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accomplished, who would not cry out, Fiorin for ever?”

Yet the very next year my expectations were fulfilled. CoL. KNOX of the Donegall Militia, after measuring and weighing with much care, found my crop to exceed ten tons dry hay to the English acre; and last year MAJOR MONROE, and CAPTAIN M'KENZIE of the Ross and Sutherland, found eleven tons nine hundred; LIEUT. ELLISON found a still greater crop in another place; and from the appearance of my Fiorin at this early season, I answer for it, my crops shall in the ensuing October exceed your ten tons in different places, some of them of a very worthless description.

Now, Sir, that I have fulfilled my promise of ten tons to the acre, do you expect that your countrymen will make good yours, and cry out Fiorin for ever? -Not they; Nil admirari seems a strong trait in the English character; and were the more enlightened Agriculturists willing to make the experiment, their Bailiffs could not be induced to submit to new rules of culture, as if they required instruction. It is to these gentry the failure of most attempts to cultivate Fiorin is owing, and I appeal to the gentlemen who have actually obtained premiums from the BATH SOCIETY for their Fiorin crops, if the value of these very crops has not been reduced, and their success endangered, by the doggedness of their Bailiffs.

You say, 66 so enthusiastic is Dr. Richardson in his recommendation of Fiorin, and so singular in his practice, that we seem to be reading a farming Romance."

You here allude to my custom of mowing, and making Hay through the whole winter, which I admit I have done uninterruptedly for seven years in the face of the world., But I must not allow you to call this my PRACTICE OF HAYMAKING; the fact is, that five-sixths of my erop is mowed in October, and made up nearly in the common way as dry store hay; but I find both convenience and amusement, in reserving a pittance for mowing through the winter; - part for green food, while for bravado I make up the rest into dry hay with great facility in some conspicuous place.

I must observe also on another pas sage of yours, very likely to mislead, which I am sure is not your inten

tion.

"When the Doctor speaks of making his Fiorin into hay, it is to be remembered that this grass is not reduced to that state of dryness which is caused by our old-fashioned hay-making, but to

an intermediate stage between wet and dry."

Here I am totally misunderstood; and as the singularity in my practice of haymaking (greatly magnified) has much impeded the adoption of this new grass, I shall set you and the world right on that point.

The difference between common sward, and Fiorin sward, when fresh cut, is very great; the former dead matter, while every stalk of the latter is animated by the principle of life; common sward runs rapidly into putrefaction, while Fiorin sward is protected from it by the antiseptic powers of animation.

The practice of converting each sward into preservable hay, is governed by this difference: the saver of common sward hastens to get rid, by evaporation, of all atmospheric moisture, and as much of the vegetable juices as would accelerate fermentation and putrefaction; while I, in no haste to get rid of the atmospheric moisture (from whose mischief I am protected) strive to retain as much of my vegetable juices as I can, that they may concoct and increase the nutricious qualities of the hay; hence the solidity, density, and extraordinary weight of Fiorin Hay.

Now for my practice, which whoever do not chuse to adopt, may with great security save their Fiorin as if it was common hay..

The day I mow, I put my sward, wet or dry, into small spherical lapcocks, some twelve or sixteen pound weight; after four, five, or six days, I change their positions, and turn their bases to the wind; after four or five days more, I open, air them, and put them into what we call Shake Cocks, from 200 pounds to 350; the hay or sward is put up loosely with a fork, and not trampled down.

Now we have our material in the intermediate stage you mention, between grass and hay; excellent fodder, but in this state we never weigh, nor call it hay, but it will in these cocks stand safely in the field for months.

The next, and last step, reduces it to common hay, preservable for years; in a dry day we transfer five, six, or seven of these shake-cocks into one trampcock, well trodden down, conical form, and narrowed base. Here Fiorin has a striking advantage over common hay, for we often see this abused and injured by exposure in the field in a, wet Autumn, while a Fiorin cock will brave the weather until May, without the slightest injury.

To proceed, you say, " Fiorin is Dr. Richardson's Hobby Horse, and he surely rides it most hobbyhorsically."

Most

Most people disown their Hobbies, and none of them are believed; I shall on the contrary admit, and justify mine, producing you as my first advocatefor when you avow that a grass giving ten tons of hay to the acre, should make your grave countrymen cry out Fiorin for ever, you surely justify the discoverer for mounting it as his Hobby, when he has actually passed your standard for two successive years, and now pledges himself again to exceed it in the ensuing October; and on grounds of worthless description.

And is he not farther justified for riding hobbyhorsically (to adopt your language) when it appears that this same grass, which had escaped the notice of man for 5000 years, is the only vegetable indigenous to our Islands, that has been found worthy of a place within the pale of cultivation ?

