by a simile. I need hardly explain to you the office performed by the fly-wheel of a steam-engine; if any machinery were directly set in motion by the action of the piston, it would be irregular and uncertain; whereas the fly-wheel, by accumulating power, regulates and harmonises the motion of the whole machine. In like manner, the masters in this country do not merely make to order-their capital enables them to anticipate orders, and to fill their warehouses in preparation for the first symptom of demand. It thus tides Labour over a difficulty, which Labour unaided could not contend with. L. I do not see why, in time, Labour, by accumulating capital, could not get over this disadvantage. C. But there are other disadvantages. C. I should be treating you to an essay on manufactures should I give you all my objections in detail; but I may mention a few of them. Your five hundred shareholders start equally at first, but such a body of men could not long maintain an equal race in the battle of trade. Some must labour at inferior departments, others may not remain steady, and a third class may be laid up from sickness; and hence it is obvious that these three classes must draw less revenue than their neighbours. L. I admit that. C. And, in doing so, do you not see that you are admitting some of those elements that have already made the present system obnoxious? L. I may appear to do so, but our great objection is to the large share of profit claimed by the employers. C. We shall proceed with our argument. You cannot all ply the hammer; some of you must keep the books, purchase raw materials, sell manufactured goods, collect accounts, pay wages, keep moneys; in other words, manage. Would you propose to remunerate these persons at the same rate that you pay ordinary workmen ? C. That has often been thought; but the returns of the income-tax commissioners ought to dispel that idea. For instance, in 1849 there were only nineteen persons in Great Britain whose incomes exceeded 50,000l. per annum. The largest number of assessed persons, and the class yielding most revenue, were those having incomes under 3001. The total number of persons paying the tax in the above year was only 144,626. It has been calcu lated, on good data, that if the revenue of all rich men above 1000l. were confiscated, and the surplus divided equally among the working classes, the share to each male adult working man would not amount to more than 67. or 77. per annum. L. I can scarcely credit that; but even the small sum you mention would be an inestimable boon to many poor men. C. Yes, it might be so; but in the meantime the country would be ruined. L. How so? even C. In this wise. A prosperous commercial country must have surplus Capital to work upon, otherwise its mercantile operations would come to a stand-still. Killing the goose that laid the golden eggs is one illustration; but agriculture supplies another and a better one, and that without the demerit of being fabulous. Every year, in the scarcest, seed-corn is laid aside; now, why should that which might be eaten by the starving poor be garnered up in barns; why hoarded in granaries, when the quartern loaf is tenpence and the poor are penniless? Plainly for this reason, that future supplies may be secured. It is the same with Capital: it is not cast into the ground like wheat, but its employment stimulates Labour, and adds to the original stock of itself. Dissipate that Capital by spreading it over a large surface, and its peculiar efficacy and operative energy would be lost. But the truth is, Capital, when left to itself, has a tendency to concentrate in large masses. During the late railway mania, Capital was diffused widely, and none received larger shares than you working men; but, for the last few years, it has been gradually finding its way C. Would you indeed? Then, mark me; if you into its old channels, and at the present moment could guarantee, one year with another, five per it will be found to have accumulated much in the cent. on the amount turned over, there are thou-same way that it had done before the railway sands of employers in this country who would gladly sell their establishments to you and your brethren, and manage for you at the rate proposed. But are you not better as you are? At present, the raw article is purchased and the wrought article sold, books kept, idleness and dissipation. checked, money procured, bad debts met, and wages paid, all without risk or trouble to you, and done too at a cost very little above what you, were you a master-operative, would be ready and prepared to pay for similar services. L. Certainly not. I would allow them, say five per cent. on the amount turned over. L. But Capital has larger profits than you say: it is impossible that they can be so low as you would have me to believe. C. You forget that there is competition in the Capital as well as in the Labour market. If any trade appears prosperous, Capital rushes to it, and, by competition in the given article or pursuit, brings it down to the common level. L. But I maintain that Capital accumulates unduly in given quarters, and recedes altogether from others. excitement commenced. Now, Labour, are you and I henceforth to be better friends? I have no ill-will towards you-why should you look so coldly at me ? We cannot do without one another; let us not, therefore, fall out by the way. L. I have no ill-will towards you, individually it is the system. But still, after all, you have too much of that frost-bitten political economy about you. How am I to mend my condition ac cording to your theory? C. That is another matter, and one too wide to be entered on at present. I will discuss it with you another time perhaps. BANKS OF THE THAMES. VII.