RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. 251 



therefore, help wishing that the pursuits of agriculture might be 

 made attractive to such persons ; and that, with education, and 

 that moderate fortune which would give them the command of 

 the best advantages of rural life, they might find in it, as far as 

 rational happiness and humble usefulness are concerned, that 

 philosopher s stone which in other places they are almost sure to 

 search for in vain. 



XXXVII. RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. 



England presents many such examples. The true English 

 gentleman, living, remote from the din of cities, and abstracted 

 from the turmoil of political life, upon his own acres ; managing 

 his own estate ; seeking the best means for its improvement, and 

 superintending, under his own personal inspection, their applica 

 tion ; doing what good he can to all around him ; making those 

 dependent upon him comfortable and contented ; giving labor, 

 counsel, encouragement, and all needful aid, to his poor neigh 

 bors, and causing them, and their wives, and their children, to 

 look up to him as a friend and a parent, to whose kindness their 

 good conduct is always a certain claim ; whom when the eye 

 sees, it sparkles with grateful joy, and when the ear hears his 

 footsteps, the sounds go like melody to the heart ; who is in his 

 neighborhood the avowed and unostentatious supporter of good 

 morals, temperance, education, peace, and religion ; and in whose 

 house you find an open-hearted hospitality, and abundant re 

 sources for innocent gratification, and for the improvement of 

 the mind, with a perfect gentleness of manners, and unaffected 

 piety presiding over the whole ; I say, such a man and it 

 has been my happiness to find many examples need envy no 

 one save the possessor of more power, and a wider sphere, of 

 doing good ; and need not covet the brightest triumphs of 

 political ambition, nor the splendors and luxuries of royal 

 courts. 



Whatever contributes, then, in any way, to elevate the agri 

 cultural profession, to raise it, from a mere servile or mercenary 

 labor, to the dignity of a liberal profession, and to commend it 



