418

HISTORY OR ENGLAND.

C | , I | P - is a refined and humane spectacle were among the favouritediversions of a large part of the town. Multitudes assembledto see gladiators hack each other to pieces with deadly wea-pons, and shouted with delight when one of the combatantslost a finger or an eye. The prisons were hells on earth, se-minaries of every crime and of every disease. At the assizesthe lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cellsto the dock an atmosphere of stench and pestilence whichsometimes avenged them signally on bench,bar,and jury. Buton all this misery society looked with profound indifference.Nowhere could be found that sensitive and restless compas-sion which has, in our time, extended a powerful protectionto the factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave,which pries into the stores and water-casks of every emigrantship, which winces at every lash laid on the back of a drunkensoldier, which will not suffer the thief in the hulks to be illfed or overworked, and which has repeatedly endeavouredto save the life even of the murderer. It is true that compas-sion ought, like all other feelings, to be under the governmentof reason, and has, for want of such government, producedsome ridiculous and some deplorable effects. But the morewe study the annals of the past the more shall we rejoice thatwe live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is ab-horred, and in which pain, even when deserved, is inflictedreluctantly and from a sense of duty. Every class doubtlesshas gained largely by this great moral change: but the classwhich has gained most is the poorest, the most dependent,and the most defenceless.

Delusion The general effect of the evidence which has been sub-lcadsmen mitted to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, inrato’the spite of evidence, many will still imago to themselves the Eng-of P |!r°- ss land °f the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the Eng-gen'era- ^ an< l > n which we live. It may at first sight seem strange thatliona. society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed,