I. THE ROBIN. 41 



an English labourer must not any more have a nest, 

 nor bantlings, neither ; but may only expect to get 

 on prosperously in life, if he be perfectly skilful, 

 sober, and honest, and dispenses, at least until he 

 is forty-five, with the " luxury of marriage." 



40. Gentlemen, you may perhaps 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 country without 

 angels and without birds, without prayers and with- 

 out 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 entertainment from lectures on the Fine 

 Arts. 