-HAMPTON COURT, NO. 2. OUR ramble in Hampton Court, this time, will be through that portion of the pile which was erected under William III, by the celebrated sir Christopher Wren. We picture to ourselves the little man in consultation with his royal master, about one view of them all together a very curious the extensive alterations in Wolsey's palace, and group-with the father on the throne and Cathewe dare say he felt the contrast between that rine Parr by his side, and Edward, Mary, and grave and sedate prince and the merry-making Elizabeth standing near. The three portraits of Charles II, whom he had formerly served. When, Elizabeth, as a child, as a girl, and as a woman, on one occasion, Charles and he were looking at are very amusing, especially the last, reminding the rooms in the palace occupied by the former at us of Horace Walpole's remark, that "a pale Newmarket, the king observed he thought the Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and ceilings were too low. "Sir, I think they are high powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster farenough," observed the diminutive man of genius. dingale, and a bushel of pearls, are the features Charles, stooping down to about the height of the by which everybody knows at once the pictures of architect, went peering about the room in a whim- queen Elizabeth." In the family picture just sical posture, replying, "Ay, sir Christopher, I noticed Will Somers the jester is introduced; think they are high enough." We could not fancy and of him there is also a portrait, representing the head of the house of Orange and the hero of his face behind a lattice,-a most characteristic our glorious revolution, as it used to be called in production of Holbein's. The fine picture of our young days, practising such a joke as that. Charles 1 by Vandyke deserves special notice; Depend upon it all was very staid and serious on and among those of noble personages, not in the both sides, when William and Wren conferred peerage of rank, but in that of intellect and learnabout those long red brick fronts, those Italian ing, the portrait of Erasmus by Holbein may well colonnades, those grand staircases, and those suites fix the attention of the visitor. As to female porof rooms, running one into another, which form traits-a collection of unenviable notoriety-that of the part of the palace we are about to visit. Charles's beauties by sir P. Lely cannot fail to be Now, then, let us mount the king's grand stair-seen, not however, we hope, to be much admired, case, all bedizened with allegorical paintings by Verrio, for which we have decided antipathy. Allegories, after the fashion of the seventeenth century, are not to our taste at all, and are especially repulsive when they are seen sprawling over a ceiling, as is the case here. But as we are not in a mood for finding fault, we shall drop that subject, and make no remarks on other similar productions, by the same artist, to be found in some of the apartments; nor shall we echo the criticisms, so often repeated, touching the bad arrangement of the pictures in general, the blundering together of all manner of subjects and artists, and the affixing of names to some which could never properly belong to them. We have reached the guardchamber, where one is amused at the sight of so many ingenious devices for arranging daggers and drums, and pistols and swords, and muskets and halberts, recalling to our recollection-by the way, it may seem strange to some readers, but so it is-the not unsimilar disposition of human bones and skulls upon the walls of a chapel we saw at Chiavenna, in Lombardy, last summer. It is quite out of the question, most polite and patient reader, that we should take you seriatim through that long line of rooms, where the doors stretch out, one behind another, in almost endless perspective. We are not fond of having a cicerone at our elbow every moment, when we are looking at pictures, and we presume that you are like us; and therefore we shall content ourselves with indicating a few of the most remarkable objects in this very large collection, amounting to above a thousand. A large number of them are portraits, which Mrs. Jamieson divides into royal portraits, the portraits of noble personages, female portraits, and the portraits of artists. It would certainly be a great improvement if they were hung in this order; but, as it is, one must make the best of it, and attempt some such classification in one's mind. Among royal portraits, those most remarkable of the older series, both in reference to the artist and the subjects, are the pictures by Holbein of Henry VIII and his family. In the queen's gallery they may be seen not far from each other. There is either in reference to the style of painting or the sort of personages it is employed to depict. The portraits of artists are numerous, and would be well worth placing together; they include Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and Holbein