love's meinie. 37 



whose crest is the eau'le and child — vou will find tlie 

 northern name for it, the bird and l)antling, made classi- 

 cal hy Scott — is the first to propose that wood-birds 

 shonld have no more nests. We mnst cut down all our 

 trees, he savs, that we may effectively nse the steam- 

 plough ; and the effect of the steam-plough, I find by a 

 recent article in the " Cornhill Magazine," is that an Eng- 

 lish labourer mnst not any more have a nest, nor bant- 

 lings, neither; but may only expect to get on prosperous- 

 ly in life, if he be perfectly skilful, sober, and honest, ; 

 and dispenses, at least until he is forty-five, with the 

 " luxurv of marriage." : 



40. Gentlemen, you may pei'liaps have heard me 

 blamed for making no effort here to teach in the artizans' 

 schools. But I can only say that, since the future life of : 

 the English labourer or artizan (summing the benefits to 

 him of recent philosophy and economy) is to be passed in ■ 

 a counti-y without angels and without birds, without pray- 

 ers and without songs, without trees and without flowers, 

 in a state of exemplary sobriety, and (extending the 

 Catholic celibacy of the clergy into celibacy of the laity) 

 in a state of dispensation with the luxury of marriage, I 

 do not believe he will derive either profit or entertain- 

 ment from lectures on the Fine Arts. 



