MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE. 225 



garden culture, as the lexicographers and philologists 

 are related to those who use language to enwrap a 

 sermon or a plea ; a finical nicety, if it engross them, 

 will be at the cost of vigor and directness of thought. 

 So of the improved races of poultry. The hen- 

 fanciers are, I dare say, very worthy people ; far be 

 it from me to pluck a feather from the tail of any of 

 their brood. But to my obscure sense, an egg is 

 always very much of an egg, whatever fowl may have 

 the laying of it. Nor can I detect much difference 

 between a " broiler " of the Chittagong, or any other 

 heathen family, and the " broiler " Bridget may dress, 

 and lay before me at a June breakfast, from the 

 cackling company that have always laid and scratched 

 about the dung-hills of our Christian country. Nay, 

 I take a rather pleasant entertainment, in fancying my 

 cheerful and cackling barn-door brood are lineally 

 descended from those veterans of the British roost, 

 who, under the name of Chanticleer, have for so 

 many centuries lifted up their welcome to the morn- 

 ing. There are family associations which are a source 

 of pride ; what if my gallant fellow in white, yonder, 

 with golden legs, and blood-red comb, curveting with 

 wings down-spread, and giving a coquettish look to 

 the demure feathered people of his harem, comes in 

 direct lineage from the alert old Chanticleer of the 

 House that Jack Built ? 

 10* 



