ent it is with his fellow workman who has no such resource-who has no such companionship within himself! If his mind is not an utter blank, it is filled with a world of trifling and debasing thoughts. A man, however, accustomed to think, to read, and to hold intercourse with a pure and lofty morality, has tastes above those of his illiterate companion, and might hold in whatever sphere of life a higher social position. In addition to the library which he provided, he encouraged and aided the workmen to purchase a few books for themselves, thinking that a well selected Collection of these in a house was a pledge of domestic comfort, of happy fireside influences, and the best security for their continuance. These good books the Prince regarded as household deities, shedding light and intelligence, begetting feelings of friendly interest within each, to man, and every living thing, elevating his ideas of the works of God, expanding his views of this and the world to come, staying the downward tendencies of their natures, purifying, ennobling and enlarging their affections, and thus becoming the shields of the household virtues. These, he said, were the real, true household deities, and not the false gods set up by the Romans in their ignorance and superstition. In a word, good books were, in his opinion, the best protection of every social virtue, and the best security to domestic comfort and peace. Few people there are who will not subscribe to the justness of his views on this subject. A monthly report of the operations of the farm was made to Prince Albert, who inspected them closely and issued instructions accordingly. This excellent man ever sought, in his farming operations, as in all the duties of life, to discover what was true and to practice that which is good. During the period of our visit to Berkshire, the farmers were engaged in plowing their land for the spring crop, and the process, though new to us, was decidedly antiquated. They had five to six horses harnessed, one behind another, to the plows, and while one man held the handles, another managed the team. From this almost obsolete method of turning the sod is doubtless derived the old distich: "He that by the plough would thrive, The reason for using so many horses and not putting them abreast, was the stiffness of the soil and consequent heavy draught; that by employing more horses than is necessary they stand the work better and longer than when too hard pressed; that part of the team consists of young horses, which are thus exercised and assist in the labor, without injury to themselves, and harnessed in a line ahead of each other, they do not injure the soft surface soil on the land side. These are very plausible reasons for the plan, but we are disposed to believe nevertheless that it is better economy to employ only the horses required for the work, than supernumeraries to prevent possible injury to them; that before putting a young horse to the severe work of the plow, he ought to be well broken, so that he may perform his work steadily and thoroughly, making a full one in the team, and that five or six heavy horses, marching one after another, at the bottom of a furrow will do more injury to the land than if harnessed abreast. Accepting, however, without argument, the explanation of the British farmer, the question is submitted to our practical agriculturists, who will, if they have not long since done so, soon solve the problem. CHAPTER IX. HAMPTON COURT-MONS. ASSOLANT-CARDINAL WOLSLEY. Milton has observed that he who neglects to visit the country in the spring, and rejects the pleasures that are then in their first bloom and fragrance, is guilty of "sullenness against nature." If we allow different duties to different seasons, he may be charged with equal disobedience to the voice of nature, who looks on the bleak hills and leafless woods without seriousness and awe. Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terror; in spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty; not so in winter, then compassion melts at the universal calamity, the tear starts at the wailing of hunger and the cries of creation in distres. But a truce to reflections on the changes of the seasons. Concu ring in the great poet's views-never going to the country withou finding something to revive our curiosity and engage our attentio --we accepted an invitation to visit Hampton Court, in June, 1862, with a party consisting of many agreeable persons, among them Dr. A. T. Bledsoe, Mr. and Mrs. F. T. Tremlett, Sir Henry de Hoghton, Lady Eardley, and three French gentlemen, one of them being M. Assolant, the vivacious correspondent of the Courier du Dimanche, whose letters from England during the Exhibition of 1862 created so much amusement in Paris and so much irritation in London. M. Assolant is a good specimen of a Frenchman, gay, witty, frivolous, sarcastic, sardonic. His pictures of the English, like all drawn by his countrymen, are exaggerated until they become ludicrous, and while no one could read them without a laugh, it appeared simply ridiculous that John Bull should take them so much to heart as he appeared to do. Not only the Times, but all the other daily papers, belabored him soundly for his sketches. M. Assolant is a fine flaneur, or "snapper up of unconsidered trifles," full of anecdote-one of those travelling companions who shorten the longest journey. He kept us in a continual laugh and emerged from the train at Hampton Court covered with dust and applause. This clever man was born in Aubusson Creuse, in 1827; he finished his collegiate career about the year 1850. He was now, such was his scholarship, appointed to a professorship in the University of France, where he was successfully engaged for some years. A fondness for adventure led him to abandon his trust and travel in Central America and the United States. On his return to France he contributed to the "Revue des Deux Mondes," an article upon the adventurer, "Walker and the Americans," and two rather successful novels. It was thought that while in Central America, he took part with the fillibusters. In 1858 he published what was called 'une fantasie Americaine," under the title of "Scenes de la vie des Etats