240 



JULY. 



passers ! This is a little too much. I would 

 not be querulous for the poor against the rich. 

 I would not teach them to look with an envious 

 and covetous eye upon their villas, lawns, 

 cattle, and equipage; but when the path of 

 immemorial usage is closed, when the little 

 streak, almost as fine as a mathematical line, 

 along the wealthy man's ample field is grudg- 

 ingly erased, it is impossible not to feel indig- 

 nation at the pitiful monopoly. Is there no 

 village champion to be found, bold enough to 

 put in his protest against these encroachments, 

 to assert the public right ? for a right it is 

 as authentic as that by which the land is itself 

 held, and as clearly acknowledged by the laws. 

 Is there no local "Hampden with dauntless 

 breast" to " withstand the petty tyrants of the 

 fields" and to save our good old foot-paths ? 

 If not, we shall in a few years be doomed to the 

 highways and the hedges ; to look, like Dives, 

 from a sultry region of turnpikes, into a plea- 

 sant one of verdure and foliage which we may 

 not approach. Already, the stranger, if he 

 lose his way, is in jeopardy of falling into the 

 horrid fangs of a steel traj) ; the botanist enters 

 a wood to gather a flower and is shot with a 



