drawbacks the long period of great abundance from 1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits of the people.  Adam Smith refers to ’the peculiarly happy circumstances of the country’; Hallam described the reign of George II as ’the most prosperous period that England has ever experienced’[476]; and it was Young’s opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and flourishing situation, ’her agriculture is upon the whole good and spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed, clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour generally high.’[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country had arrived within a few years ’is not only astonishing but almost dreadful to think of.  Time was when those articles of indulgence which now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the baron or lord.’[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and coaches.  The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former times and the ‘country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.’  The private gentleman of L300 or L400 a year must have his horses, dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin.  The articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer than some time back.  This is a very different picture from that in which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt depicts one phase of national life.

An excellent observer[479] noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once common type of the small country squire.  He was:—­

’An independent gentleman of L300 per annum who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots.  His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at assize or session time, or to attend an election.  Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys and justices.  He went to church regularly, read the weekly journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got drunk for the good of his country.  He was commonly followed by a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbour’s house by smacking his whip and giving a view halloo.  His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day, the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy.  The mansion of one of these squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco