le of our article recalls our wandering thoughts, and our
talk must be of Cottages. Now, think not, beloved reader, that we care
not for Cottages, for that would indeed be a gross mistake. But our very
affections are philosophical; our sympathies have all their source in
reason; and our admiration is always built on the foundation of truth.
Taste, and feeling, and thought, and experience, and knowledge of this
life's concerns, are all indispensable to the true delights the
imagination experiences in beholding a beautiful _bona fide_ Cottage. It
must be the dwelling of the poor; and it is that which gives it its
whole character. By the poor, we mean not paupers, beggars; but families
who, to eat, must work, and who, by working, may still be able to eat.
Plain, coarse, not scanty, but unsuperfluous fare is theirs from
year's-end to year's-end, excepting some decent and grateful change on
chance holidays of nature's own appointment--a wedding or a christening,
or a funeral. Yes, a funeral; for when this mortal coil is shuffled off,
why should the hundreds of people that come trooping over muirs and
mosses to see the body deposited, walk so many miles, and lose a whole
day's work, without a dinner? And if there be a dinner, should it not be
a good one? And if a good one, will the company not be social? But this
is a subject for a future paper, nor need such paper be of other than a
cheerful character. Poverty, then, is the builder and beautifier of all
huts and cottages. But the views of honest poverty are always hopeful
and prospective. Strength of muscle and strength of mind form a truly
Holy Alliance; and the future brightens before the steadfast eyes of
trust. Therefore, when a house is built in the valley, or on the
hill-side--be it that of the poorest cottar--there is some little room,
or nook, or spare place, which hope consecrates to the future. Better
times may come--a shilling or two may be added to the week's
wages--parsimony may accumulate a small capital in the Savings-bank
sufficient to purchase an old eight-day clock, a chest of drawers for
the wife, a curtained bed for the lumber-place, which a little labour
will convert into a bedroom. It is not to be thought that the
pasture-fields become every year greener, and the cornfields every
harvest more yellow--that the hedgerows grow to thicker fragrance, and
the birch-tree waves its tresses higher in the air, and expands its
white-rinded stem almost to the bulk of