THE WALK CONTINUED. 33 



path, so that he could quietly drink in the 

 beauty of the scene and begin to take stock 

 of the products of the land he saw in front 

 of him. 



" Great as my expectations had been, at 

 this first sight of the vale of the Avon, 

 they were more than fulfilled. I delight 

 in this sort of country ; and I had frequently 

 seen the vale of the Itchen, that of the Eom-n, 

 and also that of the Teste, in Hampshire ; I 

 had seen the vales amongst the South Downs, 

 but I never before saw anything to please me 

 like this valley of the Avon. I sat upon my 

 horse and looked over Milston and Easton 

 and Pewsey for half an hour, though I had 

 not breakfasted." 



Thus Cobbett the poet. Now for Cobbett 

 the economist. '* It seems to me one way, 

 and that not, perhaps, the least striking, of 

 exposing the folly, the stupidity, the inanity, 

 the presumption, the insufferable emptiness 

 and insolence and barbarity of those numerous 

 wretches who have now the audacity to 

 propose to transport the people of England, 

 upon the principle of the monster JNIalthus, 

 who has furnished the unfeeling oligarchs and 



their toadeaters, with the pretence that man 



3 



