I hope to get down to the country next week, to see my wheat put into the ground, and to attend our approaching meeting for our new inland navigation, when I shall send you a more particular account than I have done hitherto, of my experiments relating to the fertilization of land by leguminous crops, and the economy of manure by the drill: in the mean time, I must tell you an ingenious plan my wife has fallen upon, to promote the happiness of the lower sort of people in this neighbourhood. She has caused to be printed and circulated, a set of recipes for comfortable daily fare, in wholesome savoury food, prepared from cheap materials, two or three to chuse out of, for each day of the week. She has therein accurately described the methods of making excellent pottages of potatoes, seasoned with herrings, or with soy; which last condimentary liquor she has contrived to prepare from our own leguminous plants, of carrots, of onions, of pease, of coleworts, of cabbages, of lettuces, of beets; and of turnips. She has shewn them the method of rendering their houses comfortable by means of flues, or little portable stoves, and has added a number of little useful remarks, relating to the prevention of disease, by cleanliness, temperance, the use of ales, and nourishing liquors, instead of ardent spirits; and concluded the whole with some plain and pertinent advices on the subject of morals, and the education of children; not without some excellent hints relating to industry and general economy. While thus employed, it is surprising to see the progress she has made in gardening, and the knowledge of garden crops cultivated in the field; and by attention to the habits and wants of the people, she is as fit to write a good statistical account of the parish and country as any clergyman in Scotland. While my help-mate is thus virtuously employed, in riding her little pad about the doors, I am scouring the fields on my charger of a hobby horse, and smoking along the roads, to look at bridges, and various objects of rural. police, when I can find leisure from farming and literature, and social intercourse. The other day, when I had come home from a fatiguing excursion, and was not in the best humour in the world, my wife took up the Seasons of Lambert, and by way of comforting me, read me the following passage from them, with which I shall conclude this Alexandrian epistle. "Heureux! qui loin du monde, utile à sa patrie, "Y fait natîre des biens, en respecte les loix, "Et derobant sa tête au fardeau des emplois, "Aimè dans son domaine, inconnu de ses maîtræ, "Habite le donjon qu'habitoient ses ancêtres! "De l'amour des honneurs il n'est point devoré ; "Sans craindre le grand jour, content d'être ignorè, "Aux vains dieux du public il laisse leur statues, "Par l'envie et le tems si souvent abatues : "Il ne s'egare point dans ces vastes projets "Ils vecurent sans faste, il veut vivre comme eux ; "Il regarde souvent ces images si chéres, Qui parlent à son cœur des vertus de ses pères. SIR, A Astronomical Reverie. TO THE EDITOR OF THE BEE. (June 1. 1791.) FEW evenings ago, having accidentally cast my eye upon the queries of Arcturus, in the 9th number of the second volume of your useful miscellany, concerning the great revolution of the heavens, or the Platonic year, as explained by M. de la Grange, of the academy of Berlin, I fell into a profound and pleasing meditation, (after supper, when I had retired to rest,) on the regularity and beauty of the universe, and on the divine energy of its Creator. Astronomy and natural philosophy have always been my favourite studies, and I may say, the attendants of my devotion; so that while these delightful thoughts had taken full possession of my imagination, I fell into a sweet sleep, that called up before me the following most enchanting delusion :-- Methought I was seated on the ruins of a stately edifice that seemed to be the remains of an ancient abbey *. The architecture exhibited a mixture of Greek, Roman, and Gothic; yet it was exceedingly pleasing and majestic. All over the huge fragments of this magni ficent building, I saw the usurpation of nature over art, that indicated the great antiquity of its destruction. Oaks, elms, and yews of an immense bulk, grew from the rubbish within the walls. The shapes of the doors and windows seemed but little altered; some of them were quite obscured; others only partially shaded by tufts of ivy; one circular window was edged only with its slender tendrils, and lighter foliage, wreathing about the sides and divisions of it astragal carvings, which were radiated from the centre to the circumference +. From the crevices of the ruins, there sprung * Dryburgh Abbey. The radiated window in Dryburgh Abbey. a profusion of flowers, in the wildest, but most beautiful disorder. The gold and purple gleam of the setting sun shone thro' the doors and windows, and the open aisles of the structure, beyond which there was a beautiful meadow, sprinkled with venerable trees of various hue and shape, amid the stems of which I observed a beautiful flock of sheep, and a shepherd reclining on the turf, playing on a flute to a shepherdess who stood by him, leaning on her crook, in a beautiful attitude of attention to his mu From the reverberation of rocks that were beyond, a beautiful river that flowed through the meadow, echo brought to my delighted ear the mellow wooings of the shepherd's pipe. Beyond the river, the horizon was bounded by a mountain that seemed like the fabled mountain of Parnassus, but rose with three conical eminencies, whose tops were intercepted from my view by the clouds. SdAgentle zephyr raised a voluptuous fragrance all around me; and during the intervals of the shepherd's music, I heard the responsive notes of the wood-lark, the thrush, and the nightingale. An inexpressible sensation of pleasure thrilled through my nerves. Then there was an awful cessation of sound, and of motion, and a stillness that gave me the presage of an *Eildon hills. |