62 AGRICULTUBE. 



ther, did nothing but cry and howl very terribly. They, 

 not knowing what it might signify, resolved to cast this 

 dog into that hole ; whereupon a mad-headed Hollander, 

 getting into the bottom of the dyke, took the dog by the 

 tail, arid cast him into the midst of the gulf, with earth 

 and turf after him ; so as, finding a bottom, they filled it 

 up by little and little." Hence the name Hondtsdam, 

 and the dog in the armorial bearings of the town of 

 Dam. 



*' I now descend to Holland and Zealand," whence he 

 proceeds to Friesland, Holstein, and Mexico. But we 

 spare our readers even an enumeration of the authors, 

 commencing with " P. Bertius de Aggeribus," and ending 

 with " Pierius Winsemius de rebus Frisicis " and " the 

 learned Schoneveldeus," who are cited by this man of sin- 

 gular research in support of scraps of history, quasi-geo- 

 logical deductions, moral reflections, and queer anecdotes. 

 At length we are fairly landed on the sea-board of Kent, 

 and find the history of English embanking and draining 

 given, after our author's peculiar fashion, in 832 folio 

 columns. We have waded through them; and hardly 

 know whether to exhibit this feat to our readers as an 

 example or as a warning. We will endeavour to impart 

 to such of them as have not trod the path before us, a 

 general idea of the ore and of the dross which this mine 

 contains ; leaving to their own taste the decision whether 

 they will work it further. But we must premise that even 

 those who are acquainted with the " Monasticon " cannot 

 read this work without marvelling at the extraordinary 

 industry of the man, and at the strange objects to which 

 it was applied. He devours public records and other 

 documents, which represented Blue Books in his day, with 

 all the voracity, and digests them with more than the 

 accuracy, of our Joseph Hume. He revels in dates, mea- 

 surements, and prices. He affects no originality, and 

 indulges in little disquisition. He ransacks all literature, 

 the most standard and the most obscure, for anything 



