generation will increase in happiness as well as in number and in rightness of conduct, as progressively as they must advance in knowledge, and may advance in piety, talent, and mutual kindness and urbanity.*

I will close this letter by a striking instance how much the manual industry of a worthy poor man may improve useless land, and by another which shows that the poorest may, by care and diligence, attain even a respectable portion of moderate property; both indicating how much the mind and character of the man, as well as the produce of the country, may be advanced.

"Edward Richards, aged sixty-eight, the father of six children, and son of a poor man, had resided fifty-two years in Cirencester parish, and, during the early part of his life, was a common labourer.

"About 35 years ago he agreed with a farmer to clear out an acre of rough quarry land, on condition of having it three years rent free. On this unpromising spot he and his wife applied their surplus labour to such advantage, that, during the three years, he cleared 401. He then purchased two acres of thin, poor land for 801. These two acres have long been in a highly productive state. Soon after he entered on this cultivation, he raised, in one year, SEVEN QUARTERS OF WHEAT from it, and has refused 100 guineas for it.

"He obtained from Earl Bathurst seventy-five perches of waste unproductive land, at a quit-rent of 10s. He has possessed this spot thirty years, and has brought it to a state of great productiveness. For the last ten years he has rented five or six acres of land, besides these two plots; and during that time has kept two cows, and sheep, and pigs.”— The Labourers' Friend's Magazine.

"Mr. Gray, of Pacham, died at seventy-four. He and his wife afford a rare instance of frugality and industry. They were both born at Pacham, in 1761, of poor but honest parents, who had large families. They went to service in farmhouses at an early age, and were married about twenty-one. Their parents, dying, left them nothing but the wide world - before them.

"He worked as a day-labourer until he had several children. He then hired between three and four acres of glebe land, and had the field of the churchyard, which enabled him to keep a cow, and bring up a family of ten children in a very respectable manner, without any expense to the parish.

"He has followed his daily labour till within the last two years, holding his occupation to the time of his death. It is supposed that he has saved between 1000 and 2000l. His widow and children survive him, and are living in a very respectable manner. He lived and died an honest man."-County Chronicle, 7th January, 1834.

* I cannot avoid adding an extract, marking an instance of judicious encouragement to the industry and integrity of our poorer brethren. "On 1st of November, the Bishop of Bath and Wells gave a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding to 205 tenants of the allotments let out by him." -New Farmers' Journal, 8th November, 1833.

It is a pleasure also to find that the comforts of the labourers are in

LETTER XXXIV.

Miscellaneous Facts and Remarks as to the Diet of different Countries. -Their general Enjoyment alike of all that they are used to -The Benefit arising from a moderate or abstemious Use of Food.-Vegeta ble Diet the most common.-Digestibility of the different Substances

eaten.

MY DEAR SON,

Having thus found that the order and course of nature have been framed and carried on upon the plan that there shall always be sufficient sustenance for the human populations that may arise, I will only add a few miscellaneous facts and observations on the habits of different people as to their customary diet; on the similarity of pleasure which each seem to derive from what they use; and on the benefits to health and strength, to spirits, mind, and temper which most gencrally arise from a moderate use of it. These will lead us to infer that the plan and purpose of Providence, in all the varied bounty which nature has been made to present to us, are, that we should use these favours with the same selecting judgment, self-government, and wise regulations by which all our bodily gratifications should be modified, and according to which they should be indulged in or forborne. In nothing is the practice of self-command more necessary, or will it be more useful; and, as it is exercised, it will be found that, whatever is most useful to us, will always be found pleasurable likewise, in proportion as it is adhered to.* Luxurious diet, or refined or complicated cookery, is not necessary to

creasing. Mr. Loudon, who, in 1833, had visited nine counties, which he had passed over twenty years before, says, on comparing the two periods," We have found a decided improvement in the cottage gardens everywhere, by the more frequent appearance of flowers in them, and by the China rose trained against their walls. The cottage dwellings, on the whole, are not worse, and, on some estates, they are a good deal improved. Many cottages, which before had no gardens, have now considerable portions of ground added to them."-Gard. Mag., November, 1833. * Even a Roman, in the most luxurious and gross-feeding age of his nation, could say that simple diet was the most beneficial to mankind, "Homini cibus utilissimus simplex."-Pliny, Nat. Hist., 1. 2, c. 117.

