Nor were the participants mere rustics; many of them could boast as good blood, as careful breeding, and as much intelligence, as any in the land.

There is no doubt of its being the work of some ill-disposed rustic; but how is he to be discovered?

There is a handsome rustic inn here, where every Sunday afternoon a band plays in the portico, while hundreds of people are scattered around in the cool shadow of the trees, or feeding the splendid trout in the basin formed by the little stream.

So Mahomet did when he published his Alcoran, which is a piece of work (saith Bredenbachius) "full of nonsense, barbarism, confusion, without rhyme, reason, or any good composition, first published to a company of rude rustics, hog-rubbers, that had no discretion, judgment, art, or understanding, and is so still maintained."

A tax levied at customary rates became "rent" arrived at by a process of bargaining between the landlord and ignorant rustics.

It is also noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically something of an anachronism.

We find in it a coarse, dialect-speaking rustic, named Corin, who at one point succours Clyomon, and with whom Neronis, daughter of the King and Queen of the Strange Marshes, seeks service in the disguise of a boy.

Consequently, in those days the most enlightened rustic never for a moment doubted the truth of witchcraft.

Celia and Rosalind, the latter disguised as a youth, are courtly characters; Phebe and Silvius represent the polished Arcadians of pastoral tradition; while Audrey and William combine the character of farcical rustics with the inimitable humanity which distinguishes Shakespeare's creations.

Amongst these lucky individuals were three of the reader's acquaintances, and we think he will scarce fail to recognise the saucy-faced apprentice with the cudgel under his arm, and the fair-haired, blue-eyed, country-looking maiden at his side, as well as the hale old rustic by whom they were attended.

The concrete form in which the industrial forces, which we have described, appeal to the dull-headed rustic is the attraction of higher wages.

But the chief value of the work seems really to lie in this: it has dignified the rural scenes and the honest rustics of England.

She had observed the peculiar fire which lighted up his eyes in the presence of Ellen Kingsbury, and she bethought her of a plan which would ensure her some amusement at the expense of these impertinent rustics, though in a manner different somewhat from her original more natural idea of simple coquetry.

"It's real good land to farm," had been the sweet little rustic's comment.

And this lucky rustic, this upstart lout, rich without deserving it for any competence he had, was giving himself the airs of an intelligent dealer, presuming to approach Rafael, "his deputy," with a proposal for a freight-rate bill to promote the shipping of oranges into the interior of Spain!

Opera peasants, whose unreality excites Mr. Ruskin's indignation, are surely too frank an idealization to be misleading; and since popular chorus is one of the most effective elements of the opera, we can hardly object to lyric rustics in elegant laced bodices and picturesque motley, unless we are prepared to advocate a chorus of colliers in their pit costume, or a ballet of charwomen and stocking-weavers.

It consisted of a venerable clerichis skirts held high enough out of the mud to reveal the fact that he favoured flannel underclothing and British army socksand a massive rustic dressed principally in hair, straw-ends and corduroys.

In the former capacity he preached profound sermons, quoting to open-mouthed rustics long passages from the Hebrew, which he told them was the very tongue of the Holy Ghost.

No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics into this narrowness and filth.

I then went to the grotto of the fortune-teller, but it was full of noisy rustics; and thence to the lottery hall, where there were plenty of players, but not those of whom I was in search.

Out of a peaceful rustic solitude you may run round a curve straight into a block.

They are all plain Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain.

There are in England two thousand varieties of the rose alone, and I venture to express a doubt whether the richest gardens of Persia or Cashmere could produce finer specimens of that universal favorite than are to be found in some of the small but highly cultivated enclosures of respectable English rustics.

For times are not as they were wont To be in years gone by, When on the rural village green They reared the May-pole high; While gathered round a merry group Of youths and maidens gay, To crown some rosy rustic maid

The figures of the boys and girls and of the slow rustics with their wives could be seen moving about indistinctly across the water by the fluttering flame of the bonfire.