fuite who imported the fashions, inculcated the charms, and pralifed the feductions of London, an infenfible change was wrought in the farmers' fons, and communicated to the whole parifh. The tenants' daughters afpired at a London life, and, in puifuit of pleafure and vanity, fell into the fnare laid for their virtue and integrity. In the abfence of the landlord only the lofs of his company and good influence was felt; but in his prodigality and diffipation was involved the intereft and profperity of his tenantry. Rack-rented and ruined, they loft the comfortable profpect of providing for their families. The Pharo-table and the rapacious fteward concurred to aggravate their diftrefs, and drained the vitals of an exhaufted eftate. To darken the profpect ftill more, the refidence of the good old landlord is itself pulled down, the materials fold to pay off modern incumbrances, and the parifh left without a head.

It were well if the evil had flopped there. The fpirit of faction invaded the retirement of the ruftick; he was duped to fet his hand to remonstrances against imaginary evils which he never heard of; he was wrought upon by a fancied independence of the human mind to think, for himself, but really, under this fpecious delufion, became the dupe of others, and only thought with them, without thinking at all. The minifters of that meek and pure religion, who fhould have inculcated fubmiffion and fimplicity, inftilled into their religious fervices an equal independence both of God and the King, of religion and good government. Contented and happy in the established religion of his country, the poor man was feduced, by the example of his fuperiors, to question and quarrel with it: refigned to his fate in the comfortable affurance of a happy immortality, he was perfuaded to think that his foul was material, that faivation was in his power without divine affifiance, that his Saviour had been a ftalking horfe to the minifters of his Gofpel for 1700 years, Satisfied both with the conftitution of his country and with his governors, he is now taught that his country has no conftitution, and that he is felf-governed. In thus unfettling the minds of our humbler fellow-citizens, can we wonder at the total want of principle which multiplies criminals to fuch a degree that receptacles can hardly keep pace with them, and we

are fhocked with the frequency of our executions?

I have now before me three trials for murder in the county of Lincoln, 1769, 1788, and 1791, where the crime, tho' fully proved, was to the last pertinacioufly denied by the criminals. I do not fay fuch denials have not happened before; but fcarcely in the fhort space of thirty years, and in the fame county. But the fame want of principle which hurries the upper ranks into the prefence of their Creator and Judge by fuicide, makes the lower ranks alike carelefs how they meet him from the hands of the executioner. In vain do philofophers obviate the crime, as the coroner's jury the ignominy, by charging it on lunacy. Let us beware how we make fuch an apology for guilt, which will fuperfede the neceffity of human judicature, and lead us to think the Almighty Sovereign of the Universe “altogether fuch an one as ourfelves." I might add the recent inftances of wiiful murder, infpired by revenge, in men of education fuperior to the vulgar.

Another grand fource of the corrup tion of the ruftic mind, is the introduction of theatres into almoft every market-town, either by authority of Parliament, or in defiance of it. Men, fay the advocates for this increafing evil, must be amufed. Be it fo: but let not the amufement be a vehicle of corruption of morals. Sports and paftimes have always obtained among our peafantry, but they are of a different and an innocent nature. The Book of Sports raifed the indignation of the graver minds of the last century as well as of the Puritans. It is enough if the capital be the fcene of theatrical diffipation, which was originally confidered by our laws as an appendage to the Court, and a privilege of royalty, but can now eftablish itfelf, in defiance of law, in the fmalleft village within the limits of the Penny-post, and almost of the bills of mortality. When amufements of every kind gain rapidly on the country, what but folly and extravagance can follow it? and when Lords and Efquires turn actors, what must be expected from their example? The mountebank and zany of former ages were innocent empirics; those of the prefent are fwindlers and pickpockers, and the deftructive fyftem of lotteries is multiplied by them into every market-town.

