proportion to their land, and with constant employment, and secure subsistence on their own little estates."[31] The influence such a mode of life produces on the character of the people is a consideration of higher moment than its economical results. And on this point observation seems in general to confirm the opinion which we should naturally form beforehand. Compared with the employments of mechanics, that of the husbandman demands a much higher and more habitual exercise of the faculty of judgment. His mind is not tied down to the repetition of the same act, chipping a stone, straightening a wire, watching the whirling of a wheel, from the beginning of the year to the end, but almost each day brings a new set of thoughts with it. He cannot proceed a step without forming processes of induction from his observations, and exercising his reason as to the connection of the manifold phenomena he sees around him with their proper causes. The peasant proprietor has to task his inventive faculties too, in order to turn all his humble resources to the best advantage; and his success depends more upon his intelligent use of the limited means at his command, than upon the mere bodily energy of his labour. Of such a person it is, therefore, truly and pregnantly said by Mr Laing, that though he may not be able to read or write, he has an educated mind--a mind trained and disciplined in the school of nature. And his position favours the development of his moral powers still more than his intellectual faculties, by teaching him patience, self-restraint, thought for the future, and, above all, that humility which can scarcely fail to be felt by one who finds himself ever in contact with unseen powers and influences beyond his control. The general diffusion of the means of comfort and of simple enjoyment, earned by unbought rural industry, is an idea that takes a strong hold of the imagination. The fancy wanders back to the days of the old yeomen of England, or further still to Horace's charming pictures of country life, or to Claudian's Old Man of Verona, thus rendered into glorious English by Sir John Beaumont:-- "Thrice happy he whose age is spent upon his owne, The same house sees him old that him a child hath known; He leans upon his staffe in sand where once he crept-- His memory long descentes of one poor cote hath kept. * * * * * Unskilful in affaires, he knows no city neare, So freely he enjoys the light of heaven more cleare. The yeeres by sev'rall corne--not consuls he computes; He notes the spring by floures, and autumne by the fruits-- One space put down the sun, and bring again his rays; Thus by a certaine orbe he measures out his dayes, Rememb'ring some greate oke from small beginning spred, He sees the woode grow old which with himself was bred," &c.