The country squire was a long-lived but not always an intellectual animal.  He kept hawks of all kinds, and all sorts of hounds that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger.  His great hall was commonly strewn with marrow-bones, and full of hawks’ perches, of hounds, spaniels, and terriers.  His oyster-table stood at one end of the room, and oysters he ate at dinner and supper.  At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk, one side of which held a church Bible, the other Fox’s “Book of Martyrs.”  He drank a glass or two of wine at his meals, put syrup of gilly-flower in his sack, and always had a tun-glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary.  After dinner, with a glass of ale by his side he improved his mind by listening to the reading of a choice passage out of the “Book of Martyrs.”

This is a portrait of one Henry Hastings, of Dorsetshire, in Gilpin’s “Forest Scenery.”  He lived to be a hundred, and never lost his sight nor used spectacles.  He got on horseback without help, and rode to the death of the stag till he was past fourscore.

The plain country fellow, plowman, or clown, is several pegs lower, and described by Bishop Earle as one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and untitled.  His hand guides the plow, and the plow his thoughts.  His mind is not much disturbed by objects, but he can fix a half-hour’s contemplation on a good fat cow.  His habitation is under a poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn only by loop-holes that let out the smoke.  Dinner is serious work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labor, and he is a terrible fastener on a piece of beef.  His religion is a part of his copyhold, which he takes from his landlord and refers it wholly to his discretion, but he is a good Christian in his way, that is, he comes to church in his best clothes, where he is capable only of two prayers—­for rain and fair weather.

The country clergymen, at least those of the lower orders, or readers, were distinguished in Shakespeare’s time by the appellation “Sir,” as Sir Hugh, in the “Merry Wives,” Sir Topas, in “Twelfth Night,” Sir Oliver, in “As You Like It.”  The distinction is marked between priesthood and knighthood when Vista says, “I am one that would rather go with Sir Priest than Sir Knight.”  The clergy were not models of conduct in the days of Elizabeth, but their position excites little wonder when we read that they were often paid less than the cook and the minstrel.

There was great fondness in cottage and hall for merry tales of errant knights, lovers, lords, ladies, dwarfs, friars, thieves, witches, goblins, for old stories told by the fireside, with a toast of ale on the hearth, as in Milton’s allusion

             “—–­to the nut-brown ale,
          With stories told of many a feat”

A designation of winter in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” is

“When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.”