138 
Till the late Bill for providing fubftitutes 
it was a common cuftom in moft parifhes 
to allow a certain quantity of flour to each 
family at a fixed price. The effeét of fuch 
a plan on the price cannot but be imme- 
diately obvious. The poors’-rates before 
thefe laft two years were calculated at 
about three millions. I believe I thall be 
much under the mark in faying, that they 
are now fully double that fum, and the 
operation of thefe additional three or four 
millions (including charity, &c.) in the 
way which I have endeavoured to defcribe 
and exemplify in the Inveftigation, muft, 
as it appears to me, have operated moft 
powerfully in producing the prefent very 
extraordinary price of provifions. TI ftill 
think that this fyftem of parifh-allowances, 
and the power of creating the medium ne- 
ceflary to circulate the commodities at 
their advanced prices, which i have no- 
ticed in the Invettigation, are the principal 
caufes of the prefent dearnefs in proportion 
to the degree of the actual {carcity, though 
I know that fome people differ from me 
in this refpeét.. Had the poor been left 
entirely to themfelves, I think it highly 
probable that wheat would never have 
arifen to above 25]. aload, or at moft 3ol. 
but though the middle claffes would not, 
in that cafe, have fuffered nearly fo much 
as they do at prefent, it cannot be doubted 
but that a confiderable number among the 
loweft clafles would have been actually 
ftarved. i R. M. 
——— 5 i 
Yo the Editor of the Monthly Megazine. 
SIR, 
N making ufe of your valuable Repo- 
fitory, for the purpofe of this commu- 
nication, I hope the object will be a fufh- 
cient recommendation. | 
The celebrated Ballad of Edwin and 
Emma will, no doubt, be known to mot 
of your readers; but they may not be 
egually acquainted with a circumftance 
that makes its interefting ftory ftill more 
_ affecting. If it is the pure effort of the 
imagination, which the poet loves to pre- 
fent to us, it is verifemblance, however, 
that gives it a charm more exquifite than 
can be produced by any poetical ornament. 
Edwin and Emma has pleafed, and will 
continue to pleafe, every reader of tender 
and poetic feeling, becaufe it depicts with 
fo much touching fimplicity, and in fuch 
delicate but juft colours, a variety of com- 
manding paffion; and expreffes fo well 
thofe natural.and artlefs fentiments, which 
are every way adapted to the charaéters 
and the fituation. But this delight will 
- be heightened, if not more refined, by the 
Story of the Ballad of Edwin and Emma: 
[March 1, 
knowledge, that it is founded on a&tual 
occurrence. The underftanding may lof 
fomething of the pleafures of comparing 
the probability with the reprefentation, 
but the heart will be infinitely gainer in 
the acquifition of fuch a proot of exalted 
_ paffion—a fingular proof of virtuous love 
in modern days!'—when we are aflured, 
that Edwin and Emma were no ideal per- 
fonages, raifed in the poet’s brain for a 
tale of forrow, but that their exiftenge 
and deaths, fuch as reprefented, are fo 
well afcertained, that their refpective refi- 
dences can be ftill pointed out to you, and 
that any enquiry concerning them in the 
place where they lived, is aniwered with 
fo ingenuous a fympathy for their fate and 
fufferings, that you would almoft fuppofe 
the relator to have been their cotemporary; 
and when, added to this, we are told that 
they not only by their deaths obtained the 
pity due to their faithful and unfortunate 
attachment, but, while living, poflefied the 
efteem of their little circle of friends for 
their perfonal merit; it will furely give a 
tinge, fo melancholy but delicious, 'o the | 
imprefiion which the poem is of itfelf cal- 
culated to excite, that we fhallhardly quit 
the perufal of it without attefting the re- 
lation with its juf tribute, and it may be 
hoped, not without our finding our affec- 
tious enlarged and ftrengthened, as well as 
our fenfibility awakened. 
Edwin and Emma hved at Bowes, in 
Yorkfhire, a {mall town on the high-road 
between London and ‘Carlifle. The pa- 
rents of each kept a {mall inn in that place; 
and, probably, from contrariety of interefts 
arofe that fatal oppofition to the wifhes of 
thefe unhappy lovers, which feems to have 
feized the avaricious and unnatural temper 
of his fifter with peculiar obduracy. The 
houfe on the right as you enter Bowes 
from the fouth (yet ufed as an inn) is that 
in which Emma lived. The name of her 
family was Railton, and Edwin’s’ Wright- 
fon. 
They were both young: at the time of 
their deaths, which happened in the fame 
24. hours, aridit is fuppofed their attach- 
ment had fubfiftted fome years. -Prefixed 
to Mallet’s publication is a fhort hittori- 
cal aceount of the parties, which in ge- 
neral has been confidered as mere artifice 
to beg attention to the poem; butit is 
fufficiently accurate, and in addition there- 
to, and to the incidents of the Ballad, 
little more information can be given. 
-Many perfons yet living remember their 
immediate connections, and every child in 
the village can fhew the aged thorn that 
marks the piace of their interviews, and — 
the 
— ee 
