i;8 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



ately he begins to sing, and the feathers on the top of his 

 head are all ruffled up, as if brushed the, wrong way." 



" May 20. Coo of dove in copse first." 



" May 21. The flies teased in the lane to-day the first 

 time." 



Such a man as Jefferies, with his necessities 

 of fresh air and solitude, should have been 

 adopted and tenderly nursed by some rich 

 man; or he should have been piloted by some 

 agent who would have transacted all his busi- 

 ness for him, placed his articles in the most 

 advantageous way, procured him the best price 

 possible for his books, and relieved him from 

 the trouble of haggling and bargaining a 

 necessary business to one who lives by his pen, 

 but to one of his disposition an intolerable 

 trouble. It would, again, one thinks, have 

 proved a profitable speculation if some pub- 

 lisher had given him a small solid income in 

 return for having all his work. Consider: 

 for the truly beautiful papers on trie country 

 life which Jefferies wrote, there were the 

 magazines in which they might first appear, 

 both American and English, and there was the 

 volume form afterward s. Would four hundred 

 pounds a year to Jefferies it would have 



