GARDENS AT BIRMINGHAM. 253 



will. They are so delicious a banquet, that Pope 

 might have thought of it when he said 



Beneath the humble cottage let us haste, 

 And there, unenvied, rural dainties taste. 



I have dwelt longer than I intended on the cot- 

 tage scenery of Devonshire, because I think it 

 stands pre-eminent in this country for beauty ; 

 and because I regard its peasantry as affording 

 the best examples I have met with of unaffected 

 kindness, civility, industry, and good conduct. 



I have, on more than one occasion, expressed 

 my admiration of the agricultural population of 

 England; and I trust that the time is not far 

 distant, when each individual amongst them will 

 have an allotment of land, at a fair rent, for the 

 better maintenance of themselves and their fami- 

 lies, not in common fields, but attached to their 

 houses. 



The taste for gardens, however, is not confined 

 to the rural districts. Round the town of Bir- 

 mingham, for instance, there are some hundreds 

 of small gardens, which are diligently cultivated by 

 the working classes. Each garden has a little 

 covered seat, where the owner has his glass of 

 ale, and smokes his pipe, at the close of the even- 

 ing ; and here the finest auriculas, polyanthuses, 

 carnations, &c. are to be met with. They are cul- 

 tivated with the utmost skill and care, and may 

 vie with any produced in this country. I have 