And that this stranger at home, who has not yet been able to find admission among the favourites (not one of them natives) upon whom the whole labour of the agricultural world is expended, produces crops every year successively, each of them, separately, of more value than any of the crops yielded at intervals by the most valuable of these intruders; for what crop of wheat could reach the value of ten tons of superlative hay?

One excuse more for riding, which is, that this elève of mine, whom I am unable to press into the service of the knowing Agriculturists of your country, is not limited to their territories; he takes a wider range, luxuriates equally on the mountain and in the valley, and produces his valuable crops in the bleak est regions, into which the boldest Agriculturist dares not venture his more tender favourites.

You tell me, "He might have waited for the experiments of English Farmers, before he had gone off at score."

Waited, how long?-HORACE presses pretty heavily on the patience of an Author or Discoverer, coming forward with something new, from which he expects to derive celebrity; he says,

Nonum prematur in annum. To nine years I might have submitted, but I well knew the tardy reluctance of English Farmers to receive any thing new. I saw my predecessor, Dr. LETTSOM, bring forward, in a clear and satisfactory manner, the high value and importance of his protegé, Mangel Wurtzell; he pressed the adoption of this succulent and saccharine root by the English Agriculturists; but all in vain, they were perfectly satisfied with their turnip, rape, and oil-cake milk.

Thirty years elapsed before any impression could be made in favour of a

vegetable, of which the English Farmers are now as enthusiastic admirers as Dr. LETTSOM himself.

Whether the good Doctor has lived to enjoy this triumph, I know not; hut upon due consideration I determined thirty years to be rather more than I could afford to wait; giving up therefore all hopes of obtaining the best possible testimony in favour of my discovery, that of the English Farmers, I resolved to be satisfied with a secondrate description of evidence, and applied to the Scotch, Welsh, Manks, and Irish Farmers; and having ascertained the success of their experiments on Fiorin Grass, loaded with their gratitude, and decorated by their honours, as you say, I went off at score.

YOUR

W. RICHARDSON, D.D.

MR. URBAN, Aug. 13. YOUR last Number, in common with some other Monthly Publications, contains critical observations by Mr. Britton on the Monuford, preparatory to its being enmental Bust of Shakspeare at Stratgraved. It is almost too late to mo-, ralize on the self-delusion prevailing in all literary projects, wherein the Author or Editor is blind to every thing unfavourable to his subject, and overleaps every impediment to the propriety of his project. fatality generally accompanies this persuasion, namely, that of carrying the argument so far as to wound the prejudices, and excite the hostility, of partizans of other opinions. In a

One

convenient and equally elegant very edition of Shakspeare's Plays, printed by Whittingham, under the superintendance of Mr. Britton, a copy is given of the Bust of the great Bard from his Monument at Stratford; and an opinion is therein pretty confidently expressed by Mr. Britton, of that head being indubitably the most authentic and probable "likeness of the Poet." Mr. Britton appears, like Pygmalion, to have contemplated his image till he has become enamoured of it, and since the publication of Whittingham's Shakspeare in 1814, to have liberally resolved that the world should share his passion. A print of the Stratford Monument upon a larger scale is now proposed, and claims are urged in various quarters loudly challenging subscription to the Stratford Bust as the only likeness of the "gentle Shakspeare." Mr. Brit ton, by whom these pretensions are

urged,

urged, is too well read not to know that other claims are preferred, and that they are such as cannot be rejected without plausible reasons. Whether the reasons assigned by the Artist will warrant us in henceforth rejecting what has been received as the vera effigies of Shakspeare, and setting up the Stratford Bust in its stead, must (I think) be doubted. Every portrait collector,-an ignoble race, is aware that the earliest engraved head of Shakspeare forms part of the title-page of the first folio edition of the Poet. Prefixed to this portrait are the following pleasing lines, addressed to the Reader, by his fond and faithful companion and friend Ben Jonson :

-

This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature to out-do the life.
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass as he hath hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his Picture but his Book.j

Of the portrait, thus authenticated, Mr. Britton says, "It would not be difficult to show, to the satisfaction of every impartial reader, that there is nothing like proof(indeed!) nor scarcely probability in the genuineness (" a vile phrase") of any of the paintings or prints that have come before the publick as portraits of our unrivalled Bard. That by Droeshout cannot be like any human face, for it is evidently ill drawn in all the features; and a bad artist can never make a good likeness. On such a print Jonson's lines are futile and unworthy of credit." I have no inclination, Mr. Urban, to consume your pages in examining the propriety of Mr. Britton's axioms thus laid down in imitation of short-lunged Seneca." But, in few words, I believe them to be unfaithful. Nothing, I believe, is more common than to meet with a good likeness unequally executed as a work of art; unless it be to see a highlyfinished head wanting the character which is the essence of a likeness.. Few likenesses are more perceptible and even striking than what are usually denominated caricatures, in which every line is surcharged, and every feature distorted. Droeshout hus some excellent specimens of art; -but, if it be admitted that in the case

