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Show 78 NOTES ON - NOTE 8.-THE LADOURING CLASSES. On this subject, my remarks will be confined principally to the laboring classes of England, both because it is to them, chiefly, that Mrs. Stowe alludes, and because I have not equal means of information in regard to the European continent. As to our own country, it is too new, as yet, to groan under so heavy a burden of social evils as the old world; though we shall see, .before we get through, that even it has its full share, ay, and more than its share, considering its extent of territory and comparatively recent settlement. I shall confine myself, I say, principally to tho laboring classes of England. I wish it, however, to be distinctly understood, that what I have to say, is not said by w:~y of recriminatiol\,; there has been enough of that already. Besides, I do not think it Christian; if I did, I could easily find plenty of provocation to it, and that not mct·cly in thl! English partizan press, but in other qun,rters, where least it would bo looked for. Only a few days ago, I purchsccl of a travelling book-vender a stray copy of a little volume entitled, " The Clouds and Peace of Aristophanes, translated into English prose, by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Oxford: llenry Slatter, 1 840," and on cutting the leaves I found on the first page of the translation, on the passage, "Out upon you, 0 war! on account of many evils, and because you prohibit me from chastising my servants," the following note: "For the alleviation of evil which the ~ Peloponnesian war brought to tho Grecian sl:. .w es, sec Mitford, v. 9. In a modern Republic, which cxhiuits all the vices, cruelty, and tyranny of tho Athenians, without one particle of their genius or refiocmcnt, it is to be lwpcrl tl~at war, if it should again occur, may enforce the lesson "·ln~h humrt11ity has fa.ilcd to inculcate; and that tho rl,ransatbntJc U X C I, 1·: '1' 0 1\1 ' S C A B I N. 70 Strepsiades will be taught, to his amazement, that he can no longer 'flog his nigger' with impunity." Now as to the "genius" of tho "modern Republic," I sha.ll not stop to argue the question, though I think it might easily b: shown that we arc not altogether destitute of the comt~od1ty; but on the score of" refinement," if the above note IS to be taken as a fair specimen of what passes under the name, at the most ancient and venerable scat of learning in England, sure I am, that our scholars,-and we have some,-some whose scholarship England herself is ready enough to appropriate, with or without credit, though she does not always make the best selection at least in the classical line,-I say, if the above note i; to be taken as a fair specimen of what passes for refinement among the graduates of the University aforesaid, sure I am that our scholars will not envy them the possession of it. Seriously, the above note is a disgrace to the Republic of Letters, and the only apology I can frame for its author is, that he was a tyro, and had not yet cut his wisdom teeth. The. translation is a very respectable one; not, however, above the capacity of the better half of our undergraduates of two years standing; and as to ~he NotcS',-tho few of them, I mean, that arc original,-thcre is not one that might not have been written by the aforesaid undcrgraduates,- the above-quoted note about the "genius" the '' refinement," &c., of course, always excepted: not 'one of our undergraduates, certainly not one of our scholars could have written such a note: he would have felt the burning blush of conscious degradation tingling his check while writing it, and would have stopped short in mid way, for very shame. And such is the state of feeling towards us in the quiet ?IOistors of England's oldest University! What then must 1t be in the nation at large ! And can we wonder that such |