comfort. The simplest and most natural are as gratifying as the artificial to those who use them.t

The Prussian nation is one of the most cultivated of the present day; and yet, with all their prosperity and improvements, they make bread and butter their favourite food; and, next to this, potatoes, cooked in various modes, which they find sufficiently gratifying.‡ The Greek sailor lives upon olives and bread. The habitual fare in a chief laird's house in the Hebrides but forty years ago was no better; it was not less pleasant or satisfying because it was the simplest aliment in use. In the early part of the last century meat was a

* A lad in a village, lately taken up for stealing, was sentenced to three months' hard labour in a prison. The policeman told him that he would there have to live on bread and water. "Shall I have bread?" was the boy's answer; "that will make me quite happy. I don't wish for anything better."

†The feelings of a British officer in the Egyptian fleet of Mehemed Pacha, in 1833, on this subject, written with a recollection of the priva tions he had there to undergo, and of the things offensive to him he had to eat, will illustrate the natural state of the case on this point. "In England, we hear every day of the distresses of the poor Irish living on cold potatoes! I can tell you that cold potatoes are no such contemptible food; for I remember the time when one of those would have been considered by me as a luxury. A raw turnip would have been preferred to boiled horsebeans and oil. Talk of bread and water as a punishment! why, if we could have got hold of a supply of this, we should have eaten till we had almost choked ourselves. So no more about the miseries in England. There are no such things in existence."-Unit. Serv. Journ., 1834, p. 368.

"The Prussians are in general extremely abstemious; bread, butter, and potatoes being their principal articles of consumption. The potatoes are so with the lower classes; but I have seen all ranks partake of the bread and butter half a dozen times daily. If you visit a friend, it is more than probable that the lunch will be butter bamme, bread and butter. If you go to an inn, and order refreshment without specifying anything in particular, this will certainly be brought. But, however popular it is, it divides its empire with potatoes, which may be deemed the national food, since I have frequently seen them served in six different forms. The bread was made from them, the soup thickened with them, fried potatoes, potato salad, potato dumplings, and potato cheese. This last is one of its best preparations, and will keep many years."-Sketches of Germany by an English Traveller, 1836.

Man. Chron., 14th July, 1836.

Mr. Matthias d'Amour, who was a domestic in several great families, thus describes the Laird of Rasay's house, when the family he served paid their visit there, between 1780 and 1790. "All the servants of the establishment, without one exception, lived exclusively on two meals a day, and these meals were composed of thick water porridge and barley bannocks. I had now and then a little exceedingly lean meat allowed me to dinner. Contrary to their customs, I had breakfast allowed me,

rarity in Scotland, and confined to the chieftain's or master's table. The diet of Dr. Adams was of this abstemious nature, and is represented by his biographer as "a true picture of the life led by many a Scotch scholar."+ How different now is a Scottish breakfast, even in the Highlands! but al though so varied and abundant from the progress of wealth and individual enjoyment, it is most probable that the earlier generation were as happy with their fare as the present with all their affluent exuberance.‡

The great purpose of our food has been that it should maintain us in life, health, spirits, and strength. That it is highly pleasurable has been added, in the system of our nature, as an additional benefaction; but the utility and the gratification must not be confounded with each other. The pleasing may

be mistaken for the serviceable, and then the intended benefit will be lost. The sparing diet has been found to be most preventive of fatigue on a laborious journey, and even to be

which consisted of curd of sheep or goat's milk. My supper was of the same material. I commonly dined with a few of the other servants on kail, or the mixture of flour and greens, without even salt."-Memoir of Matthias d'Amour.

