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with gentlemen-farmers, and they are the sources of all improvement. His heroes are Tull, who introduced turnips; and Weston, who introduced clover; and Lord Townshend and Mr. Allen, who introduced marling into Norfolk. Wherever he sees a gentleman who has the sense to devote himself to such labours, he pours out blessings on his head. I do not know whether he is most enthusiastic over the Marquis of Rockingham, who had taught the farmers of Yorkshire to grow better crops; or over the Duke of Bridgewater, whose great canal was among the first symptoms of the great manufacturing development of Lancashire. He has an incarnation of the spirit of improvement which was transforming England in his days; and there is something pleasant in his sanguine optimism as to public affairs, when his own little enterprises were anything but prosperous. The darker side of the great industrial revolution which was to alarm Cobbett was still hidden from him. The growth of pauperism, which began with war and famine at the end of the century, was still in the future. In the earlier period all patriots were still lamenting over an imaginary decline of the population, which could