of this passion of domesticity in the servant;—­its merit equals its novelty.  In that inglorious attack on Buenos Ayres, where our brave soldiers were disgraced by a recreant general, the negroes, slaves as they were, joined the inhabitants to expel the invaders.  On this signal occasion the city decreed a public expression of their gratitude to the negroes, in a sort of triumph, and at the same time awarded the freedom of eighty of their leaders.  One of them, having shown his claims to the boon, declared, that to obtain his freedom had all his days formed the proud object of his wishes:  his claim was indisputable; yet now, however, to the amazement of the judges, he refused his proffered freedom!  The reason he alleged was a singular refinement of heartfelt sensibility:—­“My kind mistress,” said the negro, “once wealthy, has fallen into misfortunes in her infirm old age.  I work to maintain her, and at intervals of leisure she leans on my arm to take the evening air.  I will not be tempted to abandon her, and I renounce the hope of freedom that she may know she possesses a slave who never will quit her side.”

Although I have been travelling out of Europe to furnish some striking illustrations of the powerful emotion of domesticity, it is not that we are without instances in the private history of families among ourselves.  I have known more than one where the servant has chosen to live without wages, rather than quit the master or the mistress in their decayed fortunes; and another where the servant cheerfully worked to support her old lady to her last day.

Would we look on a very opposite mode of servitude, turn to the United States.  No system of servitude was ever so preposterous.  A crude notion of popular freedom in the equality of ranks abolished the very designation of “servant,” substituting the fantastic term of “helps.”  If there be any meaning left in this barbarous neologism, their aid amounts to little; their engagements are made by the week, and they often quit their domicile without the slightest intimation.

Let none, in the plenitude of pride and egotism, imagine that they exist independent of the virtues of their domestics.  The good conduct of the servant stamps a character on the master.  In the sphere of domestic life they must frequently come in contact with them.  On this subordinate class, how much the happiness and even the welfare of the master may rest!  The gentle offices of servitude began in his cradle, and await him at all seasons and in all spots, in pleasure or in peril.  Feelingly observes Sir Walter Scott—­“In a free country an individual’s happiness is more immediately connected with the personal character of his valet, than with that of the monarch himself.”  Let the reflection not be deemed extravagant if I venture to add, that the habitual obedience of a devoted servant is a more immediate source of personal comfort than even the delightfulness of friendship and the tenderness of relatives—­for these are but periodical; but the unbidden zeal of the domestic, intimate with our habits, and patient of our waywardness, labours for us at all hours.  It is those feet which hasten to us in our solitude; it is those hands which silently administer to our wants.  At what period of life are even the great exempt from the gentle offices of servitude?