238 JULY. 



without a jest, stiles and foot-paths are vanish- 

 ing every where. There is nothing upon 

 which the advance of wealth and population 

 has made so serious an inroad. As land has 

 increased in value, wastes and heaths have been 

 parcelled out and inclosed, but seldom have 

 foot-paths been left. The poet and the natural- 

 ist, who before had, perhaps, the greatest real 

 property in them, nave had no allotment. 

 They have been totally driven out of the pro- 

 mised land. Goldsmith complained in his day, 

 that 



The man of wealth and pride 



Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 



Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 



Space for his horses, equipage and hounds ; 



The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, 



Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth : 



His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 



Indignant spurns the cottage from the green. 



And it is but too true that the pressure of 

 contiguous pride has driven farther, from that 

 day to this, the public from the rich man's 

 lands. " They make a solitude and call it 

 peace." Even the quiet and picturesque foot- 

 path that led across his fields, or stole along his 

 wood- side, giving to the poor man with his 