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of Shakspeare he "imitated nature most abominably," it will not avail Mr. Britton's argument. Jonson was familiarly acquainted with Shakspeare for not less than 20 years; and with Droeshout's engraving before him he (from long personal knowledge) pledges his veracity to the world for the resemblance; and this while many thousands were yet living, who, if his affirmation were incorrect, wanted neither the ability nor the inclination to contradict him. Jonson might, as Steevens suggests, have no particular intimacy with the graphic art, but it will (I take it) be never found that a man of great general talent is insensible to the comparative merit of a work of art. Jonson saw that the portrait of his beloved Shakspeare, notwithstanding the insufficiency of the engraver, was a strong resemblance of his friend, and he troubled not himself with mechanical proportions. With submission to so grave an authority as Mr. Britton, I think it would be more seemly not to talk of Ben Jonson's authority as being futile and unworthy of credit," at least till some one could be pointed out with equal pretensions as to talents, learning, and judgment.

In contravention of such authority derived from the most satisfactory personal knowledge, what bas Mr. Britton to urge in favour of the Stratford Bust? I speak here of evidence; for the flashes about "eyes and understandings, the attestations of tradition and the consecrations of time," are so many figments of a poetical fancy, and, as far as the authenticity of the likeness is concerned," are baseless as the fabric of a vision."

Here is Mr. Britton's summary of evidence: "Leonard Digges, in a Poem praising the works and worth of Shakspeare," of whose worth, by the bye, abstracted from his works, Digges says not a word, "Digges's Poem, published within seven years after Shakspeare's death, speaks of the Stratford Monument, as a wellknown object. Dugdale, in his ‘Antiquities of Warwickshire,' 1656, give a plate of the Monument, but drawn and engraved in a truly tasteless and inaccurate style; and observes in the text, that the Poet was famous, and thus entitled to such distinction. Langbaine, in his Account of English Dramatic Poets,' 1691, pronounces the Stratford Bust Shakspeare's 'true

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effigies'.

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If this conclusion must be drawn from such evidence, it might have been drawn without it; for there is not a tittle of proof of the Bust being intended or considered to be a likeness in any of the authorities here imposingly referred to. Leonard Digges's lines, the crudest that ever came from the pen of a courtier, as far as we are now concerned, are these ;-understand them who can! "Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give [which, out-live The world thy workes: thy workes, by Tby Tombe, thy name must: when that stone is rent, [ment, And Time dissolves thy Stratford MoniHere we alive shall view thee still. This booke," &c.

Not a word about the Bust, or the likeness! Ifthe resemblance of the Bust to the Poet were so indubitable and striking as Mr. Britton would have us believe, is it likely that Digges (with Ben Jonson's averment as to the portrait) would have entirely overlooked it?

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Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656, gives a plate of the monument, but drawn and engraved in a truly tasteless and inaccurate style!" It would, perhaps, be unjust to suppose that he thought it worthy no more regard. "Dugdale," however, "observes in the text, that the Poet was famous," a piece of information for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful.

Digges and Dugdale do not appear to have done much towards identify ing the similitude of the Bust to the Poet; but now comes Langbaine, who, in his Account of English Dramatic Poets, 1691, pronounces the Stratford Bust Shakspeare's "true effigies." But let us have Langbaine's own words: "Shakspeare lyeth buried in the great Church in Stratford-uponAvon, with his wife and daughter Susanna, the wife of Mr. John Hall. In the North wall of the Church is a Monument fixed, which represents his true effigies leaning upon a cushion, &c." Every one perceives that all Langbaine meant was that there was a Monument of Shakspeare at Stratford, with a figure of the Poet. He surely did not mean to make himself respon

sible for the resemblance of the Bust to the countenance of the Poet. Why, therefore, talk of his pronouncing? Shakspeare died in April 1616; Gerard Langbaine was born in 1656; what could Langbaine "pronounce" with any authority concerning the countenance of a man who died 40 years before he was born!

