men, expressed that condemnatory opinion. We have been about the first political victims who have been classed and punished as misdemeanants and felons, because we happen to be of the working class. Our healths have been injured, and our constitutions seriously undermined by the treatment we have already experienced; but we are disposed to suffer whatever future punishment may be inflicted upon us, rather than enter into any such terms as those proposed by your Lordship. "We remain your Lordship's most obedient servants, "WILLIAM LOvett, "JOHN COLLINS."

Having been confined to a narrow, filthy cell, and fed on the meanest fare, Mr. Lovett's health was so seriously impaired, that he did not recover his wonted vigor till nearly two years after his release from prison.

Mr. Lovett was a member of the Birmingham Complete Suffrage Conference in 1842, and his well-balanced mind and lucid speeches gave him a leading position in that body. For a few years past, he has been engaged in publishing works adapted to the wants of the laboring classes, and his pen has been active in their cause. He was the publisher of "Howitt's Journal," and contributed some of the best papers that appeared on its pages. In person he is tall and gentlemanly, has an intellectual countenance, and, take him all in all, is a rare specimen of the rich ore that lies embedded under the crust of British aristocracy.

JOHN COLLINS, like William Lovett, came up from the ground tier of British society, and has brought along with him more of the marks of his "order" than Mr. L. He has rode out a good deal of rough weather in defense of Chartist principles. On his release from Warwick jail, he was received with the warmest enthusiasm by congregated thousands of his Birmingham neighbors. He afterward made a tour of Scot'and, addressing audiences in the principal towns. I listened to one of his speeches. My mind having been filled with prejudices against him, I was prepared to see a monster. But

there stood before me a stout, bold man, uttering the loftiest truths in a practical and pointed style, and with a tone and bearing conciliatory but firm-a man earnest in vindicating the depressed classes, who had shown courage in peril, endured persecution without repining, and now received applause without vanity-a nobleman by nature, a tool-maker by trade, but who never tried to make a tool of others, and was the last person who would submit to be made one himself.

The name of the young and eloquent HENRY VINCENT thrills the hearts of millions of Britain's laboring poor. While an apprentice in a London printing-office, he aided by extra work during the day in supporting a destitute mother and her children, while midnight generally found him absorbed in some book adapted to expand his mind. His intellect outran his years, and he became a radical reformer when yet a boy. At the age of 14, he made a speech to his juvenile companions on the then engrossing subject of Catholic Emancipation. The French Revolution next possessed his enthusiastic soul. He stood dumb with emotion when he first saw the handbill at the door of the newspaper office, headed "Revolution in France!" He rushed home, got his sixpence, bought the paper, and run through the streets announcing the event to all whom he met. Soon followed the Reform Bill excitement, which absorbed his energies. Although but 16 or 17 years old, he was chosen a member of a Political Union, and participated in its proceedings. Arriving at his majority in 1836, he resolved to consecrate his powers to the elevation of the laboring and disfranchised classes of the people. He joined with Mr. Lovett in the Chartist movements of 1837-8, traveled the country as a lecturer, and was immediately ranked among the most vigorous and brilliant advocates of The Charter. Such was his success among the hardy mountaineers of Wales, that the Government became alarmed, marked him for its victim, and, on his coming to London to visit his widowed mother, dragged him from her dwelling at dead of night, on a charge of sedition, thrust him

into a dungeon, tried him, convicted him, and sent him a year to Monmouth jail. The crime proved upon him was, using violent language and making the people discontented with the Government! Just before the close of his term of imprison-` ment, he was again arraigned on a similar charge, and doomed to another twelve months' incarceration. While in prison, he was treated with such barbarity that fears were entertained of a rescue by the Welsh, with whom he was highly popular, and he was removed to London. His journey thither was a triumphant procession, crowds gathering and cheering him at several of the principal towns on the route. While confined in a solitary cell in the London penitentiary, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd brought his case before Parliament, eulogized his character and talents, and arraigned the Government for the harsh treatment inflicted upon him. This woke up Lord Normanby, the Home Secretary, who visited Vincent, heard some very plain talk, had him removed to Oakham jail, and furnished with decent lodgings, and pen, ink, and paper. After suffering twenty-two months, (the Government having remitted two,) this pure-hearted young philanthropist was released, and the • same day partook of a complimentary dinner, when he made a speech in defense of his principles and conduct, worthy of the theme and the man.

