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I will provide, yes though they three do cost me a couple of hundred pounds by year: and beside, you shall find me as fast a friend to you and yours, as perchance any you have. Which promise the worthy gentleman surely kept with me, until his dying day.

We had then further talk together of bringing up of children: of the nature of quick and hard wits of the right choice of a good wit: of fear and love in teaching children. We passed from children and came to young men, namely, gentlemen: we talked of their too much liberty, to live as they lust: of their letting loose too soon, to overmuch experience of ill, contrary to the good order of many old commonwealths of the Persians and Greeks of wit gathered, and good fortune gotten by some, only by experience, without learning. And lastly, he required of me very earnestly to show what I thought of the common going of Englishmen into Italy. But, saith he, because this place and this time will not suffer so long talk as these good matters require, therefore I pray you, at my request, and at your leisure, put in some order of writing the chief points of this our talk, concerning the right order of teaching and honesty of living, for the good bringing up of children and young men. And surely, beside contenting me, you shall both please and profit very many others. I made some excuse by lack of ability, and weakness of body: Well, saith he, I am not now to learn what you can do. Our dear friend, good Mr. Goodricke, whose judgment I could well believe, did once for all satisfy me fully therein. Again, I heard you say, not long ago, that you may thank Sir John Cheke for all the learning you have: and I know very well myself that you did teach the Queen. And, therefore, seeing God did so bless you to make you the scholar of the best master, and also the schoolmaster of the best scholar, that ever were in our time, surely you should please God, benefit your country, and honour your own name, if you would take the pains to impart to others what you learned of such a master, and how ye taught such a scholar. And in uttering the stuff ye received of the one, in declaring the order ye took with the other, ye shall never lack neither matter nor manner what to write, nor how to write in this kind of argument.

I beginning some farther excuse, suddenly was called to come to the Queen. The night following I slept little, my head was so full of this our former talk, and I so mindful somewhat to satisfy the honest request of so dear a friend, I thought to prepare some little treatise for a

New Year's gift that Christmas; but as it chanceth to busy builders, so in building this my poor school-house (the rather because the form of it is somewhat new and differing from others) the work rose daily higher and wider than I thought it would at the beginning.

And though it appear now, and be in very deed but a small cottage, poor for the stuff, and rude for the workmanship, yet in going forward, I found the site so good as I was loath to give it over, but the making so costly outreaching my ability, as many times I wished that some one of those three, my dear friends with full purses, Sir Thomas Smith, Mr. Haddon, or Mr. Watson, had had the doing of it. Yet, nevertheless, I myself spending gladly that little that I gat at home by good Sir John Cheke, and that that I borrowed abroad of my friend Sturmius, beside somewhat that was left me in reversion by my old masters Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, I have at last patched it up as I could, and as you see.

6

108.-GARDENS.

JESSE.

[MR. EDWARD JESSE, Surveyor of her Majesty's Parks, Palaces,' &c., is the author of several volumes which have had a deserved popularity, as the faithful observations of an intelligent and reflective mind upon the common appearances of Nature, the more interesting from their familiarity. Mr. Jesse appears to have taken for his model White of Selborne. The volume from which we extract the follow ing passage, entitled 'Scenes and Tales of Country Life,' was published in 1844.]

The love of gardens and of gardening appears to be almost exclusively confined to the English, and is partaken of by the poor as well as by the rich. Nothing can be prettier than the gardens attached to the thatched cottages in Devonshire. They are frequently to be seen on the side and oftener at the bottom of a hill, down which a narrow road leads to a rude single-arched stone bridge. Here a shallow stream may be seen flowing rapidly, and which now and then stickles, to use a Devonshire phrase, over a pavement of either pebbles or ragA little rill descends by the side of the lane, and close to the hedge of the cottage, which is approached by a broad stepping stone

stone.

over the rill, and beyond it is a gate made of rough sticks, which leads to the cottage. At a short distance, an excavation has been cut out of the bank, and paved round with rough stones, into which the water finds and then again makes its way, clear and sparkling. This is the cottager's well. His garden is gay with flowers. His bees are placed on each side of a window surrounded with honeysuckles, jessamine, or a flourishing vine, and the rustic porch is covered with these or other creepers. Here, also, the gorgeous hollyhock may be seen in perfection, for it delights in the rich red soil of Devonshire. Giantstocks, carnations, and china-asters, flourish from the same cause, and make the garden appear as though it belonged to Flora herself.

Nor must the little orchard be forgotten. The apple-trees slope with the hill, and in the spring are covered with a profusion of the most beautiful blossom, and in the autumn are generally weighed down with their load of red fruit. Under them may be seen a crop of potatoes, and in another part of the garden those fine Paington cabbages, one of the best vegetables of the county. In a sheltered nook is the thatched pig-sty, partly concealed by the round yellowfaced sunflower, which serves both as a screen and as an ornament. The mud or cob walls of the cottage add to its picturesque appearance, when partly covered with creepers and surrounded with flowers.

