XVI PREFACE. 



knowledge of nature, he can be said to inhabit only 

 the mansion-house, and that but for a portion of the 

 year ; but with these he will inhabit the whole domain, 

 however ample; and instead of his importance being 

 rated by the thousands that he can spend in the year, 

 it will be rated by the fields, the forests, the groves, and 

 the waters, which lie around him, as a lovely and an 

 ever-open book ; and he and his family will find their 

 delight there, and they will cleave to their country and 

 their countrymen, with heart and soul, and their coun- 

 trymen will cleave to them, and the whole nation will 

 be linked together by that "cord of nature," which 

 God has made ; and sustained by that, all the charities 

 and all the gratitudes of the heart will be excited, and 

 peasant arid peer, while they preserve the ranks which 

 civilization assigns them, will be brothers in nature, and 

 each will vie with the other in striving who shall do the 

 first good office. 



This is not the doting dream of a lover of nature, but 

 a plain and philosophic truth. In the city, people of 

 different ranks stand scowling and apart; but when 

 they go to hunt, to fish, or to any other sport or occu- 

 pation in the fields, they are fellows. Nature thus 

 makes brotherhood ; and if all mankind would study 

 nature, all mankind would be brothers. 



This is a truth which often forced itself upon me 

 while sickening with disgust in the turmoil of politics; 

 and, now that I have " 'scaped the Stygian pool," I 

 earnestly and respectfully recommend it to the attention 

 of my fellow-countrymen. 



ROBERT MUDIE. 



GROVE COTTAGE, CHELSEA, 



Fel. 14, 1834. 



