AGRICULTURE AND CIVILIZATION. 7 



concerned, and therefore the joint effect cannot be predicted, 

 but must be always found by observation. And thus he is 

 the man to encourage the study of all natural science, whether 

 in the mutations of temperature, the probabilities of weather, 

 the habits and movements of insects, the knowledge and 

 agency of beasts and birds, the reactions of all chemical forces, 

 and the growth of every green thing, from the hemlock to the 

 herdsgrass. I might dwell here long ; but I hasten to say 

 that agriculture is the encourager of art. 



Possibly I may here encounter a doubt ; for one may ask if 

 the painter, the poet, and the sculptor were not always more 

 at home, and better welcomed in the city than the country, in 

 the palace more than the homestead? This may be, and yet 

 be more a statement of what has been, than of what might, 

 or ought to be. For.it is still true, that if the patronage of 

 the artist be in the metropolis, his best inspirations are far 

 oftener than otherwise drawn from nature unsubdued, or the 

 gentleness of country life. And considering the insatiate and 

 immortal character of that aspiration that makes the artist 

 to be what he is, may we not reckon that as much for his 

 encouragement that gives him food and material for thought, 

 as that which buys his works at a price in the shambles? Yet 

 even this is not all my argument. I look out on the innumer- 

 able scenes of the country and the farmstead, full of beauty 

 and significant of all that is lovely, and I say, if the undevout 

 astronomer is mad, what shall be said of the unartistic farmer? 

 I know the yeoman is not blest with much leisure fur the 

 study of Raffaelle or Mendelssohn ; he is not very familiar 

 with the dialect of Tennyson, or of the sculptor's modelling- 

 room ; but he as well as any one — nay, better — can and does 

 appreciate the sublime truth, that art is, rightly, only the 

 visible expression of beauty, and that beauty is a high gift of 

 God, which let no man despise. 



It is the most cruel uucharity to assume that the heart of 

 the husbandman is hard against the loveliness of art. I have 

 been among such all my life, and know better. I heard a 

 wealthy manufacturer say, that he had been in the famous 

 gallery at Dresden, but whether he saw the Sistine Madonna, 

 he was not sure, for it rained, and he was looking after his 

 umbrella ! I do not believe any farmer of Essex would have 



