he now having been an advocate until we come to discuss the for lowering the price of Corn, means, which you propose to emwhile he assists in measures to ploy for diminishing the burden raise the value of money, and of the Debt. This discussion while he demands and obtains, an must be the subject of another augmentation of his own nominal letter, which shall be published Salary. You have discovered in my next; and, in the meanthat a man, dying and leaving his while, I leave you to chew the estate to his son with settlements cud, upon what I have here said to be paid out of the estate, may, to you, begging you to be asin consequence of a change in the sured, that we will have a famous value of money, not leave enough fight with you, before you shall to pay the legacies, and send his accomplish the plunder contemson to a Workhouse. You have plated in your book. Is it possi discovered even this; never, ble that you can be such a wretchdare say, in your whole life did ed driveller as to expect to take you read the letter to TIERNEY of us in, by your plan of cajolery, 1818! Oh! no, you are no pla-laid down in page 64? You will giarist, I'll warrant you! This not find ten labouring men, in all is all your own discovery; and it England, that you can impose was you, brilliant descendant of upon by such miserable cajolery. "John with the bright sword; "Oh! yes, I dare say we are going it was you, who discovered, the to be persuaded that you want to terms, "TAX-EATERS" and rob the Fundholders for OUR "BLOOD-SUCKERS," which GOOD! This might have passyou use, in page 36: it was you ed before the passing of Ellenwho discovered "STERN- borough's Bill, and the TransporPATH OF - DUTY - MAN," tation Poacher's Bill; before the which you have, in page 37: it hanging of so many men, for rewas you who discovered, in page sisting game-keepers; before the 68, the term "FUND-LORD:" invention of the Tread-mill; beit was you, who are the Discoverer fore the three women sent to the of all these things; and, in addi- Treadmill for five Pheasants' tion to these, you have discovered, eggs; before the Sunday Turn- · that the present Ministers are pike Toll Laws: before the more connected with Annuities Highway Act, which shuts roadthan with the Land. These are surveyors out of the Park, and all your own discoveries; or else lets them into the field, if it be you are the lowest, the meanest, but of a quarter of an acre; bethe basest plagiarist that ever put fore the New Trespass Law, pen to paper. However, the which sends the poor person to truth is, you are like the rest of Jail, for a trespass amounting to your order, in general, in whom, a penny, and which does not touch ninety-nine times out of a hun- the trespasser who commits dadred, we find met, character just mage to the amount of five as low, as their pretensions to pounds. Before these things, and birth are high. many others, that might be mentioned, never forgetting the Select Vestry Bill, the mass of the

What your character is, we do not, however, so clearly see,

I saw, the other day, in the MORNING HERALD London" best public instructor," that all those had deceived themselves, who had

common people might have felt ber, 1822. This is one of those differently, in a struggle between countries of chalk and flint and the Land and the Funds. As dry-top soil and hard roads and things now stand, it would be high and bare hills and deep dells, monstrous, indeed, if the labour- with clumps of lofty trees, here ing classes were to back those and there, which are so many who made the new Game Laws, rookeries: this is one of those and the new Trespass Laws. Un- countries, or, rather, approaching natural, indeed, and base, beyond towards those countries, of downs all description, would it be, if the and flocks of sheep, which I like, common people, the Working so much, which I always get to Classes, were to join the Land- when I can, and which many, owners, in ruining three hundred people seem to flee from as nathousand families, in the middle turally as men flee from pestilence. ranks of life; a thing which They call such countries naked could not fail to add greatly, to and barren, though they are, in the power, the haughtiness, the the summer months, actually insolence, and the cruelty, of those covered with meat and with corn. Land-owners; and for which reason, amongst many others that I shall notice, before I have done, I trust, that the people, in all parts of the country, will be upon expected to see the price of agrithe watch, with regard to this sub-cultural produce brought down by ject. WM. COBBETT. the lessening of the quantity of paper-money. Now, in the first place, corn is, on an average, a seventh lower in price than it was last year at this time; and, what would it have been, if the crop UPHUSBAND (Hampshire), and the stock had now been equal THURSDAY, 24TH AUG.-We left to what they were last year? Burghclere last evening, in the All in good time, therefore, good rain; but, as our distance was Mr. THWAITES. Let us have a only about seven miles, the con- little time. The "best public insequence was little.-The crops structors" have, as yet, only fallen, of corn, except oats, have been in number sold, about a third, very fine hereabouts; and, there since this time last year. Give are never any pease, nor any beans, them a little time, good Mr. grown here. The sainfoin fields, THWAITES, and you will see them though on these high lands, and come down to your heart's content. though the dry weather has been Only let us fairly see an end to of such long continuance, look as small notes, and there will soon green as watered meadows, and a be not two daily "best public ingreat deal more brilliant and beau-structors" left in all the "entire" tiful. I described this beautiful great "British Empire." village (which lies in a deep dell) But, as man is not to live on and its very variously shaped en- bread alone, so corn is not the virons, in my Register of Novem- only thing that the owners and

