undelays" upon a pipe,--poor
fellow! he can scarcely afford to smoke one, his hours of labour are so
long, and his wages are so small. As for Daphnis, he is a lout, and can
neither read nor write; nor is his Chloe any better.

Phineas Fletcher thus sang of "The Shepherd's Home:"--

"Thrice, oh, thrice happie shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happinesse, unhappie pawns!

His cottage low, and safely humble gate.
Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns:
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep:
Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep:
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.

His certain life, that never can deceive him,
Is full of thousand sweets and rich content:
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shades, till noontide's rage is spent:
His life is neither tost in boist'rous seas
Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease;
Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.'

Where, oh where, has this gentle shepherd gone? Have spinning-jennies
swallowed him up? Alas! as was observed of Mrs. Harris, "there's no such
a person." Did he _ever_ exist? We have a strong suspicion that he never
did, save in the imaginations of poets.

Before the age of railroads and sanitary reformers, the pastoral life of
the Arcadians was a beautiful myth, The Blue Book men have exploded it
for ever. The agricultural labourers have not decent houses,--only
miserable huts, to live in. They have but few provisions for cleanliness
or decency. Two rooms for sleeping and living in, are all that the
largest family can afford. Sometimes they have only one. The day-room,
in addition to the family, contains the cooking utensils, the washing
apparatus, agricultural implements, and dirty clothes. In the sleeping
apartment, the parents and their children, boys and girls, are
indiscriminately mixed, and frequently a lodger sleeps in the same and
only room, which has generally no window,--the openings in the
half-thatched roof admitting light, and exposing the family to every
vicissitude of the weather. The husband, having no comfort at home,
seeks it in the beershop. The children grow up without decency or
self-restraint. As for the half-hearted wives and daughters, their lot
is very miserable.

It is not often that village affairs are made the subject of discussion
in newspapers, for the power of the press has not yet reached remote
country places. But we do hear occasiona