be responsible. They will allow, as heretofore has been the practice, diversities of opinion within a reasonable limit; but on questions of importance, the New Englander will take distinct ground, and what that ground, in each case, shall be, the Editors will determine.

It is not doubted that the old friends of the New Englander will be disposed to sustain it liberally both by subscribing individually and by exerting themselves still further to extend the subscription list. If our wealthy laymen could read the letters which are not unfrequently received from clergymen-some of them in distant parts of the country-who deplore the necessity, under which they are placed by poverty, of giving up this Journal to which they profess the strongest attachment, some means could be devised of saving them from this sacrifice.

GEORGE P. FISHER,

TIMOTHY DWIGHT,

WILLIAM L. KINGSLEY.

As the arrangement indicated above will not commence till after the appearance of the January number, new subscribers can begin with the April number if they prefer to do so. The price of subscription for the year is $4;-for those who commence with the April number, $3.

All communications of every kind, relating to the New Englander, are to be addressed to WILLIAM L. KINGSLEY, 63 Grove street, New Haven.

For further information, see page 7 of the New Englander Advertiser.

THE

NEW ENGLANDER.

No. XCIV.

JANUARY, 1866.

ARTICLE I.-COUNTRY LIFE IN ENGLAND.

The Rural Life of England. By WILLIAM HOWITT. 2 Vols. Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan. 1854.

Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

1863.

It is not strange that Americans incline to think and speak much of England and her people, for whatever concerns that nation largely concerns us. Notwithstanding the rough treatment we have lately received at her hands, we cannot forget that she is the mother country. We are bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh. Whatever is ancient and renowned in her history, whatever the extent of her empire, the wisdom and justice of her laws, or the splendor of her achievements in art and literature,-all is, in a sense, our property, and may justify in us some measure of family pride. It is of our English cousins that we now propose to speak, and of them more especially as living in the country; for it is here that they are

most at home, and appear to the best advantage. In the city, they become cosmopolitan and common-place; it is in the country that they retain most of their national peculiarities.

An intelligent American, turning his eyes toward England, will ever take into his view her history. Living in a new country, and surrounded by whatsoever is recent, he must be deeply impressed with her age; not, indeed, the hoary antiquity of Egypt or Greece, but, as compared with his own country, a nation venerable with years. In the mists which envelop her earliest history, he sees shadowy forms of the old Phoenicians, sea-faring people, hovering around her shores, trafficking with the nations for tin and lead; and when these mists blow away, he finds veritable traces of these bold Eastern men, in their Druidical temples, older than the Christian era. He finds, dating a few centuries later, the remains of Roman forts, bridges, walls, and military roads, built when Rome was mistress of the world. He thinks the plowman must be very dull if he does not reflect for how many years the same soil has been turned up to the sun, and how long it has been the theatre of active human life; that the boatman on the Thames must be very stupid who does not reflect how many times those waters have been cut by British keels, and how grand a part British commerce has played in the world's civilization.

Nor can it be forgotten that the lives of her kings have been largely associated with the country; for over its hills and plains many of them have swept with their armies; in its forests they have hunted; in its parks and gardens they have sought recreation; and in the affection and loyalty of its inhabitants they have taken special delight, and found the firmest pillar of their throne. Not only kings and queens, but the names of lords and ladies, statesmen, warriors, poets, and scholars, are everywhere linked with rural traditions. In yonder forest, King Rufus fell before Tyrrel's arrow; this one still resounds to the tread of Robin Hood and his merry men. It was on this beach of Southampton, that the waves humbled the pride of Canute. Here is Edgehill, the scene of the first encounter between Charles and the parliamentary forces, and

hard by is the house where Cromwell lodged on the night before the battle. Of modern kings, from Henry the Eighth to the present reigning family, nearly all have been munificent patrons of agriculture and gardening.

On yonder hill are the ruins of Ludlow castle, where Milton's "Comus" was first performed; and by this placid stream is Wilton Hall, amid whose bowers Sir Philip Sydney composed his "Arcadia." In a little rude building at Stratford, was the early home of Shakespeare. In Wolthorpe, Newton was born, and in one of its fortunate orchards saw the famous apple fall.* It is remarkable how almost every corner of the kingdom is associated with important deeds there done, or of eminent men who there lived and died. A writer has well observed that "the roll of England's great men is long, but it exhibits, for the most part, the names of great men and humble places. * * Many roof-trees throughout the country are thus made beautiful and imposing, even with their thatch and tiles." Now in this roll are very many of the best minds that the world has ever seen; they have left a deep impression on the fortunes of the race; and it stirs one's blood to walk the soil once trodden by their feet, and to visit the graves where their dust reposes.

*

The remains of ancient architecture in England greatly impress a visitor from the New World. Here are castles, abbeys, and cathedrals, eight and nine centuries old. Many of them are in partial decay, covered with moss and ivy, yet enough has been preserved to illustrate the eminent genius and lofty purpose of the builders. For the sacred edifices it is claimed that the religious sentiment inspired them, just as it led to the crusades, to the translation of the Bible, and taught resistance to tyrants.

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

* We understand that the identical pippin is still shown the credulous visitor, or a consideration.

He builded better than he knew:-
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

"O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends with kindred eye;
For out of Thought's interior sphere,
Theee wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat."

Whether or not we admit this religious inspiration, mixed with some earthly alloy, we cannot fail to look upon these old structures with reverence.

Less ancient than these, yet dating back several centuries, are the old country-houses, scattered through every part of the kingdom. William Howitt speaks of them in this affectionate

way:

"How delightful it is to go through those hereditary abodes of ancient and distinguished families, and to see, in the very construct on of them, images of the past times, and their modes of existence! Here, you pass through ample courts, amid rambling and extensive offices that once were necessary to the jolly establishment of the age,-for hounds, horses, hawks, and all their attendants and dependencies. Here you come into vast kitchens, with fire-places at which three or four oxen might be roasted at once, with mantelpieces wide as the arch of a bridge, and chimneys as large as the steeple of a country church. Then you advance into great halls, where scores of rude revelers have feasted in returning from battle or the chase, in the days of feudal running and riding, of foraging and pilgrimages, of hard knocks and hard lying; ere tea and coffee had supplanted beef and ale at breakfast; ere books had charmed away spears and targets. Then, again, you advance into tapestried chambers, on whose walls mythological or scriptural histories, wrought by the fingers of high-born dames, at once impress you with a sense of very still, and leisurely, and woodland times, when Crocksford's and Almack's were not; nor the active spirit of civilization had raised up weavers and spinners by thousands on thousands. And now you come to the very closets and bowers of the ladies themselves,--scenes of worn and faded splendor, but showing enough of their original state to mark their wide difference from the silken boudoirs and luxurious dormitories of the fair dames of this age. Then there is the antique chapel, and the library; the one having in most cases been deserted by its ancient faith, the other still bearing testimony to the range of reading of our old squires and nobles, since reading became a part of their education, in a few grim folios,--a Bible, a Gwillim's Heraldry, one or two