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    aid ? village-green , under the old eldertree by some ancient cottage , or half- , bidden by the overhanging boughs of a wood ; I love to see the . smooth , dry . track , winding away in easy , curves , along some green ; slope to the churchyard , to the forest - grange , or to some embowered cottage . It is to me an object of certain inspiration . It seems to

    invite one from noise and publicity into the heart of solitude , and of rural delight . It beckons the imagination on through green aud whispering corn-fields , through the short but verdant pasture ; the flowering , mowing grass ; the odorous and sunny hay-field ; the festivity of harvest ; from lonely farm to farm , from village to village ; by clear , and mossy wells ; by tinkling brooks and deep

    wood-skirted streams , to crofts where the daffodil is rejoicing in spring , or meadows where the large blue geranium embellishes the summer way-side ; to heaths with their warm elastic sward , and crimson bells : the chittering of grass-hoppers ; the fox-glove , and the old gnarled oak ; in short , to all the solitary haunts after which the city-pent lover of nature pants ' as the hart panteth after the water-brooks . ' What is there

    so truly English ? What is so truly linked with our rural tastes , our sweetest memories , and our sweetest poetry , as stiles and foot-paths ? Goldsmith , and Thomson , and Milton have adorned them with some of their richest wreaths . ' * ' '••• € < Again I say I love field-paths , and stiles of all species , ay , even the most inaccessible piece of rustic erection ever set up in

    defiance of age , laziness , and obesity . How many scenes of frolic and merry confusion have I seen at a clumsy stile ! What exclamations , and blushes , and fine eventual vaulting on the part of the ladies ; and what an opportunity does it afford to beaux of exhibiting a variety of gallant and delicate attentions ! I consider a rude stile as any thing but an impediment in the course of a rural courtship .

    " Those , good old turnstiles too , can I ever forget them ? the hours I have spun round upon them when a boy , or those in . which 1 have almost laughed myself to death at the remembrance of my village . pedagogue ' s disaster ? Methiuks I see

    bim now—the time a sultry day—the domine a goodly person of some eighteen or twenty stone— -the scene , a foot-path , sentinelled with turns tiles , one of which held , him fast , as , in amazement at his bulk . *} ever shal ) I , forget his efforts anq agonies to extricate himself , nor his

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    lion-like roars which brought some la-, bourers to bis assistance , who , when they had recovered from their convulsions of laughter , knocked off the top of the turnstile and let him ; go ! It is long since I saw a stile of this construction , and . I suspect the Falstaffs have , cried , them down ; but , without a jest , stiles and foot-paths are vanishing everywhere .

    There is nothing upon which the advance of wealth and population have made such serious inroads . As lands have increased in value , wastes and heaths have been parcelled out and inclosed ; but seldom have foot-paths been left . The poet and the naturalist , who before had , perhaps , the greatest real property in them , have had no allotment ; they have been totally driven . out of the promised land . " *

    ' * It is but too true that the pressure of contiguous pride has driven farther the public from the rich man ' s lands . ' They make a solitude and call it peace . ' Even the quiet and picturesque foot-paths that led across his fields , or stole along his wood side , giving to the poor man with his burden a cooler and nearer cut to

    the village , is become a nuisance . One would have thought that the rustic labourer , with his scythe on his shoulder , or his bill-hook and hedging mittens in his hand , the cottage-dame in her black bonnet ami scarlet cloak , the neat village maiden , in the sweetness of health and simplicity , or the boy sti oiling along full of life and curiosity , might have had sufficient interest in themselves for a

    cultivated taste , not merely to tolerate , but to welcome , passing occasionally at a distance across the park or wood , as objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of the hall . But they have not , and what is more , they are commonly the most jealous of pedestrian trespassers who seldom visit their own estates , but permit the seasons- to scatter their charms

    around their villas and rural possessions without the heart to enjoy or even the presence to behold them . How often have 1 myself been arrested in some long frequented dale , in some spot endeared by its own beauties and the fascinations of memory , by a board exhibiting in giant characters , * stopped by an order of Sessions , ' and denouncing the terrors of

    the law upon trespassers I This is a little too much . I would not be querulous for the poor against the rich ; I would not teach them to look with a covetous eye upon their villas ,, lawns , cattle , and equipage : but when the path of immemorial , usage is closed , when the little streak , almost as fine as a mathematical line , along the wealthy man ' s ample nqld

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    544- Critical Notices .- ^ Miscellaneous .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1831, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2600/page/40/