ioo THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



which he ought never to have written. 

 There were plenty of snubs and rubs in 

 store for him, as there are for every literary 

 man at every stage of his career. Snubs and 

 rubs are part of a profession which has an 

 advantage quite peculiar to itself, that every- 

 thing a man does is publicly commented upon 

 by his brother professors writing anonymously. 

 It is as if a clergyman's sermons should be 

 publicly and every week handled by brother 

 clergymen, or a doctor's cases by brothers 

 of the calling ; or as if a barrister's speeches 

 should be anonymously criticised by other 

 barristers. A man cannot make an ass of 

 himself in the profession, and expect that 

 nobody will notice it. Not at all ; the 

 greater the mess he makes, the more he will 

 hear of it. Now Jefferies poor man was 

 going to niake a big mess of two or three jobs 

 before he really found himself. 



To be an authority on things agricultural 

 is to speak on behalf of what was then, and is 

 still, the most important interest of the whole 

 country ; to speak of agricultural labourers 

 and of tenant farmers is to speak of the best 



