JULY. 213 



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 robb'd 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 con- 

 tiguous 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 burden a cooler and nearer cut to the 

 village, is become a nuisance. One would have 

 thought that the rustic labourer, with his scythe on 

 his shoulder, or his bill-hook and hedging-mittens in 

 his hand, the cottage dame in her black bonnet and 

 scarlet cloak, the neat village maiden in the sweet- 

 ness of health and simplicity, or the boy strolling 

 along full of life and curiosity, might have had suf- 

 ficient interest in themselves, for a cultivated taste 

 not merely to tolerate, but to welcome passing oc- 

 casionally at a distance across the park or wood, as 

 objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of 

 the hall. But they have not; and what is more, 

 those are commonly the most jealous of pedestrian 

 trespassers, who seldom visit their own estates, but 

 permit the seasons to scatter their charms around 

 their villas and rural possessions without the heart 



