MANURES 89 



Yes, here is the mine of gold and silver, gold medals 

 and silver cups for the grower of prize Roses ; and to 

 all who love them, the best diet for their health and 

 beauty, the most strengthening tonic for their weak- 

 ness, and the surest medicine for disease. ' Dear 

 me ! ' exclaims some fastidious reader, ' what a nasty 

 brute the man is ! He seems quite to revel in refuse, 

 and to dance on his dunghill with delight!' The 

 man owns to the soft impeachment. If the man had 

 been a Roman emperor he would have erected the 

 most magnificent temple in honour of Sterculus, 

 the son of Faunus, that Rome ever saw. Because 

 Sterculus, the son of Faunus — so Pliny tells — dis- 

 covered the art and advantage of spreading dung 

 upon the land ; and he should have appeared in the 

 edifice dedicated to him, graven larger than life in 

 pure gold, riding proudly in his family chariot, the 

 currus Stercorostis {^Anglice, muck-cart), with the 

 agricultural trident in his hand. As it is, I always 

 think of him with honour when I meet the vehicle in 

 which he loved to drive — have ever a smile of extra 

 sweetness for the wide-mouthed waddling charioteer, 

 and am pained at heart to find the precious com- 

 modity fallen, or, as they say in Lancashire, ' slattered,' 

 on the road. Ah ! but once that fastidious reader will 

 be pleased to hear, the man brought himself to sore 

 3hame and confusion by this wild, passionate affec- 



