740 
Jlisior]) of the English Landed Interest. 
Englishman, says Lord Bacon, is the most master of his own 
valuation, and the least bitten in his purse of any nation in 
Europe. Lord Bacozi, it is said, had a large collection of 
English agricultural vrorks — here is a fine lesson for all agricul- 
tural writers — he one day had all these books piled up in his 
courtyard and burnt, for, said he', in all these books I find no 
principles ; they can therefore be of no use to any man. 
Shakespeare, whose all-seeing eye looked into the innermost 
jzarts of everything, understood farming thoroughlj'- and had 
grand ideas of that most ancient art ; in the Tamhig of the 
Shrew he makes C4remio say — 
“ Then at my farm 
I have a hundred milch kine to the pail, 
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls. 
And all things answerable to this portion.” 
There were indeed giants in those Tudor days. 
The Stuartine period is satisfactorily treated by Mr. Gamier ; 
amongst many other good things he gives a short history of 
highway legislation, and this reminds me of a bon mot of King 
Charles II., “ who never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a 
wise one.” He was so much taken with the dry soil and 
pleasant travelling in Norfolk that he said : “ Norfolk should be 
cut into strips to make highways for the rest of England.” A 
very curious and valuable little book published by the Surtees 
Society, Yol. XXXIII., appears to have escaped Mr. Garnier's 
attention — Rural Economy in Yorhshire in 1641, being the 
Farming Booh of Henry Best, of Elmswell, in the East Riding. I 
am further induced to give an extract or two from the invaluable 
diary of Pepys, chiefly because it enables me to point a moral : — 
“January 1, 1667-8. — Ileare they did talk muck of the present cheapness 
of come, even to a miracle ; so as their farmers can pay no rent, hut do fling 
up their lands ; and would pay in come. But what I did observe to my Lord, 
and he liked well of it, our gentry are grown so ignorant in everything of 
good husbandry, that they know not how to bestow this come ; which, but 
did they understand a little trade, they would bo able to joyne together and 
know what markets there are abroad, and send it thither, and thereby ease 
their tenants and be able to pay themselves. 
“ Again on January 31, 1667-8, Pepys writes: Jly visitor told me of the 
general want of money in the country, land sold for nothing ; he spol;e of the 
man}" pennyworths he knew in land and houses on them with good titles at 
sixteen years’ purchase. 1 have a mind he said for one thing, a bishop’s lease ; 
they cannot stand (i.e. the church) ; it will fall into the King’s hands, and I 
in possession shall have an advantage by it. 
“ And again on April 9, 1667. — Several do complain of abundance of land 
flung up by tenants out of their hands for want of ability to pay their rents 
—and liy name that the Duke of Buckingham hath 6,000 pounds so flung up.” 
It is curious to note liow Pepys had well grasped the germ 
