people yearn after strange doctrine--if the parish has produced any good
or great murderer, incendiary, or other criminal. In short, why might not
the history of each of the twenty or thirty thousand parishes of Great
Britain--we speak at random--be each a history of human nature, at once
entertaining and instructive? How infinitely better such books than
pamphlets on political economy, for example, now encumbering the whole
land! Nay, even than single sermons, or bundles of sermons, all like so
many sticks--strong when tied all together, but when taken separately,
weak and frush. We have no great opinion of county histories in general,
though we believe there are some goodish ones, from which we purpose, ere
long, to construct some superior articles. A county history, to be worth
much, should run from sixty to six hundred volumes. No library could well
stand that for many years. But a judicious selection might be made from
the thirty thousand parish histories--that would afford charming reading
to the largest family during the longest nights--in the intervals between
the Scotch Novels. Form the circle round the fire--when winter crimps and
freezes--or round the open bow-window, now that summer roasts and broils,
and get her whose voice is like a silver bell to read it up, right on from
beginning to end, only skipping a few lists of names now and then, and we
pledge our credit on the prediction, that you will be delighted as on a
summer ramble, now in sunlight and now in moonlight, over hill and dale,
adorned with towers, turrets, pinnacles of halls and churches, and the low
roofs,--blue or brown, slated or strawed.--

"Of huts where poor men lie!"

_Blackwood's Magazine._