and the fiery visions of the Pilgrim iu his progress. Their 

 culture has been broad without multiplicity, and deep but not 

 obscure. And this is the class — these are the men — of whom 

 I say that they have stood behind and upheld the greatness 

 of Essex, and propped her emiuence wherever she has- 

 achieved it. 



Need I reiterate, that this judgment is not for the flattery 

 of the farmers that are its subject. I do but take them for 

 an example, though I know not another so good, of a great 

 and general principle. For if, in this favored and historic 

 county, where letters have thriven, and arts have prospered^ 

 where Science has spread her broadest wing, and Philosophy 

 wheeled forth like a conqueror, — if still this mass of quiver- 

 ing, vital thought, like the live and pulsating human flesh, 

 has found within itself the solidities of agriculture, like the 

 strong bone, staying the whole and guarding well the marrow 

 of nervous feeling — if this be so with us, how much more 

 shall all these things of liberal growth of the mind and spirit 

 depend on the intelligent culture of the primal earth, in places 

 where that is strong and they are only feeble ? 



Perhaps I need not further elaborate this argument. It 

 may be admitted that the real strength and patronage of all 

 that is refined in science and art rests in the sound sense an(i 

 thrift of those who stand at the plow. It may be sufficiently 

 obvious, that as the courses of architecture grow lighter and 

 weaker upward, shading at length into mere decoration and 

 ornament, so conversely, from the pencil of the artist and the 

 quavering of the songstress, all human pursuit strengthens 

 oppositel}^ till the foundation appears where no orator ges- 

 ticulates and no trumpet is blown, but the cattle tug at the 

 yoke, and the plain barn is crowded with that which comes of 



