MARCH, 71 



tion ; but he was not a man to repine, and his lot was cheered by 

 the humanity of the gaoler, who, in those good old times, before 

 prison- discipline was invented, set him to work with great advantage 

 in his garden; so that, on the whole, Godfrey rather enjoyed his 

 visit than otherwise, and came out with more money in his pocket, 

 and in much better condition, than he went in ; and his eye still 

 sparkles as he tells his hearers how successfully he worked at the 

 squire's trout as soon he was released from confinement. Godfrey's 

 knowledge of the habits and dispositions of all the/<?r^ naturce that 

 have come under his observation might enlarge the boundaries of 

 natural science, and afford some amusing chapters to future Whites 

 and Watertons. He knows every partridge's nest within a mile of 

 his garden ; and no strange beast can enter its precincts without 

 being discovered ; he is like a North American Indian in the quick- 

 ness with which he detects their tracks, and he knows at once how 

 to ensure their capture : for nothing is more surprising than the 

 certainty with which he catches whatever he tries for : this de- 

 pends on a peculiar faculty, and yet, no doubt, some portion of his 

 science might be communicated. He says, with regard to rats, that 

 people set traps for them as if they were anxious to catch them, 

 placing them in their runs or usual haunts, which must be seen by 

 so sensible an animal ; whereas his plan is, always to appear as if he 

 wished to hide his trap ; they are sure to find it out, and " the more 

 trouble," says he, "they have to get at it, with the more force do 

 their noses go into it." His organ of destruction, however, is only 

 active against a certain class of animals ; towards others he is hu- 

 mane ; and rather than crush a snail, he will pick it up and throw it 

 over the fence, saying, " There ! it will be some time before yov 

 find your way back again." This reminds me of a good stor}^ told 

 of Dr. Johnson, who was walking one day at Oxford with a friend 

 round his garden, and observing him throw the snails over the wall, 

 he reproved him sharply, saying it was ungentlemanly ; when his 

 friend replied, " Well but, doctor, my neighbour is a Dissenter." 

 On which the lexicographer growled out, " Oh, throw away then, as 

 fast as you like !" Now I have no doubt my humble acquaintance 

 is as far in advance of the doctor in toleration as he is behind him in 

 learning. 



Old Godfrey has now for some years renounced his evil ways, 

 and cultivates seven or eight acres of land as a market-gardener, 

 almost entirely by the labour of himself and his sons. His proceed- 

 ings have been recently watched by me with increasing interest, as I 

 speculate upon the probable fate of our country under the strong 

 dose of free trade lately administered to her by our state doctors. 

 Can this densely-peopled land, with its swarms of industrious la- 

 bourers and its boasted Anglo-Saxon energ}^ ever become a wilder- 

 ness ? Surely not. When I see Old Godfrey's success on a few 

 acres of land of not more than average quality, I naturally ask why 

 more ground in England, fit for garden culture, should not be simi- 

 larly improved, and made to resemble that beautiful tract between 

 Antwerp and Ghent in the Netherlands, where, for many miles, the 

 traveller sees every variety of vegetable produce flourishing on land 



