beauty of the surrounding country with the trees in their late autumn
colours. Writing on November 2nd, 1821, he says: "The place is commonly
called Uphusband, which is, I think, as decent a corruption of names as
one could wish to meet with. However, Uphusband the people will have it,
and Uphusband it shall be for me." That is indeed how he names it all
through his book, after explaining that "husband" is a corruption of
Hurstbourne, and that there are two Hurstbournes, this being the upper
one.

I congratulated myself on having been refused accommodation at the
"George and Dragon," and was more than satisfied to pass an evening
without a book, sitting there alone listening to an imaginary
conversation between those two curious friends. "Lord Carnarvon," says
Cobbett, "told a man, in 1820, that he did not like my politics. But
what did he mean by my politics? I have no politics but such as he ought
to like. To be sure I labour most assiduously to destroy a system of
distress and misery; but is that any reason why a Lord should dislike
my politics? However, dislike them or like them, to them, to those very
politics, the Lords themselves must come at last."

Undoubtedly he talked like that, just as he wrote and as he spoke in
public, his style, if style it can be called, being the most simple,
direct, and colloquial ever written. And for this reason, when we are
aweary of the style of the stylist, where the living breathing body
becomes of less consequence than its beautiful clothing, it is a relief,
and refreshment, to turn from the precious and delicate expression, the
implicit word, sought for high and low and at last found, the balance of
every sentence and perfect harmony of the whole work--to go from it to
the simple vigorous unadorned talk of Rural Rides. A classic, and as
incongruous among classics as a farmer in his smock-frock, leggings, and
stout boots would appear in a company of fine gentlemen in fashionable
dress. The powerful face is the main thing, and we think little of the
frock and leggings and how the hair is parted or if parted at all.
Harsh and crabbed as his nature no doubt was, and bitter and spiteful at
times, his conversation must yet have seemed like a perpetual feast
of honeyed sweets to his farmer friend. Doubtless there was plenty of
variety in it: now he would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs
over which he had just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious
autumn colours, and