o communicate his satisfaction to
others, and to make them happy as he is himself, and tends naturally to
establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."

It is humiliating to reflect, that a thievish orator at one of our
Agricultural Fairs might appropriate page after page out of the
"Gentleman Farmer" of Lord Kames, written in the middle of the last
century, and the county-paper, and the aged directors, in clean
shirt-collars and dress-coats, would be full of praises "of the
enlightened views of our esteemed fellow-citizen." And yet at the very
time when the critical Scotch judge was meditating his book, there was
erected a land light-house, called Dunston Column, upon Lincoln Heath,
to guide night travellers over a great waste of land that lay a
half-day's ride south of Lincoln. And when Lady Robert Manners, who had
a seat at Bloxholme, wished to visit Lincoln, a groom or two were sent
out the morning before to explore a good path, and families were not
unfrequently lost for days[J] together in crossing the heath. And this
same heath, made up of a light fawn-colored sand, lying on "dry, thirsty
stone," was, twenty years since at least, blooming all over with rank,
dark lines of turnips; trim, low hedges skirted the level highways; neat
farm-cottages were flanked with great saddle-backed ricks; thousands
upon thousands of long-woolled sheep cropped the luxuriant pasturage,
and the Dunston column was down.

About the time of Lord Kames's establishment at Blair-Drummond, or
perhaps a little earlier, a certain Master Claridge published "The
Country Calendar; or, The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to know of the
Change of the Weather." It professed to be based upon forty years'
experience, and is said to have met with great favor. I name it only
because it embodies these old couplets, which still lead a vagabond life
up and down the pages of country-almanacs:--

"If the grass grows in Janiveer,
It grows the worst for't all the year."

"The Welshman had rather see his dam on the bier.
Than to see a fair Februeer."

"When April blows his horn,
It's good both for hay and corn."

"A cold May and a windy
Makes a full barn and a findy."

"A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
But a swarm in July
Is not worth a fly."

Will any couplets of Tennyson reap as large a fame?

About the same period, John Mills, a Fellow of the Royal Society,
published a work of