22 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



calls it the delight of destiny to counterchange 

 the plans and purposes of man; but some other 

 wise man, I think it is Lord Bacon, tells us to 

 "choose the life that is most useful, and habit will 

 make it the most agreeable." But accident seems 

 more potent than destiny, plan, purpose, choice, 

 or habit. On a long sea-voyage, and in a rather 

 dull and resourceless foreign land, three unbidden 

 companions had stuck by me with an almost per- 

 secuting tenacity, and attracted first my acquaint- 

 ance, then my intimacy, for sheer want of any thing 

 else : they were books : to wit, Cobbett's edition 

 of lull's Works, and the Useful Knowledge Society's 

 two volumes on British Husbandry. I read them, 

 and re-read them ; and then began again : for 

 nine mortal months I was reduced to gorge my 

 literary appetite upon these husks, as I at first 

 regarded them. The Georgics of Virgil had be- 

 gun and ended all my previous acquaintance 

 with farming; they were the sole associating tie 

 that connected me with this sudden and enforced 

 onslaught upon the "theory and practice of Agri- 

 culture," and I returned to England poor wretch, 

 in worse condition than I went in fact given up 

 by the "Faculty" as a confirmed Book-farmer. 

 With this morbid predisposition upon me 



