VI. 

 'CALX' AND RECALCITEATION. 



A LONG long time what a dreary time is Win- 

 ter ! Well may all Christendom have lent its com- 

 fortable efforts. through ages past, with a long and a 

 strong pull and a pull all together, to give a point and 

 a zest, and a time of almost legislative conviviality, 

 in the Christmas fire-side and good fellowship, by 

 way of in-door barricade, a sort of jovial rebellion, 

 against the long despotism of Jack Frost ! It is hard 

 to convey an adequate idea of the bounding pleasure 

 with which after watching, month after month 

 unchanged, the rugged uncouth results of that novel 

 piece of Autumn workmanship lately described I 

 saw at last the wholesome-looking combination of 

 such a heterogeneous variety of earths that had lain 

 icebound, as if for perpetual and stereotyped ugli- 

 ness, now melting down under the genial influences 

 of Spring, and that blessed pair of harrows, into 

 what old Evelyn must have especially had in his 

 eye when he talked of * a roscid and fertile mould.' 

 ' Easy work it is to preach about farming ex- 



