JULY. 139 



driven out of the promised land. Goldsmith 

 complained in his day, that 



The man of wealth and pride 

 Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 

 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 

 Space for his horses, equipage and hounds ; 

 The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, 

 Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth : 

 His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 

 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green. 



And it is but too true that the pressure of 

 contiguous pride has driven farther, from that 

 day to this, the public from the rich man's lands. 

 "They make a solitude and call it peace." Even 

 the quiet and picturesque foot-path that led 

 across his fields, or stole along his wood-side, 

 giving to the poor man with his burden, a cooler 

 and nearer cut to the village, is become a 

 nuisance. One would have thought that the 

 rustic labourer, with his scythe on his shoulder, 

 or his bill-hook and hedging-mittens in his hand, 

 the cottage-dame in her black bonnet and scar- 

 let cloak, the neat village maiden, in the sweet- 

 ness of health and simplicity, or the boy strol- 

 ling along full of life and curiosity, might have 

 had sufficient interest in themselves, for a culti- 

 vated taste not merely to tolerate, but to wel- 

 come — passing occasionally at a distance across 

 the park or wood, as objects agreeably enliven- 



