Sir Thomas More.—­More in mine than in yours, because I command a wider horizon:  but I see also the storms which are blackening, and may close over the sky.  Our discourse began concerning that portion of the community who form the base of the pyramid; we have unawares taken a more general view, but it has not led us out of the way.  Returning to the most numerous class of society, it is apparent that in the particular point of which we have been conversing, their condition is greatly worsened:  they remain liable to the same indigenous diseases as their forefathers, and are exposed moreover to all which have been imported.  Nor will the estimate of their condition be improved upon farther inquiry.  They are worse fed than when they were hunters, fishers, and herdsmen; their clothing and habitations are little better, and, in comparison with those of the higher classes, immeasurably worse.  Except in the immediate vicinity of the collieries, they suffer more from cold than when the woods and turbaries were open.  They are less religious than in the days of the Romish faith; and if we consider them in relation to their immediate superiors, we shall find reason to confess that the independence which has been gained since the total decay of the feudal system, has been dearly purchased by the loss of kindly feelings and ennobling attachments.  They are less contented, and in no respect more happy—­that look implies hesitation of judgment, and an unwillingness to be convinced.  Consider the point; go to your books and your thoughts; and when next we meet, you will feel little inclination to dispute the irrefragable statement.

COLLOQUY IV.—­FEUDAL SLAVERY.—­GROWTH OF PAUPERISM.

The last conversation had left a weight upon me, which was not lessened when I contemplated the question in solitude.  I called to mind the melancholy view which Young has taken of the world in his unhappy poem: 

“A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas and burning sands,
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death. 
Such is earth’s melancholy map!  But, far
More sad, this earth is a true map of man.”

Sad as this representation is, I could not but acknowledge that the moral and intellectual view is not more consolatory than the poet felt it to be; and it was a less sorrowful consideration to think how large a portion of the habitable earth is possessed by savages, or by nations whom inhuman despotisms and monstrous superstitions have degraded in some respects below the savage state, than to observe how small a part of what is called the civilised world is truly civilised; and in the most civilised parts to how small a portion of the inhabitants the real blessings of civilisation are confined.  In this mood how heartily should I have accorded with Owen of Lanark if I could have agreed with that happiest and most beneficent and most practical of all enthusiasts as well concerning the remedy as the disease!