in its purity, the old English country gentleman; for our men of fortune
spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into
the country, that the strong, rich peculiarities of ancient rural life
are almost polished away. My father, however, from early years,
took honest Peacham* for his textbook, instead of Chesterfield: he
determined, in his own mind, that there was no condition more truly
honourable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal
lands, and, therefore, passes the whole of his time on his estate. He is
a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday
observances, and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, who
have treated on the subject. Indeed, his favourite range of reading is
among the authors who flourished at least two centuries since; who, he
insists, wrote and thought more like true Englishmen than any of their
successors. He even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few
centuries earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners
and customs. As he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather
a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him, he has
that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman, an opportunity
of indulging the bent of his own humour without molestation. Being
representative of the oldest family in the neighbourhood, and a great
part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and,
in general, is known simply by the appellation of 'The Squire;' a title
which has been accorded to the head of the family since time immemorial.
I think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father, to
prepare you for any little eccentricities that might otherwise appear
absurd."

* Peacham's "Complete Gentleman," 1622.

We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the