1701

RURAL RIDE.

occupiers of the land have to except fat cattle; and, observe, when the prospect is good, it shows a rise in the price of lean cattle; not in that of the meat, which is just ready to go into the mouth. Prices will go on gradually falling, as they did from 1819 1822 inclusive, unless upheld by untoward seasons, or by an issue of assignats; for, mind, it would be no joke, no sham, this time; it would be an issue of as real, as bona fide, assignats as ever came from the mint of any set of rascals that ever robbed and enslaved a people, in the names of “liberty and law."

look to. There are timber, bark, underwood, wool, hides, pigs, sheep, and cattle. All these together make, in amount, four times the corn, at the very least. I know that all these have greatly fallen in price since last year; but, I am in a sheep and wool country, and can speak positively as to them, which are two articles of very great importance. As to sheep; I am speaking of South Downs, which are the great stock of these counties; as to sheep, they have fallen one-third in price since last August, lambs as well as ewes. And, as to the wool, it EAST EVERLEY (Wiltshire,) sold, in 1824, at 40s. a tod; it SUNDAY, 27TH AUG. EVENING.— sold last year, at 35s. a tod; and We set off from UPHUSBAND on it now sells at 19s. a ted! A tod Friday, about ten o'clock, the is 28 lbs. avoirdupois weight; so morning having been wet. My that the price of South Down sons came round, in the chaise, wool now is, 8d. a pound and a by ANDOVER and WEYHILL, while fraction over; and this is, I be- I came right across the country lieve, cheaper than it has ever towards LUDGARSHALL, which lies been known within the memory in the road from Andover to this of the oldest man living! The place. I never knew the flies "best public instructor" may, so troublesome, in England, as I perhaps, think, that sheep and found them in this ride. I was wool are a trifling affair. There obliged to carry a great bough, are many thousands of farmers and to keep it in constant motion, who keep each a flock of at least in order to make the horse peacea thousand sheep. An ewe yields able enough to enable me to keep about 3 lbs. of wool, a wether, on his back. It is a country of 4lbs., a ram 7 lbs. Calculate, fields, lanes, and high hedges; so good Mr. Thwaites, what a differ- that no wind could come to relieve ence it is when this wool becomes my horse; and, in spite of all I 8d. a pound instead of 17d. and could do, a great part of him was instead of 30d. as it was not many covered with foam from the sweat. years ago! In short, every mid- In the midst of this, I got, at one dling sheep-farmer receives, this time, a little out of my road, in, year, about 250l. less, as the pro- or near, a place called TANGLEY. duce of sheep and wool, than he I rode up to the garden-wicket of received last year; and, on an a cottage, and asked the woman, average, 2501. is more than half who had two children, and who his rent. seemed to be about thirty years old, which was the way to LUDGARSHALL, which I knew could

