the moral and
material causes of disease, a thoroughly scientific practice, the result
of long experience and accumulated observations, will then exist, to
remedy all that is within the power of human art, and to alleviate what
is irremediable. To existing individuals this consolation is something
like the satisfaction you might feel in learning that a fine estate was
entailed upon your family at the expiration of a lease of ninety-nine
years from the present time. But I had forgotten to whom I am talking. A
poet always looks onward to some such distant inheritance. His hopes are
usually _in nubibus_, and his expectations in the _paulo post futurum_
tense.

_Montesinos_.--His state is the more gracious then because his enjoyment
is always to come. It is however a real satisfaction to me that there is
some sunshine in your prospect.

_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 t