some fervent knoll; the river floated with a drowsy
unconscious course: there was no wave in the grass, no stir in
the branches.

A silence so profound amid these solemn ruins, offered the
perfection of solitude; and there was that stirring in the
mind of Egremont which rendered him far from indisposed for
this loneliness.

The slight words that he had exchanged with the farmer and the
hind had left him musing. Why was England not the same land
as in the days of his light-hearted youth? Why were these
hard times for the poor? He stood among the ruins that, as
the farmer had well observed, had seen many changes: changes
of creeds, of dynasties, of laws, of manners. New orders of
men had arisen in the country, new sources of wealth had
opened, new dispositions of power to which that wealth had
necessarily led. His own house, his own order, had
established themselves on the ruins of that great body, the
emblems of whose ancient magnificence and strength surrounded
him. And now his order was in turn menaced. And the People--
the millions of Toil, on whose unconscious energies during
these changeful centuries all rested--what changes had these
centuries brought to them? Had their advance in the national
scale borne a due relation to that progress of their rulers,
which had accumulated in the treasuries of a limited class the
riches of the world; and made their possessors boast that they
were the first of nations; the most powerful and the most
free, the most enlightened, the most moral, and the most
religious? Were there any rick-burners in the times of the