XXIV. 



CONCLUSION. 



DAY after ctay, month after month, year after year, 

 the labour of the Husbandman begins afresh. It is 

 without end, middle, or beginning. It defies the 

 ' Unities' of Time and Action. And as its nature 

 is, so must be its everlasting development, literary as 

 well as otherwise. To give it a somewhat livelier 

 tongue to rescue it, at least for an occasional hour, 

 from a tone and treatment which, under the boasted 

 title of ' practical,' would scare away from its deeply 

 interesting discussion all that has adorned as well as 

 advanced so many other equally laborious and less 

 naturally attractive pursuits, was the motive that sug- 

 gested the too desultory chronicle of deeds, of words, 

 of thoughts, that these pages have imperfectly re- 

 corded. A story without an end, a soliloquy without 

 a speaker, a dialogue without a denouement, and, what 

 is worse than all, a e Farm to let' without a Tenant ! 

 Such is the discursive and informal shape taken, as of 



