2,837
Slaves,2,293
Free colored persons, 607
5,737

By the census of 1830, the free whites amounted to

7,755
Slaves,6,349
Free colored, 1,956
16,060

The several classes have increased in nearly corresponding ratios.

Richmond has been frequently reproached for a want of hospitality, and if this virtue consists in unreserved and indiscriminate attention to strangers and visiters,—the reproach is probably not altogether unfounded. It must be acknowledged too, that the manners and customs of what are called the leading classes, are not characteristic of the old Virginia character,—which was frank, simple and unostentatious. In almost all considerable towns, even in republican America, artificial castes or classes exist, which are founded principally upon the possession of wealth, or the mysterious refinements of fashion, and have but little reference either to moral or intellectual distinction. It is probable that this vice of cities is one of the chief sources of that prejudice which is felt towards them by the people of the country. These remarks, however, are not to be construed into a sweeping censure upon towns—for although in all dense populations, there is always a greater or less degree of human infirmity,—there is also an equal concentration of the more virtuous and noble qualities of our nature.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SONNET—THE SEA.

BY A. L. B. M.D.

There's silent grandeur in the boundless waste
Of Ocean's bosom when the winds are still,
And quiet beauty, like the moonbeam traced
In lengthened shadows on some snow-clad hill;
There's fiercer grandeur in the chainless sea,
When the storm-spirit wakes it from its rest,
And the high waves are dashing wild and free,
As the white foam they bear upon their breast.
The thunder's voice is louder on the sea,
The lightning flashes with a wilder glare,
And landsmen know not of the dangers, he,
Whose home is on the Ocean's wave, must dare;
Yet it is pictured in its mighty roar,
And in the wrecks which strew the rock-bound shore.