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    which rag £ d 6 ut the desolation of millions far the gratification q £ their own avarice or their own exaltation ; your soul ' s vojic © sfyali be tuned in rich harmony , and join the quire whose song is , ' the world and all its human creatures shall be happy ; life i * not a vale of tears , it shall stream a river of joy . ' Oh , it is good to walk where nature unfolds her beauty amid her sileatness , and you carry good back into the bustling world from these

    occasional visits to her flowery and woodland domains . And now you are called homeward , but ere you leave Birkland collect again to gaze , to drink in the closing draught of pleasure which the hospitable friend gives freely ; and ere your foot is turned to leave it , you have each and all uttered a wish to revisit the scene , (and have formed a scheme for accomplishing the wish ; then , bless you , Birkland ; good bye for the present , and remain for ever in your beauty ! ' ¦

    What says your genuine practical man , as he calls himself , to all this ? He professes to advocate utility , yet affects , and , indeed , does despise the utilitarian ; the far reach of whose views this practical man can no more compass in his thoughts , than he can grasp , between his fingers , the winds of heaven . This practical man feeds and fattens on the produce of larger minds , yet

    pities , or scorns the fructifying spirit which supplies him with his health—his food—which opens to him the sources and the mines from which he gathers his harvests , and accumulates his worldly substance . —What will he say ? Why , that all this 19 fantastic enthusiasm , visions- —untenable Utopia . —He wants ' something useful . ' Is not this useful ? 'No ; what will it sell for ? what can be made of it ? what will it fetch in the market V

    Possession—buying and selling enclip all his heart of utility ; and he despises the utilitarian whose calculations are as to the sum of happiness which may be so diffused that all may share . —I had a rencontre with one of thuese practicals travelling from N . to W . (He was too s polite to laugh in my face , but no doubt I have been a good stock butt of merriment to him . He was all for

    utility : could not find anything- but barrenness on Sherwood forest , and would be glad to see the plough producing something , by being passed over the gorse-heather and moss : be should like to see it all inclosed—somebody ' s property . ' Hah ! ' Yielding a crop of wheat , grass or oats / Crop ! inclosures for him and exclusion too . The hundreds of poor cottagers whose cattle and sheep browse on the heather , and beatify the swelling

    elevations , slopes and hollows , are no consideration in comparison with the gratification of some avaricious landholder ' s desire to grasp at more : whose extent of domain begets no other feeling than a fury for a greater extent , and authorizes him in the covetous greediness of his grasp . —No matter though the sandy , thin , and bony surface of soil will never repay the expense of tillage—it is to secure possession of it which is desired—some

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/52/