the last by himself. The portraits form a large part of the collection. The rest will be most easily classified in one's mind by being referred to the different schools to which they belong. There are two fine pictures from designs by Michael Angelo-the Venus and Cupid (458) and the Ganymede (556); some heads by Titian, and a genuine Madonna by that illustrious artist; as well as some by Giorgione, Guido, Parmegiano, N. Poussin, and other distinguished Italian masters. Of the German school, there is an Albert Durer; there is also a curious picture by Martin Heemskirk; besides which there is a fine Diana by Rubens and Snyders, and one nobly painted, the head of a Jewish rabbi, by Rembrandt. There are also a few specimens of the Flemish and Dutch schools; but we have not observed, beyond portraits by Velasquez, more than one attributed to a Spaniard, and that is a boy paring fruit, by Murillo. The greater number are Italian, of which several are of questionable origin, and altogether require a more careful examination, as well as arrangement, than they have hitherto received. As this is a public gallery, more visited by the working classes than any other, it is of the utmost importance, so far as the education of their taste and the improvement of their knowledge is concerned, that everything possible should be done not to pervert the one or misguide the other. The mixture of paintings here-good, bad, and indifferent-is almost without a parallel. There are also pictures by English artists, besides those consisting of portraits, and of these the best known and most conspicuous are by West-a painter severely criticised of late, but who, though gaudy in his colours, and sometimes false in his drawing, and deficient in that expression and spirit which genius of the highest order will create, was not perhaps quite so mean in the ranks of art as some of his critics would show. In addition to works noticeable for artistic merit, there are three in the queen's audience-chamber that well deserve most attentive study for their historical value. They are attributed to Holbein; but though in his style, they have no good claim to be pronounced his. They exhibit Henry VIII embarking at Dover, the Battle of Spurs, and the meeting of Henry and Francis on the field of the Cloth of Gold. They are pictures of the times to which they relate, and though Iudicrous in point of perspective and grouping, are exceedingly valuable for their truthful delineation of history, manners, and costumes. They are, on a large scale, "illuminations" after the manner of those we find in mediæval Mss.; and as we stand and examine them, we are assisted to form correct conceptions of what the people were, both high and low born, in the early part of the sixteenth century; and how they sailed, and fought, and feasted, and rejoiced. These three old pictures guide us more deeply into the life of those times than any annalists can ever do. Let every visitor particularly notice that the head of Henry VIII has been cut out of the picture of the Cloth of Gold and then replaced, for thereby hangs a tale. In the time of the commonwealth, there was danger of this picture being sold to the king of France. The earl of Pembroke heard of it, and determined to prevent the removal from this country of so curious and valuable a work of art, by cutting out the head of one of the heroes, and thus spoiling it for a time. This put a stop to the sale. After the restoration, the earl restored the head to Charles the Second, when it was replaced, very skilfully say some, but certainly not so as to prevent the detection of what has been done by any one who has eyes, and who knows how to use them. To the same class as that just noticed we may refer a picture of the Doge of Venice receiving sir Henry Wootton, which was bequeathed by the latter to Charles 1. Before we conclude our very imperfect allusions to the pictorial curiosities and treasures of Hampton Court, we must notice the triumphs of Julius Cæsar by Andrea Mantegna, and the cartoons by Raphael. The former are of early date, having been executed in 1476, when the artist was only twenty-five. This series "is not only his finest work, and in itself a most admirable performance, but it is interesting as forming an epoch in the history of art, and as being the most important work in the historical style which was produced before the frescoes of Michael Angelo and Raphael, the most important monument existing in the pictorial form of that enthusiasm for the grandeur of classical antiquity which prevailed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." "Next to the cartoons of Raphael, Hampton Court contains nothing so valuable in the eyes of the connoisseur as these old paintings, which, notwithstanding the frailty of the material on which they are executed, have now existed for 377 years." They hung once in the palace of San Sebastiano. Indeed they were there for a century and a half, and were then purchased by Charles I, together with the remaining part of the Mantuan collection. After the death of Charles they were sold for 10007.; the cartoons, disposed of at the same time, fetching only 3002. The latter are some of our richest national artistic treasures; though injured and defaced, yet, considering their eventful history, they are in a state of surprising preservation. They were intended