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My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very regular life and obliging conversation : he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's esteem, so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent.

I have observed in several of my papers that my friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of a humorist; and that his virtues, as well as imperfections, are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now mentioned; and without staying for my answer told me that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the

University to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little of backgammon "My friend," says Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, beside the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not show it. I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and, because I know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years; and, though he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time asked anything of me for himself, though he is every day soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my tenants, his parishioners. There has not been a law-suit in the parish since he has lived among them; if any dispute arises, they apply themselves to him for the decision; if they do not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me I made him a present of all the good sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly he has digested them into such a series that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity.'

I no sooner saw this venerable man in the pulpit, but I very

much approved of my friend's insisting upon the qualifications of a good aspect and a clear voice; for I was so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as the discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated after this manner is like the composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor.

I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution, and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the people. (660)

I was this morning walking in the gallery, when Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and, advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his relations, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and, as he is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and as we stood before it, he entered into the matter after his blunt way of saying things as they occur to his imagination, without regular introduction, or care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought.

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"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the force of dress, and how the persons of one age differ from those of another, merely by that only. One may observe also that the general fashion of one age has been followed by one particular set of people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to another. Thus the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the habit in Henry the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeoman of the guard; not without a good and politic view, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and a half broader; besides that the cap leaves the face expanded, and consequently more terrible, and fitter to stand at the entrance of palaces.

"This predecessor of ours you see is dressed after this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize in the tilt-yard, which is now a common street before Whitehall. You see the broken lance that lies there by his right foot. He shivered that lance of his adversary all to pieces; and bearing himself, look you, sir, in this manner, at the same time he came within the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of his saddle, he

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in that manner rid the tournament over with an air that showed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists than expose his enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched up to a gallery where their mistress sat, for they were rivals, and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I don't know, but it might be exactly where the coffee-house is now.

"You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist; my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent country wife; she had ten children; and when I show you the library, you shall see in her own hand, allowing for the difference of the language, the best recipe now in England both for a hasty-pudding and a white-pot. (374)

(To be concluded.)

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To be well fed, well clothed, well housed, well paid, were matters of vast importance, and were a comfortable, well-to-do philosopher to say to a poor half-starved, | ragged man, living in an insanitary, over-crowded tenement, "My good friend, the really important question is not your empty stomach, your ragged back, your evil-smelling home, but what sort of a man you are," he would deserve to receive as a reply " You selfish wretch, only let me share your comforts for a twelvemonth and I will show | you a better man than yourself."

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Progress to-day might well mean the improvement of the environments of human life. That was our great task to-day, and it was forced upon us by our huge population, forty millions of people living in these famous and still powerful British Islands. The problem was intensified by a growing sense of social | responsibility and a manhood added to a marvellously increased sensibility to all human suffering, viewed simply as suffering quite apart from any question of moral deserts. When we spoke of progress we were for the most part thinking of the social questions which haunted the imagination that they once took possession of, the horrors of overcrowding both in large towns and small villages, the awful heritage of poverty and disease, the stunted frame, the deadened intelligence, the craving for strong drink, the ingrained viciousness of habit, and the awful power of reproducing in geometrical progression a race more diseased than its progenitors. These, indeed, were matters of urgency, as much as a shipwreck or a fire. The rights of |

unjust anger, of the philanthropist, who thought Carlyle was defending human slavery, and the contempt of the political economist, who believed that wages must of necessity, and whether they liked it or not, and whatever the misery it involved, be determined by the haggle of the market. The question could not remain where it was. The world was governed by ideas, and ideas, though they often took centuries to evolve, sometimes reached maturity in a night. They could not shirk ideas or closure them, and it might yet prove to be the case that poverty such as they saw around them was not the final condition of so many | millions of their fellowcountrymen, as some political economists would have them believe. But at the close of his observations he returned to the subject he first introduced to their notice.

(511)

Things material are great, but things spiritual and belonging to the realms of thought are greater. The greatness of a nation does not depend upon the size of what is | called empire, but upon the breed of its people, upon their mental characteristics, upon the ideas they entertain, upon the tasks they cultivate, upon the habits of their lives, and upon their possessing in all matters a certain unity of thought and feeling, otherwise a nation could not make itself a force either for good or ill. The Greeks had their qualities, and for certain great things in the height of perfection the world will always look to Athens. The Romans in their great days had their qualities, which we can still see for ourselves in their legal institutions, in their walls, roads, and aqueducts. The French nation has made the world its debtor for much, and so,

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too, have we. No need to underrate ourselves. Our common law proclaims aloud a great people, deeply imbued with a love of freedom and fair play. Our ships, manned with native seamen | bred on our coasts, have carried goods of enduring and worldfamous quality across every ocean, safely into every port. We have produced a race of honest administrators and clean- handed judges, who have, at all events, shown alien races in distant lands what it is an Englishman means by justice But we are still in the throes of our | fate. We have not yet fulfilled our destiny. Dark and difficult ways lie before us. The burden of empire makes us quiver and groan in every joint, and there are still great territories in Africa, and at least half the empire of Persia waiting to be gobbled up. The financial future fills the cautious with alarm. Everywhere our annual expenses | are increasing by millions of pounds, and nowhere, so some say, is practical economy even possible. We are surrounded by enemies armed to the teeth, who would dearly love to shatter our supremacy. Our food supply comes to us across the seas. Our foreign policy is indeterminate, provocative, and vacillating. It cannot be said we have abounding confidence in any of our institutions save the judicial. Have we confidence in ourselves? I trust we have, but remember this-that confidence will be misplaced unless we can see around us the evidence of the continual daily growth of a people who, before everything else, love the cause of honour, justice, and freedom. Unless our love for these high things grows more and more no progress in any other direction will save us from sharing the fate of even more gifted races than our own. (443)