mistress frequently reads the Bible, if alone; and on this day the
mistress of the house _almost always_ teaches the children to read, or
as they express it, hears them a lesson; or if not thus employed, they
visit their neighbours, or receive them in their own houses as they drop
in, and keep up by the hour a slow and familiar chat. This kind of life,
of which I have seen much, and which I know would be looked upon with
little complacency by many religious persons, is peaceable, and as
innocent as (the frame of society and the practices of government being
what they are) we have a right to expect; besides, it is much more
intellectual than a careless observer would suppose. One of our
neighbours, who lives as I have described, was yesterday walking with
me; and as we were pacing on, talking about indifferent matters, by the
side of a brook, he suddenly said to me, with great spirit and a lively
smile, 'I _like_ to walk where I can hear the sound of a beck!' (the
word, as you know, in our dialect for a brook). I cannot but think that
this man, without being conscious of it, has had many devout feelings
connected with the appearances which have presented themselves to him in
his employment as a shepherd, and that the pleasure of his heart at that
moment was an acceptable offering to the Divine Being. But to return to
the subject of books. I find among the people I am speaking of,
halfpenny ballads and penny and two-penny histories in great abundance;
these are often bought as charitable tributes to the poor persons who
hawk them about (and it is the best way of procuring them). They are
frequently stitched together in tolerably thick volumes, and such I have
read; some of the contents, though not often religious, very good;
others objectionable, either for the superstition in them, such as
prophecies, fortune-telling, &c., or more frequently for indelicacy. I
have so much felt the influence of these straggling papers, that I have
many a time wished that I had talents to produce songs, poems, and
little histories that might circulate among other good things in this
way, supplanting partly the bad flowers and useless herbs, and to take
place of weeds. Indeed, some of the poems which I have published were
composed, not without a hope that at some time or other they might
answer this purpose. The kind of library which you recommend would not,
I think, for the reasons given above, be of much direct use in any of
the agricultu