Τίς οὖν δὴ πρᾶξις φίλη καὶ ἀκόλουθος θεῷ; μία καὶ ἕνα λόγον ἔχουσα ἀρχαῖον, ὅτι τῷ μὲν ὀμοίῳ τὸ ὅμοιον ὄντι μετρίῳ φίλον ἂν εἴη, τὰ δ’ ἄμετρα οὔτ’ ἀλλήλοις οὔτε τοῖς ἐμμέτροις.—(Plato, Laws, Book IV.) [↑]
[4] Note by printer:—“We did this to avoid an unseemly division of balance-sheet, and of two evils thought this the least.” [↑]
[5] One of these is a perfect English Bible, folio, and in beautiful state, sent to Sheffield for the first volume of our Museum library. Of course I must make St. George a present of it. [↑]
[6] As I correct this sheet, Fors places another Carlisle paper in my hand; from which I gather that Lord Lonsdale’s conceptions of what is fit, and not, are probably now changed. But my correspondent is wrong in assuming that the public will have to pay the extra rent. Very probably they will if the farming improvements are fallacious; but if indeed produce can be raised at less expense, the increased rent may represent only the difference between past and present cost of production. In this sense, however, the public do pay Lord Lonsdale’s extra rent, that their market prices, but for his Lordship, would have been lowered. As matters stand, they may be thankful if they are not raised. [↑]
[7] I can’t be responsible for these Scotch names. I sent the slip of paper to my printers, and ‘on their eyes be it.’ [↑]
[8] Italics mine (throughout the article, the rest of which is in Mr. Mackenzie’s own words). Have the vine-proprietors of Europe yet begun to look to the Earth—not the air, as the power that fails them? (See note [d].) [↑]
[9] It will, I hope, not be thought an absurdity in the St. George’s Company to retain on their estates ‘pleasure-grounds’ for their tenants, instead of themselves. In this one respect, and in this only, their public work will differ from this admirable piece of ‘private enterprise.’ [↑]
[10] Supposing the labour of all navvies, gold-diggers, and bad architects, throughout the world during the last fifty years, had been spent entirely in carting soil to where it was wanted for vegetables,—my dinnerless friends, you would have found the difference, by this time! [↑]
[11] This passage, in capitals, being wholly astounding to me, I venture to put a note of interrogation to it. I have long myself been questioning the farmers in Westmoreland about the quantity of rank bog grass they let grow. But their only idea of improvement is to burn the heather; this being a cheap operation, and dangerous only to their neighbours’ woods. Brantwood was within an ace of becoming Brantashes last summer. [↑]
[12] The name of the—certainly very efficient—teacher of these young people, and the general principles of their tuition, would have been a desirable addition, St. George thinks, to the information furnished by Mr. Mackenzie. [↑]