Such is an accurate description of one of the many cottages I have seen in the beautiful and hospitable county of Devon, so celebrated for its illustrious men and the beauty of its women. Those who, like myself, have wandered amongst its delightful lanes, will not think my picture overcharged.

But I must introduce my readers to the inside of a Devonshire cottage. On entering it, he will see the polished dresser glittering with bright pewter plates; the flitch of bacon on the rack, with paper bags stored with dried pot-herbs, for winter use, deposited near it; the bright dog-bars, instead of a grate, with the cottrel over them, to hang the pot on, and every thing bespeaking comfort and cleanliness. The cottager's wife will ask him to sit down, in that hearty Devo shire phrase, which has often been addressed to me, and which I al. ways delighted in-"Do y', Sir, pitch yourself," bringing forward a chair at the same time, and wiping it down with her apron. A cup of cider will be offered, or bread and cheese, or whatever the cottage affords.

I have known one of the children stealthily sent to a neighbouring farmer's for a little clotted cream, which has been set before me with a loaf of brown bread, and with the most hearty good-will. They are so delicious a banquet, that Pope might have thought of it when he said-

"Beneath the humble cottage let us haste,

And there, unenvied, rural dainties taste."

I have dwelt longer than I intended on the cottage scenery of Devonshire, because I think it stands pre-eminent in this country for beauty, and because I regard its peasantry as affording the best examples I have met with of unaffected kindness, civility, industry, and good conduct.

I have, on more than one occasion, expressed my admiration of the agricultural population of England; and I trust that the time is not far distant, when each individual amongst them will have an allotment of land, at a fair rent, for the better maintenance of themselves and their families, not in common fields, but attached to their houses.

The taste for gardens, however, is not confined to the rural districts. Round the town of Birmingham, for instance, there are some hundreds of small gardens, which are diligently cultivated by the working classes. Each garden has a little covered seat, where the owner has his glass of ale, and smokes his pipe, at the close of the evening; and here the finest auriculas, polyanthuses, carnations, &c., are to be met with. They are cultivated with the utmost skill and care, and may vie with any produced in this country. I have also been informed that our Spitalfields weavers have the same fondness for flowers, and are also amongst our best collectors of insects. In some other districts tulips are successfully cultivated, and in others the ranunculus and anemone. One man is celebrated for his fine stocks, another for his pansies, while a third will produce unrivalled gooseberries for size, or wall-flowers of the darkest hue. I am assured that, great and deplorable as the distress now is at Birmingham, a man would sell his clothes, his furniture, indeed, all that he possessed, sooner than part with his beloved garden.

Flowers are cultivated to a considerable extent, and with great success, in the neighbourhood of London, and especially in some parts of Surrey, in which county there are many exhibitions of flowers every year. Here the rich and poor may be seen assembled together, each

either admiring or criticising particular blooms, and the poor man appearing perfectly competent to appreciate their peculiar merits. It always affords me pleasure to witness these meetings, and to watch the gleam of satisfaction in the countenance of some cottager, when

"his garden's gem,

The heart's-ease,"

has been praised, or his well-cultivated show of potatoes or apples has obtained for him some trifling prize.

Persons of influence, residing in the country, should do their utmost to encourage the cultivation, not only of flowers, but of vegetables and bees, amongst their poorer neighbours. It not only tends to keep them out of ale and beer-houses, those curses of the labouring man in this country, but improves their minds, their habits, and health. An amiable florist has observed, that the love of flowers is one of the earliest impressions which the dawning of reason implants in the human mind, and that happy are the parents of children in whose imaginations this desirable predilection is early evinced. It inculcates a salutary habit of reasoning and thinking on subjects worthy of exercising the thoughts, and is calculated to improve them. It gradually trains the mind to the study and observance of that most instructive volume, the Book of Nature. The passion for flowers is, indeed, one of the most enduring and permanent of all enjoyments. At the coming of each revolving spring, we anxiously return to our loved and favourite pursuit; with joy and delight we perceive that

Ethereal mildness is come,

and that the glory of reviving nature is returned.

109.-HIGHLAND SNOW STORM.

JOHN WILSON.

[JOHN WILSON, the distinguished Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, was born at Paisley in 1788. He was the son of an opulent manufacturer, and received his elementary education at Glasgow University, proceeding afterwards to Magdalen College, Oxford. His poetical genius was developed at the university. He obtained the Newdegate Prize, and amidst a passion for athletic exercises, which distinguished himi n after-life, he was looked upon as one of the most remarkable young men of his day. Upon his leaving

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