spicuous in the south. The dairy is there universally neglected,
and milk can only be had early in the morning, and then in very small
quantity; nay, the traveller may often journey a hundred miles in the
south of France without being able to procure milk at all; this we
ourselves experienced. The eye is nowhere delighted with the sight of
rich and flourishing farm-steads, nor do the abundant harvests of France
make any shew in regular farm-yards. All the wealth of the peasantry is
concealed. Each family hides the produce of their little estate within
their house. An exhibition of their happy condition would expose them to
immediate spoliation from the tax-officers. In our own happy country,
the rich farm-yard, the comfortable dwelling-house of the farmer, and
the neat smiling cottage of the labourer, call down on the possessors
only the applause and approbation of his landlord, of his neighbours,
and of strangers. They raise him in the general opinion. In France, they
would prove his ruin.

To conclude these few observations on the state of agriculture, we may
remark, that the revolution has certainly tended greatly to promote the
extension of the cultivation, by throwing the property of the lands into
the hands of the peasantry, who are the actual cultivators, and also by
removing the obstructions occasioned by the seignorial rights, the
titles, game laws, corvees; yet I think there cannot be a doubt, that,
aided by capital, and by the more liberal ideas of superior farmers
benefiting by the many new and interesting discoveries in modern
agriculture, France might, without that terrible convulsion, have shewn
as smiling an aspect, and the science of agriculture been much further
advanced.

If, by the revolution, the situation of the peasantry be improved, we
must not forget, on the other hand, that to effect this improvement, the
nobility, gentry, yeomanry, and, we might almost add, farmers, have been
very generally reduced to beggary. The restraint which the existence of
these orders ever opposed to the power of a bad king, of a tyrant, or of
an adventurer, might have remained, and all have been happier, better,
and richer than they are now.

* * *

_COMMERCE._

It was probably the first wish of Napoleon's heart, as it was also his
wisest policy, that the French should become entirely a military, not a
commercial nation. Under his government, the commerce of France was
nearly annihilated. It was however necess