originally as designs for the tapestry decorations of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The workmen of Arras executed their commission for the manufacture of the tapestry, which was sent to Rome in 1519, and while the worsted-work there was exciting unbounded admiration, the strips of paper on which the immortal artist had sketched the designs were lying neglected among the rubbish of the warehouse where they had served their purpose as patterns. Rubens found seven in some cellar or garret, and mentioned the circumstance to Charles I, advising him to buy them for the use of the weavers at Mortlake, where an establishment for making tapestry had been formed, in 1619, by sir Francis Crane. They were bought, and here is the notice of them in the royal inventory:"In a slit wooden case, some two cartoons of Raphael Urbin's for hangings to be made by, and the other five are, by the king's appointment, delivered to Mr. Franciscus Cleyne at Mortlake, to make hangings by." From this we learn that they were then valued only as patterns, and probably under that character they were sold after the death of their royal owner. Cromwell bought them for national property; and Charles II would have sold them, had he not been prevented, to Louis XIV. They remained at Whitehall till after the revolution, when William 111, to his credit be it mentioned, had them put together and repaired, so as to be brought into their present state, and then, showing a higher appreciation of art than any of his predecessors, actually had the present gallery built for the reception of these wonderful works, which, at the best, before had been esteemed only as patterns for weavers to work by. There they hang now, to be gazed at by the thousands of visitors who pass through the palace every summer week; and though many may not appreciate them at first, yet the fact of their being so distinguished and enshrined, and the knowledge of their celebrity and of the admiration they inspire in minds the most accomplished, has a tendency to produce a most elevating effect upon the taste of the mul titude, and to promote that popular education, in reference to art, which forms no inconsiderable branch of those philanthropic purposes which mark the present age. Numbers, of course, will prefer the gay pictures of West; and it might be amusing to follow some persons from end to end of the whole collection, and listen to their remarks, and watch their countenances in passing from one to the other; but here in the Raphael gallery, after all, most people will be seen to evince some feeling of reverence for what they look at, serving to justify the rather strong exclamation of Richardson, that awful gallery at Hampton Court!" Their sublimity consists in their being so simple and natural. "It is," says Hazlitt, "as if we had ourselves seen these persons and things at some former state of our being, and that the drawing certain lines upon coarse paper, by some unknown spell, brought back the entire and living images, and made them pass before us palpable to thought, feeling, sight. They are the more majestic for being in ruins; we are struck chiefly with the truth of proportion and the range of conception; all the petty meretricious part of the art is dead in them, the carnal is made spiritual, the corruptible has put on incorruption, and amidst the wreck of colour and the mouldering of material beauty nothing is left but a universe of thought or the broad imminent shadows of 'calm contemplation and majestic pains.' Of course, common people would not talk about the cartoons in this style; but our friend here, the Spitalfields weaver, with his country cousin in the gay waistcoat, do really look as though they felt there was something in those old faded sheets of paper very wonderful; even as, when entering a gothic cathedral, the rude rustic pulls off his hat and looks up, and is subdued and awed, he can't tell why. Besides the huge crowd of pictures, there are other matters at Hampton Court to be looked at, such as wood carvings, state beds, pieces of tapestry, curious clocks, old delf vases, busts, and models. Among the latter, of course, the juveniles are mightily taken with the palace of Nabob Nazin, with a long procession of elephants, and palanquins, and soldiers smartly coloured, marching up to the entrance. Before leaving the suite of rooms thrown open to the public, one lingers a little while in the queen's presence-chamber, over the marine pictures which cover the walls, exhibiting ships of all sizes and builds, and affording great entertainment for our boatman, who here finds himself at home, and, through his curiosity about cutters, frigates, and three-deckers, begins to feel some inkling after a knowledge of British naval history. We descend the queen's staircase and get down into the middle court, when we make our way to the gardens. They are pleasant specimens of old-fashioned horticultural arrangements, so modernized as to be divested of the ridiculous air which Dutch beds and cut yews are sure to present. The latter appendages were abundant, no doubt, in William the Third's time, who had the grounds about his palace laid out according to the taste which he formed in France and Holland; and, we dare say, as he paced the gravel walks, and looked down the steep avenues, he thought his gardens were the perfection