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HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

ciiap. cond, William Jenkyn, an aged dissenting pastor of great

--— note, who had been cruelly persecuted for no crime but that

of worshipping God according to the fashion generally fol-lowed throughout Protestant Europe, died of hardships andprivations in Newagte. The outbreak of popular sympathycould not be repressed. The corpse was followed to the graveby a train of a hundred and fifty coaches. Even courtierslooked sad. Even the unthinking King showed some signs ofconcern. Lestrange alone set up a howl of savage exultation,laughed at the weak compassion of the Trimmers, proclaimedthat the blasphemous old impostor had met with a mostrighteous punishment, and vowed to wage war, not only tothe death, but after death, with all the mock saints and mar-tyrs.* Such was the spirit of the paper which was at this timethe oracle of the Tory party, and especially of the parochialclergy.

Scarcity Literature which could be carried by the post bag thenin country formed the greater part of the intellectual nutriment rumi-piaces. na { e d by the country divines and country justices. The diffi-culty and expense of conveying large packets from place toplace was so great, that an extensive work was longer inmaking its way from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lan-cashire than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How scantily arural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the mostnecessary to a theologian, has already been remarked. Thehouses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Fewknights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpe-tually be found in a servants’ hall, or in the back parlour of asmall shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighboursfor a great scholar, if Iludibras and Baker’s Chronicle, Tarl-ton’s Jests and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay inhis hall window among the fishing rods and fowling pieces.

* Observalor, Jan. 29. and 31. 1085. Calainy’s Life of Baxter. Non-conformist Memorial.