Stage coaches and turnpike-roads,

however

however they may furnish a temporary maintenance to a few of the lower clafs, import a return of vice and corruption, that ill compenfate the pittance earned by honeft industry, and ferve as a more ready conveyance of fimple men and women to ruin in a corrupted and depraved capital.

The groupeing together of the poor in workhoufes, houfes of industry, and houses of manufacture, nray relieve their prefent wants, and exercise their talents for a time; but if it be confidered how little of religion or morality is taught there, and that it is an avowed maxim with one of our greatest manufacturers on the Trent to pay no regard to the morals of the poor children whom he employs, can it be to the advantage of the rifing generation to be put by hundreds under fuch tuition? I could men tion a tambour-worker who took a number of parish girls apprentices, and, after a fhort time, ran away, and left them on the town; a fphere of life for which it is not a breach of charity to fuppofe he had trained them. The inadequacy of the public provision for the poor to their virtue and happiness is but too apparent; and every contrivance or plan that breaks up the community of the village, and the comforts of the ruftic firefide, debauches, enervates, and ruins the mafs of people. The freefchool established foon after the Reformation, as a fuccedaneum to the monafteries, is now neglected from the infufficiency of the mafter's maintenance in the increafed price of living, or fuperfeded by the infinity of private fchools, which every ignorant ecclefiaftic or idle layman is ready to fet up. Would you believe it, Mr. Urban, that a parish of twenty miles in circuit at this moment contains no less than feven fchools for boys and three for girls, befides the free-fchool and the petty fchools where children are taught for three-pence or a groat a week, and no Sunday-fchool? Taking the average number of scholars in pretty conftant refidence in these ten houses of learning at the moderate number of thirty, there is an influx of between three and four hundred perfons, boys and girls, to elbow the regular inhabitants out of their feats at church or meeting, and to be taught by every pretender to science lefs than what half of them, at least, would learn at home from their parents, if they would stay at home and take the parenal charge upon them. But we must

rush to watering-places and every scene of diffipation, and give to the aggrandizations of every bathing creek the fruits of our farms and shops, which should be divided between the care of the tenants and manufacturers offspring and our own. Thus reflexion must be buried in the din and hurry of pleasure, and every call of duty and affection facrificed to the tranfports of gaiety.

If I include the multiplication of private banks among the fources of public corruption, I fhall perhaps be told, they are the only means of keeping ready money in the country. They favour too much of that exceffive increase of private credit, which ruins the un wary, and adminifters to the avarice and prodigality of individuals.

It will be answered, there are laws of fufficient force to check the growing evils above defcanted on. But what are laws uninforced by example? The wretched father or master, who has en couraged his children or fervants in bad courtes, may hang them all when ripe for execution; but are the miferable culprits fo guilty as their feducer? It is an old and an allowed adage, Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur. But what fort of an apology is it for perjury, venality, and debauchery, that, for the fake of a fhortlived feat in the fenate, men are folicit ed and bribed to prostitute their honour, and confciences, and lives, and become the victims of ambition and intrigue?

If to this evil influence we add the unchriftianizing of Christianity, that religion which the poor man embraces as beft adapted to his capacity and wants; if he is to be told that neither Chrift nor his Apofiles meant what they said, or that they were not understood till the 18th century; what has he left to ani mate his hopes, to reward his piety, to invigorate his patience, and to crown his faith? But it is the finishing ftroke of the whole mifchief. Deprived of the fincere milk of the Word, the ruftic, who was bred up in the firm perfuafion that the Bible was adapted to his poor capacity, must be thunder-ftruck at hearing that nobody has rightly under stood it till now. His plain broth being thus poifoned, or rendered unpalatable, what wonder if he is driven to the firong drink which thofe, who fancy them felves of full age in the knowledge of divinity, would force down his throat, in a perfuafion that they alone know the TRUTH, and that the TRUTH Muft be spoken at all times? This truth,

