lves the most polished nation on earth, and pretending to be so
wealthy that we give away millions a-year to foreigners unsolicited,
and for no intelligible purpose! And such too is their dire necessity,
that it would be most cruel to suggest or recommend any invention that
might serve as a substitute for their slavery, and thereby deprive
them of its wretched annual produce!

The transit from Barnes to Mortlake is but a few paces; a small elbow
in the road forming their point of separation. Both of them contain
some handsome villas, and they are pleasantly situated on the banks of
the Thames; yet they are less beautiful than they might be rendered,
by very slender attentions. There is no public taste, no love of natal
soil, no pride of emulation apparent, though the scite is one of the
finest in England. A few mansions of the opulent adorn both villages,
and the country fascinates in spite of the inhabitants; but the third
and fourth rate houses have a slovenly, and often a kind of pig-sty
character, disgusting to those who, in the beautiful towns and
villages of Essex, have seen what may be done, to improve the
habitations even of humble life. Lovely Witham, and Kelvedon, and
Coggeshall! what examples you set to all other towns in your neatly
painted and whitened houses--unostentatious, though cheerful--and
inviting, though chaste and modest! What a contrast do you present to
the towns and villages in Middlesex and Surrey, and even in Kent! If
poverty forbids a stuccoed or plastered wall, the cleanly and
oft-repeated whitewash proves the generous public spirit of the
occupant, while the outside seldom has occasion to blush for the
inside. A spirit of harmony runs through the whole, and a pure
habitation is indicative of pure inhabitants; thus, cleanliness in the
house leads to neatness of apparel--both require order, and out of
order grow moral habits, domestic happiness, and the social virtues.
Nor is this theory fanciful; Witham, Kelvedon, and Coggeshall, form a
district which is at once the most beautiful, the least vicious, and
the happiest, in the kingdom. One virtue is doubtless consequent on
another, and one good habit generates another; the result is the
harmonious triumph of virtue! If it be doubted whether the
white-washed exterior is more than "an outward and visible sign" of
the purity within, I reply--that virtue is so much the effect of
habit, that whatever improves the habits improves the character; and