512 Mr. Oldfield on the 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine . 
SIR, 
I HAVE just returned to London 
from a tour in the West of England, 
and consider it highly proper the pub¬ 
lic should be made acquainted with the 
present state of that part of the country, 
derived either from my own observa¬ 
tion, or from information on the spot, 
on which I can rely. Distresses for 
rent or taxes prevail over the whole of 
the West of England. The farmers 
universally declare they are unable to 
pay even the taxes, leaving the rent 
out of the question. An attorney in 
Cornwall lately issued twenty-two writs 
for arrests in one day. At Barnstaple, 
Bideford, and through the north of 
Devonshire, the best joints of meat were 
selling for 2d. per pound! and at no 
place produced more than three-pence. 
Fowls and ducks from Is. 8d. to 2s. a 
couple, geese 3d. per pound. Twenty 
roasting pigs were last week sold by Mr. 
Cotton, of Glastonbury, for twenty shil¬ 
lings. New wheat sells at 4s. the Win¬ 
chester bushel, and the farmer is com¬ 
pelled to put ten gallons to the bushel 
to make weight, while the same article 
is selling in the American markets at 
double that price., though the American 
farmer has neither tytiles, taxes, nor 
poor rates to pay; in truth, I lament 
to state that a universal scene of ruin 
appears to pervade the whole agricultu¬ 
ral interest of these counties. 
A farmer near Chudleigh, told me 
that he had lived upon his own estate 
upwards of thirty years, and that his 
farm did not now produce sufficient to 
pay the taxes, and in this particular, 
several other farmers concurred. A gen¬ 
tleman, possessed of £1000 per annum, 
living on his own property at Mudford, 
in Somersetshire, made a similar decla¬ 
ration at a public meeting at Yeovil. 
Another farmer in Cornwall, who has 
abandoned a farm of £700 per annum, 
told me he formerly paid £4 a head for 
summering his cattle on the moors, but 
such live stock he cannot now sell for 
that sum. Fat cattle generally fetch 
from £8 to £10. As the Serge and 
other Devonshire manufactures, took 
their departure during the late war, 
and have not since been re-established, 
I can say nothing of the state of manu¬ 
factures in districts where few or none 
now exist. Within my remembrance 
there were fifty-two clothiers at War¬ 
minster, and these are now reduced to 
two! As may be expected, the peace 
State of the Went. [Jan. I, 
has produced peculiar effects at Ply¬ 
mouth, where houses let at a fourth of 
the war rents, and sell for a fourth of 
the original cost of building. 
1 am aware that in sending you these 
facts, I am in danger of being classed 
among the party of the grumblers, and 
I am sensible that many unthinking 
persons endeavour to get rid of such 
facts, by the insulting observation, that 
the times are always bad for some peo¬ 
ple, and that there always have been, 
and always will be, grumblers. Such 
flippant assertions may be opposed to 
other assertions, but the}'- arc wholly 
irrelevant when opposed by stubborn 
facts, and by the condition of a whole 
people. T. H. B. Oldfield. 
London , Dec. 11. 1821. 
For the Monthly Magazine 
L’APE ITALIAN A. 
No. xxvii. 
Dov’ ape susurrando 
Nei mattutiui albori 
Volasuggendo l rugiodosi umori. 
Guarini. 
Where the bee at early dawn, 
Murmuring sips the dews of morn. 
POLIZIANO. 
U Orfeo . 
E shall conclude our specimens 
of this writer with a scene from 
his 4 Orpheus .’ This piece is mention¬ 
ed by Dr. Burney, who quotes the ac¬ 
count of it given in the 4 Parnasso Ita - 
lianof observing, that it is unquestion¬ 
ably the first Italian opera ever com¬ 
posed for music. We may add, with 
equal certainty, that it is the first 
production of the Italian dramatic muse 
at all worthy of attention. The rude 
and injudicious attempts to represent 
the mysteries of religion by which it 
was preceded, are at once ludicrous and 
disgusting : but the classic fable which 
Politian has chosen, is of itself delight¬ 
ful to the imagination, and will conti¬ 
nue to be popular among us so long as 
we retain any portion of that elegant 
taste by which it was originally dicta¬ 
ted. The scene we have selected repre¬ 
sents the 44 mighty master of the lyre” 
arrived at the entrance of the invisible 
world. 
L’ORFEO. —Atto Quarto. 
orfeo. 
pieta ! pieta ! del misero Amatore ! 
Pieta vi prenda. O spiriti Infernali! 
Quaggiu m’ha scorto solamente Amore: 
Volato son quaggiu con le sue ale. 
Deh 1 posa, Cerber, posa il tuo furore, 
Che quando intenderai tutti i miei mali, 
Non 
