MANURES. 93 



light!" The man owns to the soft Impeachment. If the 

 man had been a Roman emperor he would have erected 

 the most magnificent temple in honour of Sterculus, the 

 son of Faunus, that Rome ever saw. Because Sterculus, 

 the son of Faunus — so Pliny tells — discovered the art and 

 advantage of spreading dung upon the land ; and he should 

 have appeared in the edifice dedicated to him graven larger 

 than life in pure gold, riding proudly in his family chariot, 

 the citrrtis Stercicrosus {Anglice, muck-cart), with the agri- 

 cultural trident in his hand. As it is, I always think of 

 him with honour when I meet the vehicle in which he loved 

 to drive — have ever a smile of extra sweetness for the wide- 

 mouthed waddling charioteer, and am pained at heart to 

 find the precious commodity fallen, or, as they say in 

 Lancashire, " slattered," on the road. Ah ! but once, that 

 fastidious reader will be pleased to hear, the man brought 

 himself to sore shame and confusion by this wild passionate 

 affection. Returning on a summer's afternoon from a 

 parochial walk, I inferred from wheel-tracks on my car- 

 riage-drive that callers had been and gone. I expected 

 to find cards in the hall, and I saw that the horses had 

 kindly left theirs on the gravel. At that moment, one of 

 those 



