78 Notes of the Month on [JAN. 



principles of country life. The landlord must be taught to feel that his 

 tenantry are as much entitled to life as himself, and that he is in the eye 

 of Heaven but a steward of his property ; that good nature and humanity 

 to his people are not only virtue, but wisdom and that no man, let his 

 number of sheep or bullocks be what they may, can more truly do his 

 duty to himself or his country than he who is the means of fostering a 

 body of industrious, honest, and contented human beings. Beeves may 

 be good, but we cannot help thinking that man is of more importance ; 

 and that even if the adoption of the humane system should compel the 

 landlord to keep a hunter the less, or drink port in place of claret, he 

 would be sufficiently recompensed by the knowledge that a hundred or 

 a thousand human beings looked up to him with gratitude for his pro- 

 tection, and with the honest zeal in his service, and the genuine devoted- 

 ness, that once made the feeling of the English tenant for his landlord. 

 Even as mere matter of profit, there can be no doubt that the more 

 numerous the tenantry the more productive the soil, and, of course, the 

 more profitable to its proprietor. But there should be a higher feeling; 

 a man invested with the power of doing so much good as a great Eng- 

 lish landlord can, ought to feel that the power was an actual demand upon 

 his benevolence, that he was as accountable for his use of this exten- 

 sive means of making his fellow men comfortable and contented as any 

 other depository of power, and that of all the pleasant sights of earth, 

 the pleasantest is the happy human countenance. 



As to the electioneering patriots, the tenants who offer themselves for 

 sale to the highest bidder, no matter who he may be ; the sooner the 

 landlord gets rid of them the better. The landlord is only an abetter 

 of their corruption, who suffers those sellers of themselves for filthy 

 lucre to remain on his estate. Of those slaves of a bribe we are not 

 speaking, but of the genuine, uncorrupted tenantry, who are at once the 

 pride of an estate, and would as much disdain the abominations of elec- 

 tion barter and sale as the highest mind in the land. 



Jekyll is alive again. On being told that during the greater part of 

 Lord Brougham's eloquent oration upon the state of the law on Thurs- 

 day night, in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington evinced his 

 taste for the noble and learned Lord's elocution, and his interest in the 

 subject, by enjoying a sound nap, "Ay," said Jekyll, " no wonder ; 

 the man was near taking a Nap. in the battle of Waterloo/' 

 . At Salisbury, every person lately named to serve the office of Mayor 

 had paid a fine rather than take the duty. " Well," said the witty bar- 

 rister, " I see no more that can be done. I am afraid it would be 

 impossible to refine them." 



At a recent sale by auction, a virtuoso had a lot knocked down to him, 

 consisting of a tooth of the unfortunate James, Earl of Derwentwater, 

 a fragment of his bloody linen, and a nail taken out of his coffin. 

 " There," said Jekyll, " is a genuine instance of the true antiquarian 

 passion, a rage tooth and nail. " 



Her Majesty has expressed her intention of appointing the Scotch Greys 

 to be her escort during their Majesties' projected visit to Scotland in 

 the ensuing year. " Why not ? " said Jekyll, " when the English Greys 

 have got hold of the king, why should not the Scotch Greys have the 

 queen ?" 



