21 3 Review of PeehUs Survey* May 



population of the country, is now abandoned to idle and ignorant fen- 

 timentalifts, vvlio are left to lament, at pleafure, the lofs of thofe en- 

 chanting fancied fcenes of rural content, and cottage innocence and 

 felicity, which no man of fenfe believes ever to have had an cxiftence 

 but in the imagination of the poet.' 



Again p. 50, he obfcrves, 



* The perfeftion of improvement would feem to infer the complete 

 reparation of every profeifion : The occupation of every inch of the 

 lands by profeffional farmers ; and the cluttering of labourers and arti- 

 ficers into centrical villages, fo completely detached from the occupa- 

 tion of land, as to buy even their milk> as well as every other kind of 

 farm produce, from the farmer by profcflion ; perhaps, even the pro- 

 felTional carter, to be fo infulated within the bufinefs of his profeflion, 

 as to purchafe from the farmer every article of his horfe's provender. 

 iSuch a completion cannot, however, exift, but in a country rich in 

 produce by nature and cultivation, and poflefTing a very numerous po- 

 pulation ; but it is the tendency of the efforts of felf-interell in every 

 individual to produce an approximation towards it, fo far as circum- 

 flances will admit. Meantime, it were idle to attempt, by political re- 

 gulations, prematurely to enforce the adoption of fuch arrangements 

 as will, of their own accord, enfue in the natural courfe of things. It 

 were ilill, however, more abfurd, to couuteraft, by regulation, thcfe 

 natural tendencies towards amelioration, by forcing the land into fmall 

 cottage poffefTions, where there is no demand for fuch minute divifion ; 

 either in yielding to the Cockney apprehenfion of that bugbear, the 

 monopoly of farms ; or to the enthufiafm of fentimentalills, wifliing to 

 embody their poetic conceptions, by the gratuitous cre6lion of cot- 

 tages ; which mull necefTarily transform their occupants, from inde- 

 pendent labourers, paying in work for what they receive in wages, 

 into abjedl dependent beggars.' 



The fentiments expreffed in the feftion allotted to a compara- 

 tive view of horfes and oxen for farm labour, are very fatisfac- 

 tory to U5 J and vath an extrad from it, we fhall end our exami- 

 nation. 



* Oxen, once univcrfally ufed in all kinds of tilth, are now as uni- 

 verfally laid afide ; a faft clearly decifive of the inutility of ufing oxen 

 for labour. Could the farmer, by uHng oxen inilead of horfes, fend 

 more produce to market of beef or corns from his farm, would any 

 thing elfe be necelfary to induce him to adopt the change ? An in- 

 terell may not be purfued when it hath never been clearly feen ;. but 

 nothing will induce the deielidlion of an interell, already feen and 

 reaped, but the difcovery of a fuperiur interell arifing from a different 

 management. 



* The fubllitution of oxen for horfes in labour is, neveithelefs, the 

 theme of popular declamation ; and it would not be at HU furprifing, 

 if fome of the wife city committees, fitting in profound invelligatioii 

 of the caufcG of the high prices of provifior.s, (liould bettAik them- 



fclvcs 



