JULY. 201 



fragrant ricks rise in the farm-yard, and the pale 

 smooth-shaven fields are left in solitary beauty. 



They who know little about the country may 

 deem the strong penchant of our poets, and of my- 

 self, for rural pleasures, mere romance and poetic 

 illusion ; but if poetic beauty alone were concerned, 

 I must still admire harvest-time in the country. The 

 whole land is then an Arcadia full of simple, health- 

 ful, and rejoicing spirits. Overgrown towns and 

 manufactories may have changed, for the worse, the 

 spirit and feelings of their population; in them " evil 

 communications may have corrupted good man- 

 ners :" in the country at large, evil times too have 

 diffused an evil influence ; the extremes of wealth 

 and poverty have grown wider between the different 

 classes of society, and the working population have 

 felt themselves cast off, as it were, from the sym- 

 pathies of their employers neglected and oppressed. 

 The commons on which their cottages stood, their 

 children played, their cow grazed, their few sheep 

 and numerous geese ran, have been enclosed and 

 have gone to swell high rent-rolls ; while they them- 

 selves have lost the last faint sense of the enjoyment 

 of property have become dispirited, and, in too 

 many instances, vengeful and terrible. Yet, take 

 them as a whole, and there never was a more simple- 

 minded, healthful-hearted race of people than our 

 British peasantry. They have cast off, it is true, 

 many of their ancestor's games and merry-makings ; 

 but they have, in no degree lost their capacity for 

 mirth and happiness, did circumstances place mirth 



