'THE DEWY MORN' 245 



more prosperity in English agriculture till the entire 

 system is revised ; till a man can cultivate the land free 

 from vexatious hindrances, medieval hindrances, super- 

 stitious hindrances, and burdens such as tithes, ordinary 

 and extraordinary ' ; that the Church is ' a huge octopus ' ; 

 and, finally, that he has ' done with the steward, with the 

 solicitor, with the parson, with the gardener, and the 

 gamekeeper . . . with the groom, and the whole circle of 

 despicable sycophants.' There has been a change since 

 ' Hodge and His Masters.' It is noticeable everywhere, 

 and nowhere so much as where he speaks again of the 

 peasant's ingratitude : ' for one act of kindness in eighty 

 years, why should they feel grateful ?' The labourer 

 ' must still be a serf,' he says, when he can be turned out 

 of employment and home at once. He has become as 

 bitter against things as they are ordained by the land- 

 owners as he used to be against their opponents ; he is 

 pleased with what he called ' the deep etching ' in his 

 description of the Cornleigh estate, where if a girl has an 

 illegitimate child she and her parents, or whoever lives 

 with her, have to leave the cottage ; for ' the rulers at the 

 House, whether the haughty ladies or their shaven advisers, 

 looked with such sacerdotal horror upon this inexpiable 

 crime that nothing less than absolute extinction could 

 suffice.' ' Why,' he asks, ' should any one person possess 

 the power to issue such a ukase ? They do possess the 

 power, and will do so while nine-tenths of each agricul- 

 tural hamlet are at the absolute disposal of the proprietor 

 of the soil.' He has nothing to say against the Ballot 

 Act now. Ridiculing Lsetitia Cornleigh's scheme for 

 * The Encouragement of Art Culture in the Homes of the 

 Poor,' he says true things about Art : 



' For the enjoyment of art it is first of all necessary to 

 have a full belly. 



* May I inquire, too, of any painter, if such chances to 

 light on these pages, whether he would consider it likely 

 to encourage a love of art merely to hang a picture on a 

 wall ? whether he has not known even well-educated and 



