medicine--although I will not say "quack,"
because that is actionable [laughter]--I will say of a medicine of which
I do not know the properties. [Laughter.]

But I turned my eyes beyond the land and ocean, and I turned them to the
heavens, and I said, "There, at any rate, we are safe." The painter of
the present may turn his eye from the land and ocean, but in the skies
he can always find some great effect which cannot be polluted. At this
moment I looked from the railway-carriage window, and I saw the skeleton
of a gigantic tower arising. It had apparently been abandoned at a lofty
stage, possibly in consequence of the workmen having found that they
spoke different languages at the height at which they had arrived.
[Laughter.] I made inquiries, and I found that it was the enterprise of
a great speculator, who resides himself on a mountain, and who is
equally prepared to bore under the ocean or ascend into the heavens. I
was given to understand that this admirable erection comprised all the
delights of a celestial occupation without any detachment from
terrestrial pursuits. [Laughter.] But I am bound to say that if
buildings of that kind are to cover this country, and if they are to be
joined to the advertising efforts to which I have alluded, neither
earth, nor sea, nor sky in Great Britain will be fit subject for any
painter. [Cheers.]

What, then, is the part of Her Majesty's Government in this critical and
difficult circumstance? We have--no, I will not say we have, because
there would be a protest on the left--but different governments have
added allotments to the attractions of rural neighborhoods. I venture to
think that an allotment is not an unpicturesque thing. Certainly, small
holdings are more picturesque than large holdings, but I do not say that
from the point of view in which Sydney Smith said that the difference
between the picturesque and the beautiful was that the rector's horse
was beautiful, and that the curate's horse was picturesque. [Laughter.]
I simply mean that a small holding is more picturesque than a large
holding, and I think we may hope that the parish councils, if they meet,
as they did in primeval times, under the shade of some large spreading
oak, and not in the public house which we so much fear, as their
headquarters, may yet add a picturesque feature to the rural landscape
of Great Britain.

But there is one feature at which a government can always aim as adding
to the landscape