of beauty. Our notions are different; but still, we cannot help acknowledging that there was something stately and noble about the ideas of our good old fathers, in reference to things of this sort. The poor fountains, of course, come in for plenty of ridicule, and the statues don't escape criticism. But overlooking these little drawbacks, nature here, in the shape of trees and flowers cultivated with some good degree of art, afford to the visitor a very pure and refreshing gratification; and, dismissing the faultfinding temper, any one may spend some happy hours in the Hampton Court gardens-now basking in the sun, and then plunging into the shade-now loitering about the green lawns, and then resting by the wall which overlooks the Thames, to watch the flowing stream and the arrival or departure of the holiday visitors. There are some fine trees here, and in the immediate neighbourhood. The park has two elm-trees called 'the giants,' one of them measuring twenty-eight feet in circumference. Near the old stables is an oak, considered the largest in England. There is a fine poplar in the stud-house grounds. There are also two very noble cork-trees in the park, and everybody knows the gigantic vine in the green-house, one hundred and ten feet long. The maze the little folks are sure to find out; and very pretty is it for us older ones to watch their sport, and listen to their shouts of laughter, as they wind round and round, and then come back again to where they were; symbolizing in these sports, though they think not so, some wanderings in future days through labyrinths rather more serious. 66 And now sit down for a moment. We are fond of taking a book with us in our rambles, and here is one just suited to our present purpose, “Summer Time in the Country," by Wilmot. He asks, Why have we no history of English gardens? It might make a reputation. We want Evelyn and Walpole united, with a tinge of Gray." Hampton Court is the place to think about such a work, and we could find it in our heart, if we had but the time, to begin to collect materials for such a sketch of English horticulture as might serve to amuse and instruct the less learned in such subjects, beginning with the monastery gardens of the middle ages and finishing with Chatsworth and Kew. Hampton Court would serve as an illustration of the middle history. And many a little touching bit would come in as we proceeded in the review, and we should be sure to include the quotation which Wilmot gives from archbishop Sancroft about his garden in Suffolk. “Almost all you see," said the prelate to his visitor, "is the work of my own hands, though I am bordering on eighty years of age. My old woman does the weeding, and John mows the turf and digs for me; but all the nicer work, the sowing, grafting, budding, transplanting, and the like, I trust to no other hand but my own, so long, at least, as my health will allow me to enjoy so pleas ing an occupation; and in good sooth the fruits here taste more sweet, and the flowers have a richer perfume, than they had at Lambeth." And then there would be divers thoughts of God and heaven and holy things suggested as we pursued our task, illustrating Cowley's lines, which would form no bad motto for the whole "If we could open and intend our eyes, The walks and rides about Hampton Court are delightful. Bushy Park is the chief of these attractions, and benevolent people must be delighted at seeing the privilege of using it so fully conceded to all classes of the public. As to the right of thoroughfare-in other times, when so good a spirit on the part of the higher authorities did not exist as now, a curious trial took place, in which a cobbler named Bennet contested the question with the crown itself. He had saved a little money, and, for the benefit of his neighbours as well as himself, spent it in the resistance of a royal attempt to encroach on the privileges of the public. His success was a monument of the equity of English courts of law, as well as of a cobbler's patriotism, and well does he deserve the honour he enjoys, of having his portrait hung up and preserved with reverence in some of the houses and cottages of the neighbourhood. A similar trial, with a somewhat similar issue, only a little modified, occurred in reference to the right of way through Richmond Park. The ladder gates had been pulled down, but by the decision of the court where the case was tried they had to be put up again. Then the rounds of the ladder were placed so far asunder as to prevent many from climbing over. That was remedied by another stroke of the strong arm of law. Last came a notice to this effect," Passengers are required to take notice, that the keepers, in shooting deer, can only take notice of the direction of the public footpaths." This public intimation to take notice of what the gamekeepers would not take notice, was a little alarming, for it indicated the possibility of an honest liege subject being shot in the course of his walk. Happily all this is now changed. glers, and had connived at their landing contraband goods. In order to escape the punishment which now threatened him, he fled to America, where the revolutionary war had just broken out. "In the year 1787 Paine went to France, and in 1792 was chosen a member of the bloody National Assembly, and gave his vote in the sentence which sent Louis XVI