NATURAL HISTORY OP SUNNINGHILL. 107 



It is the general end of all labours carried on in the town, and I 

 question whether you could find one man thus locally employed for his 

 living and profit, who does not look forward to such a reward at the 

 conclusion. Many who can afford it keep both a town and country 

 residence, and amongst us lawyers the saying is almost proverbial, that 

 what we gain in fee legal we lay out in fee simple; and simple enough 

 some of our bar-gams are, for want of agricultural knowledge, and no 

 lack of designing venders of the commodity. Still to live an easy country 

 life in one's latter days is a delightful reflection, one to which the mind 

 naturally turns as a solace in time of toil; nor can any one who has 

 enjoyed it rationally, say that it has fallen short of his expectations, for, 

 where there is a thing really to be enjoyed, if we are denied the pleasure, 

 surely we must refer the defect to ourselves. It is here that so many 

 who make it their last sojourn fail; for, mistaking the definition of ease 

 they become totally idle, which two words are as different in their meaning 

 as bodily suffering and fanciful annoyance. Because we are no longer 

 forced to labour for our subsistence, it is surely no reason why we should 

 be inactive, and lead, thenceforward, useless lives, when there are so many 

 things leading to beneficial results, and which are mere pleasurable pastimes. 

 Nay, the greatest possible happiness a man can experience is constant 

 employment, which, without absolute fatigue, never allows listlessness to 

 become his companion. Even a certain degree of actual fatigue is neces- 

 sary to enjoy life thoroughly, for if we do not induce it we never can 

 know what recreation is. 



There are many, who, enjoying all the luxuries of the table, are totally 

 ignorant as to the manner of their production. If they knew the toil, 

 the variety of process, and the distance which procured them, would it 

 not cost a greater interest in the several qualities of each item, and tend 

 to dispel in a great measure the fastidiousness and epicurism which so 

 often prevails; if so, is not the cultivation of the soil a very delightful 

 source of useful pleasure? To trace the seed first deposited in the earth 

 by the hand of the sower, and buried by the harrow which follows on 

 his steps, to see it sprout through its superincumbent earth, and clothe 

 the fields with verdure, until, rising to full growth, it becomes whitened 

 by the scorching beams of the summer's sun, cut by the reaper, borne by 

 the wagon to the barn, the grain separated from the stalk by the 

 thrasher, ground by the miller, and formed into bread by the baker; and 

 all this process is gone through by every morsel of bread we eat. Look 

 next at Horticulture and the rearing of flowers, so charming by its 

 ornament and perfume, and, after this, the study of nature generally; the 

 birds, the animals, the insects, the reptiles, even the inanimate vegetable 

 world spreads out for us a table, a feast of knowledge, in the wilderness; 