* D'Amour so represents it:--"It was very seldom that any meat was left from the first table, and that was so excessively lean that I did not care for it."-Ib. "In 1791, died at Edinburgh James Strachan, aged one hundred and five, a flesh-cadie. He recollected the time when no butcher would venture to kill any beast until all the different parts were bespoken, meat being then an unsaleable article."-Easton's Hum. Long., p. 246.

"He lodged in a small room at Restalrig, in the northeast suburb, and for this accommodation he paid fourpence a week. All his meals except dinner uniformly consisted of oatmeal made into porridge, together with smallbeer, of which he allowed himself only half a bottle at a time. When he wished to dine he purchased a penny loaf at the nearest baker's shop. He used neither coals nor candles, but when he was chill be used to run till his blood began to glow."-Chambers's "Lives of Scotsmen."

Mr. Frazer thus sketches a modern Highland first repast:-"Take your breakfast now. Excellent mutton-chops, eggs, broiled chickens, mutton, and ham, together with tea, coffee, rich cream, and the best butter possible, composed a breakfast which did not disgrace the name which the Highlanders have deservedly acquired for that meal."-Frazer's Highland Smugglers.

An English traveller from Belgrade to Constantinople, in which there were few stages under thirty miles, thus wrote on his journey in 1833:-"I recommend the plan I pursued, not only in this, but in other undertakings more extended. Eat very little, and avoid meat, wine, and brandy. Boiled bread and milk at night; the same in the morning; and bread, steeped in sugar and water, in midday, will be sufficient for your

most refreshing in the vigorous exercise of a hunter among the mountains of Switzerland.* Plentiful eating is, therefore, not necessary to strength or activity. On the contrary, it so usually lessens or counteracts even our mental elasticity, as to have led our fictitious Peter Pindar to his satirical line

"Fat holds ideas by the legs and wings."

But the indulgence of the feeding appetite is so pleasant that few can resist its allurements. Even the knowledge of its diseasing and sometimes fatal results will not overcome the desire to renew the immediate enjoyment.†

It is

Those who make their diet a predominant object of their daily life will indulge exuberantly in it. The respectable classes at Vienna are represented to us with this propensity, and as making it an earnest object of their attention. right, however, to add, that, if they yield to this bodily inclination, so dangerous to continued health, they have been highly support. I know you will bring from Semlin cold fowl, and ham, and sundry other things; but I had to throw them all away, as they got spoiled. I found that extreme temperance enabled me to support the fatigue."-Morn. Herald, 25th November, 1833.

Mr. Carne thus speaks of an English navy-captain who had retired to Switzerland to be a chamois-hunter:-"His unfailing resource against fatigue and privation was not the usual flask of brandy or kirch-wasser, but a large lump of white sugar, the virtues of which he extolled to the skies. When hungry or exhausted, he sat down by a brook and devoured a piece of this talisman, and then soon went on with fresh vigour and energy."-Carne's Travels in Switzerland.

:

†The common dram-drinkers show this effect every day but one of the strongest instances I have seen of such a deliberate practice of the "Dum vivimus," was mentioned by that clever and humorous surgeon, Mr. Wadd. He was called to a respectable lusty farmer, who had indulged in his strong home-brewed ale till a serious illness came upon him. After some attendance, his medical friend told him it was clear that, unless he left off his favourite beverage, he would not live six months. "Is that your serious professional opinion?" "I ain certain of it." The farmer thought a few minutes; tears came in his eyes; he sighed heavily, and at last said, "I am sorry for it—very sorry; it's very hard; but I can't give up my ale."

At Vienna, "eating, everlasting eating, forms with them the chief charm of existence. It is here pursued in a most determined manner. The first day I took my seat in the dining-room of a hotel, the whole group of gourmands, previous to taking their places at table, cast off their coats. On inquiry, I learned that this cool, systematic mode of stuffing is very generally practised throughout the city at this hot season of the year, and even in the houses of some of the nobility."-Strong's Germany in 1831. Another traveller confirms the fact as to the divestment of the coat, but mentions that, in the higher circles, they have a silk vest under it, which is not indecorous.