of distress, with the general situation of the peasantry in the rich counties, which are the scene of his experiments.  The peasantry of many distant parts of England fare as coarsely, and labour harder, than was common in France; and taking their habits of frugality, their disposition to be satisfied, and their climate into the account, the situation of the French perhaps was preferable.

Mr. Young’s Tour has been quoted very triumphantly by a Noble Lord, particularly a passage which laments and ascribes to political causes the appearance of premature old age, observable in French women of the lower classes.  Yet, for the satisfaction of his Lordship’s benevolence and gallantry, I can assure him, that the female peasants in France have not more laborious occupations than those of England, but they wear no stays, and expose themselves to all weathers without hats; in consequence, lose their shape, tan their complexions, and harden their features so as to look much older than they really are.—­Mr. Young’s book is translated into French, and I have too high an opinion both of his principles and his talents to doubt that he must regret the ill effects it may have had in France, and the use that has been made of it in England.

—­They are now become idle, profuse, and gloomy; their poverty is embittered by fanciful claims to riches and a taste for expence.  They work with despair and unwillingness, because they can no longer live by their labour; and, alternately the victims of intemperance or want, they are often to be found in a state of intoxication, when they have not been able to satisfy their hunger—­for, as bread cannot always be purchased with paper, they procure a temporary support, at the expence of their health and morals, in the destructive substitute of strong liquors.

Those of the next class, such as working tradesmen, artizans, and domestic servants, though less wretched, are far more dissolute; and it is not uncommon in great towns to see men of this description unite the ferociousness of savages with all the vices of systematic profligacy.  The original principles of the revolution, of themselves, naturally tended to produce such a depravation; but the suspension of religious worship, the conduct of the Deputies on mission, and the universal immorality of the existing government, must have considerably hastened it.  When the people were forbidden the exercise of their religion, though they did not cease to be attached to it, yet they lost the good effects which even external forms alone are calculated to produce; and while deism and atheism failed in perverting their faith, they were but too successful in corrupting their morals.

As in all countries the restraints which religion imposes are more readily submitted to by the inferior ranks of life, it is these which must be most affected by its abolition; and we cannot wonder, that when men have been once accustomed to neglect the duty they consider as most essential, they should in time become capable of violating every other:  for, however it may be among the learned, qui s’aveuglent a force de lumiere, [Who blind themselves by excess of light.  Destouchet.] with the ignorant the transition from religious indifference to actual vice is rapid and certain.