which they will not allow others to find in opinions different from their own, is the high-road to Infidelity: for there are as many kinds of truth as there are fects, every man being firmly convinced of his own opinion. The truth as it is in Jefus, and as the bulk of the nation have received it, is not the truth as it is in Priestley and our modern Apoftles. The former is intended to make men free from the power of fin in general; the latter fets them above every kind of controul, obliging them to circulate every thing which they deem true and right, and fo giving birth to as many bewildering fchemes as ever difgraced the last century among us. If the Christianity that has obtained in this moft reformed country ever fince the Reformation be proved to be idolatry and immorality, what are become of the first principles of the popular mind? The common people are not profelfed reafoners; they take their religion as they find it delivered down for the laft 200 years in the vernacular language of their country the best book in the plaineft and moft old-fashioned drefs. It is only within the last thirty years that doubts have been diffeminated about the effentials of their faith. If once you can perfuade them thefe effentials are doubtful, to what new doctrines muft they recur? If you attempt to make them believe their Bibles are fo ill-tranflated that the very fundamentals of Christianity are not to be found in them, on what foundation muft they reft? They must either defend them on the authority whereon they received them; or, if the authority fails, they must fall into infidelity, and then farewell to morals. If a common man is once led to think that his foul dies with his body, or lies in an infenfible ftate for millions of years, he will be indifferent whether it ever wakes again, and will act accordingly. If he is taught that his Saviour is a mere man, and very little fuperior to the wifeft of mortals, he will give up the efficacy of his doctrine, and the influence of his example. But as the Methodists have ftrained the cord too tight, thefe new teachers have broken it. While a nobleman of learning and judgement makes a doctrinal and metaphyfical creed the fource of every immorality in a Chriftian congregation, and a minifter of the Gofpel writes down public and focial worship; what must be the impreffion made on the

minds of those who listen to them, or of those who defpife them? Between the zeal of the Methodist, the lukewarmnefs of the Establishment minifter, and the chilling coldness of the rational and liberal Diffenter, what inuft become of the poor man's religion?

It is the fame in politics. While the peasant feels the happiness of the government under which he lives, he has nothing within him to prompt difcontent and remonftrance. His Magna Charta and Bill of Rights are founded more in experience than in argument. If the weight of taxes affects him, his luxurious and diffipated malter and landlord redoubles the burden by his unbounded cravings, and no remedy remains from the hofpitality and plenty of a Chriftmas paffed in the manfion-house.

To the fame principle are to be afcribed the unequal divifion of farms, the great influx of wealth, which leffens the value of money, and increases tha: of provifion, and the wanton wafte of the neceffaries of life. The ambitious and giddy rich thus furnish fuel to the difcontents of another clafs. In the rapid change of landed property on the extinction of a family in whom long poffettion had riveted antient manners, tome exhaufted heir throws the estate into the hands of a state-peculator, a gamefter, a public defaulter, a boroughhunter, or a nabob. In vain do we look for virtue or morality here. The land, under this curfe, must bring forth the thorns and briars of immorality and vice.

If my fubject were not confined to a remoter diftance, I might introduce here the fources of corruption within twenty miles of the capital. I might notice the daily additions made to fuch fources. When a young heir, who fets out well, and, for the honourable difcharge of his father's debts, fubmits to reduce his own eftate, fo that the firft tenor of fuch a man's conduct afforded the fairest profpects; when he involves himself not merely in the expence of horfes and hounds, but fuffers himfelf to be made the tool of alehouse keepers and jockies of the loweft fpecies, to revive, at an improper diftanee from the metropolis, diverfions which had worn themselves out, and, but for fuch inftigators, would never have been refumed, and thus, as may be expected, brings together a refort of the vileft rabble; in vain does the law profcribe fuch races, which a 5ol. fubfcription-plate can revive at any time;

in vain do we lament the increafe of pick pockets, of gamefters, of drunkards, and every mifcreant.

