But were I assured that I myself had a just claim to the title of a poet, all the dignity being attached to the word which belongs to it, I do not think that I should have ventured for that reason to offer these volumes to you; at present it is solely on account of two poems in the second volume, the one entitled ‘The Brothers,’ and the other ‘Michael,’ that I have been emboldened to take this liberty.

It appears to me that the most calamitous effect which has followed the measures which have lately been pursued in this country, is, a rapid decay of the domestic affections among the lower orders of society.  This effect the present rulers of this country are not conscious of, or they disregard it.  For many years past, the tendency of society, amongst almost all the nations of Europe, has been to produce it; but recently, by the spreading of manufactures through every part of the country, by the heavy taxes upon postage, by workhouses, houses of industry, and the invention of soup-shops, &c., superadded to the increasing disproportion between the price of labour and that of the necessaries of life, the bonds of domestic feeling among the poor, as far as the influence of these things has extended, have been weakened, and in innumerable instances entirely destroyed.  The evil would be the less to be regretted, if these institutions were regarded only as palliatives to a disease; but the vanity and pride of their promoters are so subtly interwoven with them, that they are deemed great discoveries and blessings to humanity.  In the meantime, parents are separated from their children, and children from their parents; the wife no longer prepares, with her own hands, a meal for her husband, the produce of his labour; there is little doing in his house in which his affections can be interested, and but little left in it that he can love.  I have two neighbours, a man and his wife, both upwards of eighty years of age.  They live alone.  The husband has been confined to his bed many months, and has never had, nor till within these few weeks has ever needed, any body to attend to him but his wife.  She has recently been seized with a lameness which has often prevented her from being able to carry him his food to his bed.  The neighbours fetch water for her from the well, and do other kind offices for them both.  But her infirmities increase.  She told my servant two days ago, that she was afraid they must both be boarded out among some other poor of the parish (they have long been supported by the parish); but she said it was hard, having kept house together so long, to come to this, and she was sure that ’it would burst her heart.’  I mention this fact to show how deeply the spirit of independence is, even yet, rooted in some parts of the country.  These people could not express themselves in this way without an almost sublime conviction of the blessings of independent domestic life.  If it is true, as I believe, that this spirit is rapidly disappearing, no greater curse can befall a Land.