Soon afterward, at the general election in 1841, Mr. Vincent was invited to contest the borough of Banbury for a seat in Parliament, the whole body of non-electors, and a large minority of the electors, being in his favor. On the morning of the election, (the result being very doubtful between the Whigs and Tories,) a committee of the former offered him a large sum of money to withdraw from the contest. He had scarcely spurned the proposal, when a Tory deputation offered him £1,000 to abandon the field. He refused the bribe with scorn. He was defeated, but he retired with honor, leaving hundreds of converts to his principles behind him. He subsequently, on special request stood for Ipswich and Tavistock,

having failed of carrying the latter borough by only 44 votes, against the combined power of the House of Bedford. At the general election of 1847, he polled a very large vote in Plymouth. His chief object in yielding to the solicitation of his friends to mingle in these contests was, to improve the opportunity they afforded him for bringing thorough democratic principles before the people.

Mr. Vincent united with the Free Suffragists in 1842, and during the past seven years he has traversed England and Scotland, addressing multitudes in favor of Peace, Temperance, Education, Free Trade, and Parliamentary Reform, winning a high place among the advocates of radical reform. His speeches are a continuous flow of rapid, fervid eloquence, that illuminates the reason, kindles the imagination, and fires the heart. In person, he is below the middle size, symmetrically formed, with very handsome features, graceful and elastic in his action as a deer, and his voice thrills the blood like a wartrumpet.*

THOMAS COOPER is another original genius, who has forced his way into sunlight through the thick shell of British caste. Eating the bitter bread of poverty during childhood, he contrived, by means that throw fiction into the shade, to gratify a native taste for reading, drawing, and music. Laboring on a shoemaker's bench from the age of fifteen to twenty-three, he snatched from toil the opportunity to acquire a respectable knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French languages, and of Algebra and Geometry-to commit to memory considerable portions of Shakspeare and Milton-to peruse the works of Hooker, Cudworth, Stillingfleet, Warburton, and Paley-and to compose some poetry and essays of his own. This he did by robbing sleep of its wonted hours, and while

* The trials of Lovett, Collins, Vincent, and others, are reported briefly in the 9th volume of Carrington & Payne's reports. The legal points raised on the trials chiefly make up the reports.

his miserable wages afforded a pittance barely sufficient to keep him and his mother from starving.

At the age of twenty-three, he dropped his awl and hammer, and emerged into the world. For ten years he buffeted a sea of troubles, dividing his time between teaching country schools and writing for newspapers; now accumulating a choice library of 500 volumes, and then parting with it, volume by volume, for bread. In 1841, while engaged as a reporter for the Leicestershire Mercury, he was directed to report a Chartist lecture. It was the first he had heard, and its principles. found an echo in his bosom. He commenced a lecturing tour in support of the Charter, visiting, among other places, the Staffordshire potteries. While in that region, in 1842, occurred those serious disturbances which for weeks tossed the Midland counties on a wild tempest of riots. At first, the object was to raise the wages of the operatives by a general" strike." Demagogues fanned the flame, till it broke loose in arson, pillage, and other violent acts, resulting in a few instances in loss of life. Cooper was arrested, and finally arraigned on four indictments for riot, sedition, and arson. He was tried, and, hough acquitted on the more serious charge, was convicted of the minor offenses, against every principle of law or reason. He was sentenced to two years and three months' imprisonment. One of the trials lasted ten days. Cooper defended himself with great ability, proving no unworthy antagonist for Sir William Follett. The barbarous treatment he received in prison gave him rheumatism, neuralgia, and other diseases; but it gave to the world "The Purgatory of Suicides." This poem appeared soon after his liberation, in 1845, having been composed in Stafford jail. It was highly eulogized in the Eclectic, Britannia, and other literary periodicals, and met with immediate success. In the preface, the author proudly says:

I am poor, and have been plunged into debt by the persecution of my enemies; but I have a consolation to know, that my course was dictated by heart-felt zeal to relieve the suffer