There is a great falling off in the price of horses, and of all cattle

66

some

not be more than about four miles to accept of my best thanks. off. She did not know! A very WILDING (that is the man's name) Heat, smart, and pretty woman; was full of expressions of gratibut, she did not know the way to tude towards these gentlemen. this rotten-borough, which was, He spoke of others who were I was sure, only about four miles good to him on his way; and even off! 66 Well, my dear good at CALAIS he found friends on my woman," said I, "but you have account; but, he was particularly been at LUDGARSHALL?"- "No." loud in his praises of the gentle"Nor at ANDOVER?" (six miles men in KENT, who had been so another way) "No."-" Nor at good and so kind to him, that he MARLBOROUGH?" (nine miles seemed quite in an extacy when another way) "No."- "Pray, he talked of their conduct. were you born in this house?". Before I got to the rotten-bo"Yes.""And, how far have rough, I came out upon a Down, you ever been from this house?" just on the border of the two coun"Oh! I have been up in the ties, Hampshire and Wiltshire. parish, and over to Chute." That Here I came up with my sons, is to say, the utmost extent of her and we entered the rotten-borough voyages had been about two and together. It contained a half miles! Let no one laugh rashers of bacon and a very civil. at her, and, above all others, let landlady; but, it is one of the not me, who am convinced, that most mean and beggarly places the facilities, which now exist of that man ever set his eyes on. The moving human bodies from place curse, attending corruption, seems to place, are amongst the curses to be upon it. The look of the of the country, the destroyers of place would make one swear, that industry, of morals, and, of course, there never was a clean shirt in it, of happiness. It is a great error since the first stone of it was laid. to suppose, that people are ren- It must have been a large place dered stupid by remaining always once, though it now contains only in the same place. This was a 479 persons, men, women, and very acute woman, and as well children. The borough is, as to behaved as need to be. There all practical purposes, as much was, in July last (last month) a private property as this pen is my PRESTON-MAN, who had never private property. Aye, aye! Let been further from home than the petitioners of Manchester CHORLEY (about eight or ten bawl, as long as they like, against miles), and who started off, on all other evils; but, until they foot, and went, alone, to RoUEN, touch this master-evil, they do noin France, and back again to Lon- thing at all. don, in the space of about ten EVERLEY is but about three miles days; and that, too, without being from LUDGARSHALL, So that we able to speak, or to understand, a got here in the afternoon of Friword of French!-N. B. Those day; and, in the evening a very gentlemen, who, at GREEN-heavy storm came and drove away STREET, in Kent, were so kind all flies, and made the air delightto this man, upon finding that he ful. This is a real Down-counhad voted for ane, will be pleased try. Here you see miles and

•

miles square without a tree, or hedge, or bush. It is a country of green-sward. This is the most famous place in all England for coursing. I was here, at this very inn, with a party eighteen years ago; and, the landlord, who is still the same, recognized me as soon as he saw me. There were forty brace of greyhounds taken out into the field on one of the days, and every brace had one course, and some of them two. The ground is the finest in the world: from two to three miles for the hare to run to cover, and not a stone nor a bush nor a billock. It was here proved to me, that the hare is, by far, the swiftest of all English animals; for I saw three hares, in one day, run away from the dogs. To give dog and hare a fair trial, there should be but one dog. Then, if that dog got so close as to compel the hare to turn, that would be a proof that the dog ran fastest. When the dog, or dogs, never get near enough to the hare to induce her to turn, she is said, and very justly, to "run away" from them; and, as I saw three hares do this in one day, I conclude, that the hare is the swiftest animal of the two.

of shrubs and flowers, and of shortgrass very neatly kept. In the lower part of the garden there are high trees, and, amongst these, the tulip-tree and the live-oak. Beyond the garden is a large clump of lofty sycamores, and, in these a most populous rookery, in which, of all things in the world, I delight. The village, which con-tains 301 souls, lies to the north of the inn, but adjoining its premises. All the rest, in every di-. rection, is bare down or openarable. I am now sitting at one' of the southern windows of this inn, looking across the garden to-wards the rookery. It is nearly sun-setting; the rooks are skimming and curving over the tops of the trees; while, under the branches, I see a flock of several hundred sheep, coming nibbling their way in from the Down, and going to their fold.

Now, what ill-natured devil could bring OLD NIC GRIMSHAW into my head in company with these innocent sheep? Why, the truth is this: nothing is so swift as thought: it runs over a life-time in a moment; and, while I was writing the last sentence of the foregoing paragraph, thought took This inn is one of the nicest, me up at the time when I used to and, in summer, one of the plea-wear a smock-frock and to carry santest, in England; for, I think, a wooden bottle like that shepthat my experience in this way herd's boy; and, in an instant, it will justify me in speaking thus hurried me along through my no positively. The house is large, very short life of adventure, of the yard and the stables good, the toil, of peril, of pleasure, of ardent landlord a farmer also, and, there- friendship and not less ardent enfore, no cribbing your horses in mity; and after filling me with hay or straw and yourself in eggs wonder, that a heart and mind so and cream. The garden, which wrapped up in every thing belongadjoins the south side of the house, ing to the gardens, the fields and is large, of good shape, has a ter- the woods, should have been conrace on one side, lies on the slope, demned to waste themselves away consists of well-disposed clumps amidst the stench, the noise and

f