314

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

III.

tion, passes from a distinguished school to a distinguished' college, and has every opportunity to become an ex-cellent scholar. He has generally seen something of foreigncountries. A considerable part of his life has generally beenpassed in the capital; and the refinements of the capitalfollow him into the country. There is perhaps no class ofdwellings so pleasing as the rural seats of the English gentry.In the parks spid pleasure grounds, nature, dressed yet notdisguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In thebuildings, good sense and good taste combine to producea happy union of the comfortable and the graceful. Thepictures, the musical instruments, the library, would in anyother country be considered as proving the owner to be aneminently polished and accomplished man. A country gen-tleman who witnessed the Revolution was probably in receiptof about a fourth part of the rent which his acres now yieldto his posterity. He was, therefore, as compared with hisposterity, a poor man, and was generally under the necessityof residing, with little interruption, on his estate. To travelon the Continent, to maintain an establishment in London,or even to visit London frequently, were pleasures in whichonly the great proprietors could indulge. It may be con-fidently affirmed that of the squires whose names were thenin the Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy not one intwenty went to town once in five years, or had ever in his lifewandered so far as Paris. Many lords of manors had receivedan education differing little from that of their menial servants.The heir of an estate often passed' his boyhood and youth atthe seat of his family with no better tutors than grooms andgamekeepers, and scarce attained learning enough to signhis name to a Mittimus. If he went to school and to college,he generally returned before he was twenty to the seclusionof the old hall, and there, unless his mind were very happilyconstituted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in