214 JULY. 



to enjoy, or even the presence to behold them. How 

 often have I myself been arrested in some long-fre- 

 quented dale in some spot endeared by its own 

 beauties and the fascinations of memory, by a board 

 exhibiting in giant characters, " STOPPED BY AN 

 ORDER OF SESSIONS," and denouncing the terrors of 

 the law upon trespassers ! 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 grudgingly erased, it is impossible not to feel 

 indignation at the pitiful monopoly. Is there no vil- 

 lage champion to be found, bold enough to put in 

 his protest against these encroachments, to assert 

 the public right 1 for a right it is as authentic as 

 that by which the land itself is 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 

 pleasant 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-trap ; the botanist enters a wood to gather 

 a flower, and is shot with a spring-gun ; death haunts 



