Essay on the Beneficial Direction of Rural Expenditure

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824 - Agriculture - 239 pages
 

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Page 167 - The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
Page 149 - But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage And froze the genial current of the soul.
Page 197 - And as for our good people's lawful recreation, our pleasure likewise is, that after the end of divine service our good people be not disturbed, letted or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation, nor from having of May games, Whitsun ales, and morris dances, and the setting up of maypoles and other sports therewith used: so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment...
Page 150 - ... haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium praebent, 'delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.
Page 17 - ... common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes: the infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippick Islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff...
Page 157 - Of all obstacles to improvement, ignorance is the most formidable, because the only true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents in bettering their own condition, and to supply them, not with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent energy. As fast as the standard of intelligence is raised, the poor become more and more able to co-operate in any plan proposed for their advantage, more likely to listen to any reasonable suggestion, more able to understand, and therefore more willing...
Page 170 - There is one very unpleasing remark which every one who attends to the subject of prices will be induced to make, that the labouring classes, especially those engaged in agriculture, were better provided with the means of subsistence in the reign of Edward III. or of Henry VI. than they are at present. In the fourteenth century, Sir John Cullum observes, a harvest man had fourpence a day, which enabled him in a week to buy a comb of wheat ; but to buy a comb of wheat, a man must now (1784) work ten...
Page 133 - ... is better than none ; as the writing of a book, the building of a house, the laying out of a garden, the digging of a fish-pond, — even the raising of a cucumber or a tulip.
Page 167 - ... superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition, and they are, upon that account, less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government.
Page 31 - The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often extinguished in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the most mimerous and useful part of the community.

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