ave thought of you and your
discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the
truth of your words, and to bless the lesson."

PARSON (much touched and flattered).--"I expected nothing less from you,
Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So
you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?"

SQUIRE.--"Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned
down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr.
Fairfield."

PARSON.--"That was not knowledge, Squire; that was ignorance."

SQUIRE.--"Ignorance! The deuce it was. I'll just appeal to you,
Mr. Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the
ringleader was just such another lad as you were!"

LEONARD.--"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazeldean. In what
respect?"

SQUIRE.--"Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed
little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and
Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor,
and the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose
one day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's
thrashing-machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire.
We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded
labourers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius,
thank Heaven, is sent packing to Botany Bay."

LEONARD.--"But did his books teach him to burn ricks and smash
machines?"

PARSON.--"No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no
hand in those misdoings."

SQUIRE.--"But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the
boobies who had! 'Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who
said to his enemy, 'I can't shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold
thy head under water till thou art drowned.' And so there is a set
of demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, 'Farmer, this is an
oppressor, and Squire, that is a vampire! But no violence! Don't smash
their machines, don't burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all
tyrants!' Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and
that the recommendation is to be read backwards, in the devil's way of
reading the Lord's prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought
to go to Botany Bay,--Hodge, who comes out like a man, if he thinks he
is wronged, or t' other sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to
keep hims