With all that Mr. Britton has urged as to the" desireability" of obtaining an authenticated portrait of Shakspeare, your present Correspondent, Mr. Urban, concurs; and he will go much further in expressing his wish that the Bust of Shakspeare, as it appears on the Monument at Stratford, should be engraved in a style of excellence such as will enable us to compare it with the portrait prefixed to the first folio edition of the great Poet. Before this be attempted it should be stripped of its sophistications, of the fucus which first adorned (with the vilest taste) the painted sepulchre," as well as the subsequent plasterings and daubings of Mr. Malone.

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If, when asserting the superior testimony of Jouson in favour of the first folio portrait over every other com petitor as a genuine likeness of Shakspeare, I am told that Steevens "thinks the verses by Ben were written as soon as bespoke, and that Ben might not be over-solicitous as to the style in which the lineaments of Shakspeare were transmitted to posterity;" I shall reply that there is not a word of truth nor of sense in that nor in any thing else uttered by Steevens where Jonson is concerned. Steevens knew nothing of the life or writings of Ben Jonson, and never looked into either but for the vile purpose of slandering the Poet. At the period when Steevens is ignorantly supposing Ben to have written his ten lines for perhaps half as many shillings, the learned Bard was in the zenith of his fame and fortune, and not at all in need of money, which all his life he too little regarded. Nothing then but his anxiety that the lineaments of his friend should be faithfully transmitted to posterity induced him to compose the above short address to the Reader; while the publishers were naturally desirous of having the integrity of the likeness certified by the highest authority, and the highest living authority (as Heminge and Condell well knew) was Shakspeare's invariable friend and companion Ben Jonson. ASPER.

Mr.

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Having resolved on a visit to the shore of the neighbouring Continent, on April 12, I set out for Dover, but the inclemency of the weather was such for the season, the snow lying nearly two inches deep on the ground, that I was prevented reaching that port before the following morning, when the weather became so tempestuous, with heavy snow, that it was not prudent to embark until the morning of the 14th. The wind then appeared very favourable. I engaged with Captain Carlton, to sail with him in the Industry Packet of Dover, for the usual fare, ten shillings and sixpence. Embarked at eleven o'clock; but, the wind dying away soon after we left the pier, we drifted back again into the harbour, when, after lying half an hour, a breeze springing up, we got under weigh, with a fair prospect of soon making our destined port. When about half sea across, Dover Cliffs, with its proud Castle, was a most imposing sight. As we proceeded, the English land became low; and before we reached Calais, we entirely lost sight of it. The idea of thus losing sight of our native land, for the first time, creates a sensation in the mind, which none know but those who have made the experiment; but the French coast opening upon us fast, soon dissipated those reflections, which gave place to an anxiety to mark every object as it presented itself to us. The similarity of the cliffs to those of the opposite coast, and the risings and fallings of the land so exactly corresponding, do certainly strengthen the idea which some naturalists have promulgated, that the two coasts at some very early period were conjoined; and that it was by some violent convulsion of GENT. MAG, August, 1816,

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nature, that they were rent asunder. Be this as it may, England has cause to rejoice that the isthmus is no more; or, too probably, the insatiable Tyrant would long ere this have subjected our happy land to his iron yoke. But thank God, now his glory is departed, and his power is no more! Calais from the sea lies very low, being seated at the bottom of a deep bay; but its three lofty towers (hereafter described) are very distinguishing marks, by which the mariner may safely steer his course. At half-past three we entered the mouth of the harbour, between the two jetties or pier-heads, which are of wood, and extend nearly a mile into the sea. The entrance is guarded by Fort Rouge, close to the pier-heads; it is built of wood, and stands upon piles, so that the sea runs under the whole of it. Higher up the harbour is the castle, or fort Risban; it is built of stone on the sand-hills, and stands in a very commanding situation: it has its communication with the town by the Long Pont; which is a wooden bridge of a great number of arches. We glided up the harbour to the very spot where Louis the XVIIIth landed on his first return to France; and which is marked by a large brass plate, bearing a fleur-de-lis at the corners, and the shape of his foot cut through the plate to the stone, to which it is affixed. On the opposite side of the pier is erected a handsome Tuscan column of stone, standing on a square pedestal, bearing on its front face a brass plate, with an inscription, stating the event and its date, which is April 24, 1814. On the top of the column is a globe, bearing a large gilt fleur-de-lis: the whole height of the column is about twenty feet.

While on our passage we had to sign our names to a list to be delivered to the Commissaire de la Police, who came on board immediately the Packet came alongside the quay, asked for passports, and ordered the baggage on shore. We then went to the Bureau, where our luggage was closely inspected; and we were permitted to enter the town. Passing through Hogarth's fained Gate, I could not but observe the strict similarity it still bears to his drawing: though I missed the meagre French soldier in the old costume, who stands

SO

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