tes from it. Is it a gross material,
or a refined analytical, or a massy mystical philosophy? The first is
usually found in the sceptical stage of the mind of a nation; the last
in its healthy infancy; while the other is rarely to be found at all,
except as the product of an individual mind of a high order. Few
travellers will have occasion to give much attention to this part of
their task of observation; as, among all the nations of the earth, there
is not one in ten that has any mental philosophy at all.

All have Fiction (other than dramatic); and this must be one of the
observer's high points of view. There is no need to spend words upon
this proposition. It requires no proof that the popular fictions of a
people, representing them in their daily doings and common feelings,
must be a mirror of their moral sentiments and convictions, and of their
social habits and manners. The saying this is almost like offering an
identical proposition. The traveller should stock his carriage with the
most popular fictions, whether of the present day, or of a recent or
ancient time. He should fill up his leisure with them. He should
separate what they have that is congenial with his own habit of mind,
from that with which he can least sympathize, and search into the origin
of the latter. This will be something of a guide to him as to what is
permanent and universal in the sentiments and convictions of the people,
and what is to be regarded as a distinctive feature of the particular
society or time.

It is impossible but that, by the diligent use of these means, the
observer must learn much of the general moral notions of the people he
studies,--of what they approve and disapprove,--what they eschew and
what they seek,--what they love and hate, desire and fear;--of what, in
short, yields them most internal trouble or peace.

CHAPTER III.

DOMESTIC STATE.

"How lived, how loved, how died they?"
BYRON.

Geologists tell us that they can answer for the modes of life of the
people of any extensive district by looking at the geological map of the
region. Put a geological map of England before one who understands it,
and he will tell you that the inhabitants of the western parts, from
Cornwall, through Wales, and up through Cumberland into Scotland, are
miners and mountaineers; here living in clusters round the shaft of a
mine, and there sprinkled over the hills, and secluded in the v