with seats in it, and over it a study, the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks.  The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan and dagger borne by his ancestors in the Civil Wars.  The vacant spaces were occupied by stags’ horns.  Against the wall was posted King Charles’s Golden Rules, Vincent Wing’s Almanack and a portrait of the duke of Marlborough:  in his window lay Baker’s Chronicle, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Glanvil on Apparitions, Quincey’s Dispensatory, the Complete Justice and a Book of Farriery.  In the corner, by the fireside, stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion; and within the chimney-corner were a couple of seats.  Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees and other great logs, and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village respecting ghosts and witches till fear made them afraid to move.  In the mean time the jorum of ale was in continual circulation.  The best parlor, which was never opened but on particular occasions, was furnished with Turk-worked chairs, and hung round with portraits of his ancestors—­the men, some in the character of shepherds with their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes, and others in complete armor or buff-coats; the females, likewise as shepherdesses with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads and flowing robes.  Alas! these men and these houses are no more!  The luxury of the times has obliged them to quit the country and become humble dependants on great men, to solicit a place or commission, to live in London, to rack their tenants and draw their rents before due.  The venerable mansion is in the mean time suffered to tumble down or is partly upheld as a farm-house, till after a few years the estate is conveyed to the steward of the neighboring lord, or else to some nabob, contractor or limb of the law.”

It is unquestionably owing to the love of country life amongst the higher classes that England so early attained in many respects what may be termed an even civilization.  In almost all other countries the traveler beyond the confines of a few great cities finds himself in a region of comparative semi-barbarism.  But no one familiar with English country life can say that this is the case in the rural districts of England, whilst it is most unquestionably so in Ireland, simply because she has through absenteeism been deprived of those influences which have done so much for her wealthy sister.  Go where you will in England to-day, and you will find within five miles of you a good turnpike road, leading to an inn hard by, where you may get a clean and comfortable though simple dinner, good bread, good butter, and a carriage—­“fly” is the term now, as in the days of Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck—­to convey you where you will.  And this was the case long before railways came into vogue.