so, the ice-house would again come into requisition, and there would be a condensed-milk factory on the premises." This was going back to the right line. He seems, however, to have done no more in this line until August of the next year (the month after his marriage), when he returned in earnest to the rural life, and never afterwards left it. His earliest and fastest friend was _Fraser's Magazine_, now, alas! defunct. But he was speedily engaged to write for other papers and magazines. His real literary life, in fact, may be said to begin at this period. The "Farmer at Home" was the title of this paper singled out by the _Spectator_ as the best of all the papers for the month. Here there occurs a really striking passage on the "Farmer's Creed." They live, says the writer, amid conditions so unchanging that they have acquired a creed of their own, which they rarely express, never discuss, and never fail to act upon. "... In no other profession do the sons and the daughters remain so long, and so naturally, under the parental roof. The growth of half a dozen strong sons was a matter of self-congratulation, for each as he came to man's estate took the place of a labourer, and so reduced the money expenditure. The daughters worked in the dairy, and did not hesitate to milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour in the hay-field. They spun, too, the home-made stuffs in which all the family were clothed. A man's children were his servants. They could not stir a step without his permission. Obedience and reverence to the parent was the first and greatest of all virtues. Its influence was to extend through life, and through the whole social system. They were to choose the wife or the husband approved of at home. At thirty, perhaps, the more fortunate of the sons were placed on farms of their own nominally, but still really under the father's control. They dared not plough or sow except in the way that he approved. Their expenditure was strictly regulated by his orders. This lasted till his death, which might not take place for another twenty years. At the present moment I could point out ten or twelve such cases, where men of thirty or forty are in farms, and to all appearance perfectly free and independent, and yet as completely under the parental thumb as they were at ten years old.... These men, if they think thus of their own offspring, cannot be expected to be more tender towards the lower class around them. They did at one time, and some still wish to, extend the same system to the labouring population.... They did not want only to indulge in tyranny; what they did was to rule the labouring poor in the same way as they did their own children--nothing more nor less. These labouring men, like his own children, must do as the farmer thought best. They must live here or there, marry so and so, or