TALPA LOQUITUR. 157 



war, then ! for good and bad together. ' A cruel 

 brute, this Lion/ we shall say ! and yet he pastures 

 on the cruellest of all : he cracks the bones of the 

 true blood-suckers; and 'when it's bad weather for 

 thieves/ they say, 'the true man may sleep the 

 sounder/ let the rain rattle on his corn-stack how it 

 may. ' Let Mr. Lion roar again/ you will say, when 

 you've seen the end. Even your tiny Mole is a ruth- 

 less beast of the field to slugs, and snails, and cater- 

 pillars, and such land-sucking fry a fierce subnavi- 

 gator, in his way : but his track turns up some pretty 

 cidtivation ; it only wants spreading, far and wide ! 

 it's not so wise to throttle him as you think. I grieve 

 to see him hanging gibbeted his clever paddles stopt, 

 by cruel ignorance. For he is your only granulation - 

 master ; he taught us drainage and ^-cultivation 

 and we shall learn of him another, and a greater lesson, 

 some day, and call him a prophet when we've done 

 hanging him and have got some speculation in our 

 own eyes (whose sense is shut at present), instead of 

 saying he can't see. Day and Night ! HE has the 

 better right to say so of us ! But as for this price-of- 

 corii question this grain crop versus Green crop 

 trust me, Nature has her true Proportions and is 

 pretty rigorous in maintaining them : and you cannot 



