682 ON RURAL IMPROVEMENT, AND BOOK III. 



attachments; and will make indifferent soldiers or servants. In 

 the same kind of surface under cultivation, but without any 

 display of rural beauty, they will be coarse in address, cruel to 

 their families, and jealous of strangers; as in several parts of Ire- 

 land, France, and China. Even in England, those cottagers in 

 countries uninteresting though well cultivated, as Devonshire 

 and Wiltshire, are in general, rude and barbarous, compared 

 with those in the same counties near gentlemens' seats, or beau- 

 tiful scenery ; and far inferior in respect both of cleanliness and 

 elegance of mind to those in Hertford and Surrey. Neither 

 however have much of that kind of attachment to native coun- 

 try, and even to situation, which the peasantry of Cumberland, 

 Scotland, and many parts of Ireland, have. Born amid moan- 

 tains and rocky scenery, such objects make strong impres- 

 sions, which commence in infancy, and, increasing as they ap- 

 proach to manhood, became indelible. From the nature of the 

 human mind, every thing connected with these objects, whether 

 relations or employers, is drawn into the same vortex of asso- 

 ciation; and hence, whether such peasantry are allowed to 

 remain in their own country, or are impelled to go abroad, 

 their native mountains every where present themselves to the 

 imagination, and with them their parents, relations, beloved 

 females, neighbours, or landed gentlemen. 



All these effects belong to objects of taste, and shew that it 



