'CALX' AND RECALCITRATION. 37 



periments/ thought I to myself, as I wandered, in 

 the gloomy evenings of December and January, 

 amongst the square clods that lay exhumed upon the 

 surface of the field, with the spade-mark inscribed in 

 frozen obduracy upon their sides, like the blocks 

 in the quarries of Syracuse dated with the tool- 

 marks of twenty centuries ago ! ' Easy work to 

 preach experiments, that take a year to make, and 

 another to judge of, and another, and perhaps another 

 still, to see the whole result of, to men whose 

 " threescore years and ten " were hardly a sufficient 

 Lease in which to scrape together a dozen facts 

 beyond what their fathers knew ! ' A pretty homily 

 upon LEASES there lies in these clods that have 

 been keeping sentry here these three months, while 

 the Manufacturer has worn a steam-engine from 

 new to old, and the Trader has turned over half his 

 capital, and briskly put in a fresh stock of ' Spring 

 Fashions.' In the name of Common Sense, that 

 useful ' raw material ' which England has as 

 plentiful as Coal and Iron, what dead carcase has 

 been chained to this living Art of Arts to clog its 

 progress and to rot its vital powers, by adding the 

 curse of INSECURITY of TENURE to its already 

 arduous and time-and-patience-needing problems ! 

 If it be Mind that acts upon Matter, what is it that 



