselves, are no more than individual
members of the great body of a nation; and
nations, also, however mighty—whether England,
Russia, or America—are simply members
of the body of the world; just as the
world itself is a member of the body of the
solar system, and the solar system a member
of the body of the universe. No clan, clique,
or class, can any more absolve itself from the
duty of reciprocating good offices with other
clans, cliques, and classes, than the earth can
detach itself from the gravitating influences
either of its humble follower the moon, or of
its princely leader the sun. Destroy gravity
in the realms of space—destroy social and
national interchange on earth, and in both
cases you come to chaos speedily.

Even if the world were so constituted that
"I" could care for "nobody," most certainly
"nobody " would care for "I;" and, consequently
"I" would soon be brought to
death's door from mere starvation and
neglect from others. But we are naturally
made to be beggars and recipients, one from
the other, in all kinds of ways. We are all
athirst to imbibe some advantage which
springs from the jet of a foreign fountain.
The moon drinks the rays of the sun: the
sun drinks the vapours of the sea; the sea
drinks the waters of the rivers; the rivers
drink the moisture that oozes from the
earth; and the earth drinks the dews that
distil from the air. Pride tries to isolate
herself; in vain. She intrenches herself
within a ring-fence to drive off the
profane vulgar; but her best inclosure is no
better than an old park-paling, full of
loopholes and gaps through which all sorts of
small deer creep in, not to say a word about
poachers. Pride tries to elevate herself on
a Babel Tower; but the higher she builds,
the more does her haughty dwelling-place
approach the condition of a brazen colossus
with feet of clay, which the merest trembling
of the earth, or even injurious nibbling by
mice, is sufficient to lay for ever prostrate.
Men have often tried to separate themselves
from humanity, and have never succeeded.

Yet, with all this legibly visible as we