THE BRITISH FARMER IN FICTION 



expression to his sentiments in a voice as far 

 removed as possible from a whisper, and in a dialect 

 redolent of the country-side, whilst a big stick gave 

 force and emphasis to his observations. 



These characteristics were admirably depicted 

 in the novels of Smollett and Fielding, and in 

 later times in those of Dickens and his con- 

 temporaries. He figured during the early period 

 in such popular pieces as Colman's " John Bull " 

 and Morton's " Speed the Plough." I have before 

 me the play-bill of a performance on December 8th, 

 1840, at the Bath Theatre, under the patronage 

 of " The Most Noble the Marquis of Lansdowne 

 and the Bath and West of England Agricultural 

 Society," in which the piece, de resistance was 

 "Speed the Plough." It would be interesting 

 to read the verdict of present-day critics if such 

 a piece were put upon the stage now as a picture 

 of present agricultural life and character, and we 

 can imagine how consumedly the audience would 

 laugh at its apparent improbability. And yet our 

 fathers took it all seriously. Farmers then lived 

 by farming, pure and simple, and neither had 

 occasion nor cared to supplement their means of 

 livelihood by taking paying-guests in the summer 

 season, or by turning their fields, when they 

 abutted upon a line of railway, into advertising 

 stations for patent medicines or cheap upholstery. 



It must be admitted that a multiplication of 

 travelling facilities has done much to bring country 

 and town into closer contact, and to promote a 

 better understanding one of the other. Mr. 

 Jorrocks, it will be remembered, said : " A Cockney 

 looks upon a farmer as an inferior crittur a sort 



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