a broad field, rustling, and waving, and surging up and
down in the breeze and sunshine of a summer afternoon. We have as many
as fifty hills, I should think, which will give us an abundant supply.
Pray Heaven that we may be able to eat it all! for it is not pleasant to
think that anything which Nature has been at the pains to produce should
be thrown away. But the hens will be glad of our superfluity, and so
will the pigs, though we have neither hens nor pigs of our own. But hens
we must certainly keep. There is something very sociable, and quiet, and
soothing, too, in their soliloquies and converse among themselves; and,
in an idle and half-meditative mood, it is very pleasant to watch a
party of hens picking up their daily subsistence, with a gallant
chanticleer in the midst of them. Milton had evidently contemplated such
a picture with delight.

I find that I have not given a very complete idea of our garden,
although it certainly deserves an ample record in this chronicle, since
my labors in it are the only present labors of my life. Besides what I
have mentioned, we have cucumber-vines, which to-day yielded us the
first cucumber of the season, a bed of beets, and another of carrots,
and another of parsnips and turnips, none of which promise us a very
abundant harvest. In truth, the soil is worn out, and, moreover,
received very little manure this season. Also, we have cabbages in
superfluous abundance, inasmuch as we neither of us have the least
affection for them; and it would be unreasonable to expect Sarah, the
cook, to eat fifty head of cabbages. Tomatoes, too, we shall have by and
by. At our first arrival, we found green peas ready for gathering, and
these, instead of the string-beans, were the first offering of the
garden to our board.

TO J. B.

ON SENDING ME A SEVEN-POUND TROUT.

1.

Fit for an Abbot of Theleme,
For the whole Cardinals' College, or
The Pope himself to see in dream
Before his lenten vision gleam,
He lies there,--the sogdologer!

2.

His precious flanks with stars besprent,
Worthy to swim in Castaly!
The friend by whom such gifts are sent,--
For him shall bumpers full be spent,--
His health! be Luck his fast ally!

3.

I see him trace the wayward brook
Amid the forest mysteries,
Where at themselves shy aspens look,
Or where, with many a gurgling crook,
It croons its