DISSOLVING VIEWS. 83 



old age to what they used to do ; inverting her 

 established strata, shovelling Lias, Chalk, and Red- 

 sandstone over each other in most admired disorder, 

 leaving only these frail memorials standing as if by 

 way of a small sample of l England before the 

 Conquest' of spade and wheelbarrow. 



When looking over the changed aspect of a twenty 

 acre field, w r ith its drained, deepened, levelled, ma- 

 nured, turnipped, barleyed soil, smoothly smiling 

 under the sunshine in its first year's Clover, how 

 often I have wished that some such relic of its 

 original state could have survived, to present to the 

 unimaginative eye that now sees it for the first time, 

 the long story 



' Eheu ! quantua equis, quantus erat viris 

 Sudor ! ' 



and furnish a reply of befitting smartness to the 

 cold-blooded cruelty of look and phrase that extin- 

 guishes all your pride-full thoughts by some such 

 damning praise as this : '"Well ! a very nice field ; 

 a very beautiful field, indeed! very nice, but a I 

 don't see anything particular, not very particular, in 

 it. I'm no farmer, you know ; you'll excuse me,' &c. 

 ' Excuse you ! Why, what upon earth did you 

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