Can we wonder if the public refent ment is kindled against the betrayers of the best of caufes, and if, when thofe who would turn the world upfide down propofe their innovations in terms neither moderate nor decent, they met with a violent reception? Far be it from me to encourage outrage and riot! But if our countrymen have loft their SIMPLI⚫ CITY, they have not loft their SENSES; if they are not proof against infinuation and feducing example, they are too high-spirited to receive a barefaced in novation with temper. If we with Old England to return to what it was in the beginning of the laft, or clofe of the preceding century, we mult change the manners and principles of the great, of the fuperior ranks, and of the clafs of men who pretend to diffufe better know ledge than ever was known before.

Your very fenfible correfpondent Carleton, though he is treating of a different fubject, p. 8:0, has hit upon one fource of the evil here complained of. "If gentlemen," fays he, "would condefcend to mix more with the commonalty, they would be amply requited in this [an acquaintance with Shakspeare's Janguage] and many other things. I fpeak experimentaily." The mixture he here ipeaks of is net that vulgar, leveling intercourfe, above rep.obated, which degrades the highest ranks, but fuch an affable and informing inter courfe as would exait and improve the lower ranks.

It is a melancholy profpect we have before us, Mr. Urban, when the good old ways, and fentiments, and manners, of the "ruftic moralitt" are thus lightly efteemed; that, when the wealth and improvements of Great Britain are at their height, her national manners should be to grofily corrupted as to endanger her profperity: for, without withing to invert the order of Nature, and exalt the MAJESTY of the people into democratic anarchy, one may be bold to affirm, that the SIMPLICITY of a people is the greateft lecurity of its innocence and happiness. QQ

Mr. URBAN, Bottesford, Sept. 27. As the trifling account of the Luck of

Edenball (inferted in your Mifcellany, p. 721), appeared not unworthy of your not.ce, I will venture to give at leaft an imperfect defcription of ano

ther curiofity in the fame neighbourhood, called The Giant's Cave. From Edenhall, my fellow-traveller and I were conducted to the banks of the ri ver Eamont, where we were gratified with a fight of this curious den. Dif. ference of opinion, unavoidable in moft cafes, prevents me from calling it "a dimal or borrid manhon." A fight of fteps, cut out of the rock (not fo terri ble as have been reprefented), led us nearly half way down a bold precipice; and, by advancing a few yards to the right, we came to the mouth of the cave, where a part of the roof (other wife not altogether fafe) is fupported by a pillar in the centre. This par was evidently intended for the conveni ency of hanging doors, or fomething of the fort, to prevent furprize; and the remains of iron gates, I am told, have not been long removed. Here vifitors with to perpetuate their names, but a foft mouldering ftone is unfavourable to the purpofe; none of more antient date appear than in the year 1660. This rock, a joft red jand-fone, appears of vaft depth, and the dipping of the fraca about 23 degrees Welt. The cave at the entrance is about 9 feet high and 20 wide, and extends in length about 59, when it becomes more contracted in every point of view. Stagnant water, and diet within, add to the natural gloominess of the place, and give an unfavourable imprefiion. But the fituation is in many refpects beautiful-a fine winding river flowing at the bettem of a lofty precipice (not fo bold indeed as to alarm) had to me at least a pleafing effect. This, with a very extenfive profpe&t, engaged my attention fo much, that I wondered I bad overlooked, at a very little diftance, on a flat on the oppolite fide of the river, the church commonly called Nine-Kirks, or Nine-Charch and the parth, Nine-Church parijb, frəm its being dedicated to St. Ninian, "a Scottish faint, to which kingdom," ac cording to Dr. Burn, "this church did probably belong at the time of the dedication." A church fituated at the extreme bounds of a pacifh, far from auy inhabitants, is not to uncommon a circumftance as it is difficult to be ac counted for. A narrow path led us a little further to a chalm in the rock:

this is called The Maiden's Step, from the traditionary account of the elcapt of a beautiful viigm from the hands of Forgum the giart, who, atter exerciting upon all occations every pecics of bu