not read, but as he sate over his winter fire solaced his spirit with the lays of a wandering minstrel; and of him who has at his command all the intellectual splendour, power and wit, the satire, the joyous story, the humour, the elegance of phrase and of mind, the profound sentiment and high argument of such men as Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Pope, Sam Johnson, Goldsmith, Cowper, and the noble poets of the present day. Is it possible that _ennui_ can come near a man who can at any moment call to his presence our Jeremy Taylors and Tillotsons, our Barrows, Burnets, and Stillingfleets--our travellers from every corner of the earth, and our great novelists with their everlasting inventions? Why, there is more delight in one good country library, than any one mortal life can consume. If a man’s house were situated in a desert of sand, the magic of this divine literature were enough to raise around him an elysium of perpetual greenness. But it is not merely within doors that the singular privileges of an English gentleman lie. He need only step out, and he sees them surrounding him on every side. His gardens--by the labours and discoveries of centuries, by the genius of some men who have blended the spirit of nature most happily with that of art, and by the researches of others who have collected into this country the vegetable beauty and wealth of the whole world--have been made more delightful than those of Alcinous or Armida. Look at his glazed walls, his hot and green houses, which supply his table with the most delicious dessert. But go on--advance beyond the boundaries of his gardens, and the pleasant winding walks of his shrubberies, and where are you? In the midst of his park, his farms, his woods, and plantations. Now every one knows the healthful and perpetual recreation to be found in any one of these places; the intense delight which many of our country gentlemen take in them, and the beauty and pre-eminence of our English parks, farms, and woods, in consequence. We shall speak more particularly of them presently; but it must not here be forgotten what a boundless field of enjoyment, and increase of wealth, science has of late years opened to the amateur farmer, and to the country gentlemen in general. To their fields, agricultural chemistry, mineralogy, botany, vegetable physiology, entomology, etc., have brought new and inexhaustible charms. They have, in a manner, enlarged the territories of the smallest proprietor into kingdoms of boundless extent and interest. In the study of soils, their defects and remedies; in the selection of plants most consonant to the earth in which they are to grow, or the adaptation of the earth to them; in the inquiry into the mineral wealth that lies below the surface; in cultivating an acquaintance with the various animals, and especially insects, on whose presence or absence depends in