Unis," and since many other books, biographical, historical and fictitious. His most recent work, published about this period, was entitled "Historie d'un Etudiant. For some unexplained reason Mons. Assolant could not get on comfortably with the English, but found himself entirely at home, like most Frenchmen, with Americans. His whimsical ridicule of John Bull was exceedingly droll and amusing. He would stop at times and express in a comical way his respect for America and the Americans, an admiration and respect which he declared was based on the great qualities of both country and people. When told that the Americans were English, only born in another hemisphere, he dissented and declared that though made up of all peoples, the Americans were more Celtic than Teutonic, and that Brother Jonathan, with all his eccentricities and grotesqueness, was decidedly ahead of John Bull. John Bull, he said, even be fore the conquest, was made up of Britons, Romans, Saxons, Picts and Danes, and had no right to call himself an Anglo-Saxon. In fact, said Assolant, there is no such race as Anglo-Saxons and never was. He remarked that when it was customary to denounce King William as a foreigner, Defoe wrote "The true born Englishman," in which he instructs his countrymen as to the mongrel races which had conspired to form that "vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman," and showed A true-born Englishman's a contradiction In speech an irony, in fact a fiction; A man akin to all the universe. In a serio-comic vein he ran over a list of the boasted privileges of the English, and said they were all legacies left them by Frenchmen. It was to the Norman Kings that England owed trial by jury, the amelioration of the condition of the vassals by laws curtailing the powers of the old barons, the equalization of taxes by which lords and commons paid alike; the summoning of the first House of Commons that forced King John to sign Magna Charta. Here was the commencement of English nationality, said he, for before this period, English history was a mere history of elements, of their collisions and of the processes of their fusion. At this point a young man, of the cockney type, not, however, of our party, who had listened to the discussion in uneasy silence, began to show signs of fight, and it required all of Mr. Tremlett's clerical authority, and the aplomb of Sir Henry de Hoghton to keep the peace. At the next station we were glad to see this lard complexioned youth, with fierce grey eyes, piano-key teeth, elongated legs and gooseberry mustache, leave the carriage. The French are, as all the world knows, the most racy and delightful of conversationalists, and M. Assolant shines among his own people, in the famed salons of Paris. Yet even he is not likely to rival, in this direction, his illustrious country woman, Madame de Stael, who is represented as having been so fascinating that those who listened to her were not aware, on one occasion of a thunderstorm. To the politeness, the manners and the accomplishments of the fashionable world, M. Assolant adds a thorough knowledge of men; is indeed a man of the world, if not the spoiled child, whose caprices have always been laws, and who must,when a child, have broken the playthings he was refused. It is possible, therefore, that he was "buttering" us at the expense of John Bull, or he may have been amusing himself with both at one and the same time. Sir Henry de Hoghton was too much occupied with a flirtation with Lady Eardley to pay attention to the Frenchman, who certainly diverted the rest of the party no little. Dr. Bledsoe, who gave the witty Gaul small credit for sincerity in his pronounced American prejudices, directed many heavy shot at him, which struck with telling effect. M. Assolant is a man of middle height, handsome features, dark complexion, calm black eyes, thick, wiry mustaches, hanging like those of a Tartar. His voice is sweet and musical and when he smiles his face assumes an air of benevolence. The train, which had been gliding on with jerks of white vapor, now stopped with bragging puffs of smoke, and the porters throwing open the carriage doors cried out: "Hampton Court!" Hampton Court is known the world over as one of the most interesting spots in England, whether considerered with reference to the historical associations with which it is rife, its extensive picture galleries, or the beauty of its gardens and parks, both of which have been elaborately and elegantly improved. Therefore of Hampton Court we shall give a brief account: Entering its gates it is impossible not to pass in review at once the singular history and deplorable fate of the wonderful man by whom it was reared, and who here lived in an ostentatious style of more than regal state. Without indulging in the extravagances of the stock tourist, who might here detain the reader several hours with his "contemplations" in the style of Volney's, "here once stood a populous city, the seat of a powerful empire," we shall content ourselves with a rapid resume of the principal events in the life of Cardinal Wolsey, who built the palace when at the height of his power, and with the deliberate purpose of making it surpass in size and magnificence any Royal residence in Europe. Thomas Wolsey was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1471, and was the son of a butcher. Though not wealthy, his father's means were sufficient to enable him to bestow upon his son a liberal education, which he completed at Magdalen college, Oxford. During his university career he exhibited extraordinary talents and industry. The multitude of the offices and dignities, civil and ecclesiastical, which he afterwards filled is so curious, that at the risk of being tedious, we shall run hurriedly over the list. In 1504 he was chaplain to Henry VII, with dispensation to hold three livings, stations he acquired through the influence of Sir John Naphant, Governor of Calais. Young Wolsey had gone to France shortly after leaving Oxford and took service under the Governor, and showed such remarkable diligence and discretion that he was recommended by Sir John to his sovereign. His next appointment was royal almoner, and in 1508, Dean of Lincoln. In 1510, |