224 A Tioelve Days' Tour 



favourite day with many for giving and attending parties, who, at the same time, 

 are subscribing their money and using their influence for the suppression of 

 vice, and the establishment of Sabbath and other schools ; while at home they 

 expect their servants to attend divine service, though themselves are the cause 

 of such servants being absent. Surely such things ought not so to be. 



As far as the spiritual improvement of gardeners is concerned, perhaps you will 

 allow me to make another observation, which is, that they should have every 

 possible inducement to Sabbath-keeping, instead of being encouraged to Sab- 

 bath-breaking. Here I allude to gardening publications, which, I think, w'ould 

 be much better to be published on Tuesday instead of Saturday, Sunday, or 

 Monday. Surely gardeners, or under-gardeners, are not so highly paid as to 

 be able to purchase more of such works than their evenings would allow them 

 to read ; or, if some of them are, it were well if they would spend what they 

 cannot save on something that would be more proper for Sabbath reading. 

 Gardeners are, in general, fond of study. The retired situations in which they 

 practise, perhaps, makes them so. The things under their care require, in 

 many instances, attention on Sundays, as necessarily as the ox requires food or 

 vs^ater ; still there are many intervals in the day which may be, and usually 

 are, filled up with reading. 



To a mind unacquainted with spiritual things, nothing is more likely to 

 attract attention than a publication which treats on those subjects a know- 

 ledge of which it is so anxious to obtain ; thus imperceptibly drawing it away 

 from the pursuit after that knowledge which makes " wise unto salvation." 

 If, therefore, such publications came out on Tuesday, there are not many in 

 this country but might obtain them in time to read them before Sunday, and 

 have their minds at rest for attention to those things which that sacred day 

 requires. And here I would just notice what an amount of good might be 

 done, if employers would take care that their garden cottages, and, indeed, all 

 cottages on their estates, were furnished with a few religious, and at the same 

 time entertaining, books, for the improvement of those who are dependent on 

 them. This might be done at a very small expense, and would yield an abun- 

 dant return in the good they would accomplish. I have no doubt that some will 

 ridicule the attempt I have made to effect the alterations I have mentioned : 

 but, while societies are forming on evei'y side for the spiritual benefit of man- 

 kind, I do not see why something should not be done for a class of men who 

 are, in many instances, placed almost as much out of the reach of spiritual in- 

 struction as the heathen themselves ; and, above all, why the Horticultural 

 Society of London, which in every other respect is calculated to do so much 

 good, should be the means of thwarting the endeavours of wise and good 

 men, when it might so easily further them. Whatever ridicule, therefore, may 

 be heaped on me, I am prepared to meet it; being confident that I shall have 

 the commendation of all whose approbation is worth having, and also the 

 satisfaction of knowing that I hf^ve done what I could, 



Middlesex, Jan, 1843, 



Art. IV. Notes taken during a Twelve Days' Tour in Brittany and 

 Normandy, in July, 1842. By T. Rivers, Jun. 



Din AN. — After a most interesting voyage from St. Malo, 

 per steamer, up tlie Ranee*, about twenty miles, we arrived here, 



* Do we derive the name of our esteemed pear from this locality, or from 

 a small town or village near Metz of that name ? 



