[16] Praise big farms; stick by little ones. [17] This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro Bussolino, and given as an appendix to the _Serie degli Scritti in Dialetto Venez._, by Bart. Gamba. [18] _De Consol. Phil._ Lib. II. [19] See Gibbon,--opening of Chapter LIII. [20] As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim. The "Geoponica" has,--[Greek: "Pollo ton agron ameino poiei despotou synechês parousia."] Lib. II. Cap. i. Columella says,--"Ne ista quidem præsidia tantum pollent, quantum vel una præsentia domini." I. i. 18. Cato says,--"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv. Palladius puts it,--"Præsentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi. And the elder Pliny writes,--"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt." [21] "E molti libri d'antichi e de' novelli savi lessi e studiai, e diverse e varie operazioni de' coltivalori delle terre vidi e conobbi." [22] "Il proprio cibo delle piante sara aleuno humido ben mischiato." Cap. xiii. [23] Crescenzi'a book was written in Latin, but was very shortly after (perhaps by himself) rendered into the street-tongue of Italy. [24] See Roscoe, _Life of Lorenzo de' Medici_, Chap. VIII. THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN. The circumstances _were_ a little peculiar,--it is in vain to deny it. No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel Prowley's during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office occupied by far the greater part of my time and attention. And really, when you think of the "remarkable men" long identified with this ancient river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable. Chosen a member of the "Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society" during my first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing was----But stop!--to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence. For, as the reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to slacken his epistolary attentions after the success of his little scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife turned out to possess the feminine facility of letter-writing, and was good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted to their perusal. It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following communication:--