to execution. Under Robespierre's Reign of Terror, Paine and many other members of the convention were sentenced to death by the guillotine, and it was only by a miracle of Divine providence that he escaped this end. During his stay in France he published a scandalous lampoon, entitled, 'Letters to Washington;' a treatise which was eagerly bought up and read by the jacobins and infidels, but by all true-minded Americans was abhorred and disavowed. "Thomas Jefferson, who was president of the United States in the year 1801, sent an American ship of war to deliver Paine from the perils which were continually thickening around him. In the spring of 1802 he landed in New York. On the day after his landing I was introduced to him in the City Hotel, and here it was that our acquaint While sir Christopher Wren was altering the palace, he lived on Hampton Green; and in the village near the river stands the house once inhabited by Garrick, with the famous temple of Shakspeare close by the waters' edge. The building is handsome, and the gardens are pleasant; and here it was that the actor, in the days of his fame, received visits from the most distinguished personages. Hither his friend Johnson used to come, and under the shade of the trees, no doubt, they would talk over old days, and the story of their walking to-ance commenced. The next day he departed to gether from Litchfield to London with only fivepence halfpenny between them. The doctor had enough of reputation and the tragedian of wealth; and it was in this garden that the former uttered the well-known words, as he clapped the latter on the back, "These are the things, David, which make us loth to die." A true understanding of the Christian relation of this world to the next would have inspired a different sentiment; for "godliness has the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." "All this here, and heaven hereafter." So can we congratulate our prosperous friends in this life who have a blessed hope of the life to come; nor should we forget to attach to the congratulation a prayer that they may so pass through things temporal as not to lose the things which are eternal." And with this moral we finish our rambles about Hampton and its Court. 66 WHO WAS THOMAS PAINE? To this question a worthy and venerable man, who is still alive and who was personally acquainted with Paine during an intercourse of many years, gives the following answer : Washington, where he was received with open arms by the infidels from all parts of the United States. A public dinner was announced in honour of the author of the Age of Reason,' and the defamer of the fair name of Washington. It was expected now that 'Reason' would unfold her richest treasures, and that an exuberance of wit and sarcasm would gush forth. But how miserably were these expectations disappointed! Paine entered the assembly in dirty boots, with his trousers torn, his waistcoat smeared with a thick layer of brown snuff, and his coat out at each elbow, at which point a shirt that did not seem to have been washed for months peeped out. But, what was worse than all, he reeled backwards and forwards, deeply drunk and void of all his wits. The freethinkers were horrified at this display, but they reassured themselves with the notion that they were being imposed upon, that the hideous creature before them was not Thomas Paine. They soon however discovered the contrary, and then arrived at the conclusion that Paine was no company for gentlemen. Shortly after this Paine departed for ever from the neighbourhood of the court. but "When he arrived in New York he took up his quarters at the City Hotel; but his habits were so opposed to the most common decency, that at the expiration of a week he was politely informed that he could not be accommodated there any longer. His baggage was now carried from one hotel to another, and from coffee-house to coffee-house; everywhere the same greeting saluted him, 'We have no room.' In this emergency, one William Carver, a blacksmith, who had known Paine in England, resolved to receive him into his house. At Carver's house I became more closely acquainted with him, and our intercourse continued, with few interruptions, for seven years. "Thomas Paine was born in the year 1737, in the county of Norfolk, in England. His father belonged to the Society of Friends, and by trade was a corset-maker, which business his son learnt with him. Young Paine, however, did not stick to his business, but soon got an appointment in the custom-house at Lewes. Here he married a daughter of a custom-house officer, who was born in Paine's own native place. Three years had they been married, when Mrs. Paine applied to the magistrates for permission to separate from her husband. Her complaint was found to be a just one, and an act of separation was allowed her on ac- "God has said,' He that honoureth me I will ho count of the cruel treatment which she had re-nour, and he that despiseth me I will despise.' How ceived from him! Mark this, my worthy female strikingly has this been fulfilled in the cases of readers! So fared the wife of the author of the unbelievers. Paine's host, William Carver, was 'Rights of Man!' Shortly after this it was dis- found dead in a house of improper character in covered that Paine had been bribed by some smug- Walnut-street, abandoned by everybody but |