does not want to know, how England came to be divided into counties,
hundreds, parishes and tithings.

49. GEOGRAPHY naturally follows Grammar; and you should begin with that
of this kingdom, which you ought to understand well, perfectly well,
before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight knowledge of the
divisions and customs of other countries is, generally speaking,
sufficient; but, not to know these full well, as far as relates to our
own country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar,
somewhat disgraceful. Yet how many men are there, and those called
_gentlemen_ too, who seem to think that counties and parishes, and
churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors and courts-leet,
and paupers and poor-houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down
upon it, immediately after Noah's flood! Surely, it is necessary for
every man, having any pretensions to scholarship, to know _how these
things came_; and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the better;
for, until it be acquired, you read the _history_ of your country in
vain. Indeed, to communicate this knowledge is one main part of the
business of history; but it is a part which no historian, commonly so
called, has, that I know of, ever yet performed, except, in part,
myself, in the History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION. I had read HUME'S
History of England, and the Continuation by SMOLLETT; but, in 1802, when
I wanted to write on the subject of the _non-residence of the clergy_, I
found, to my great mortification, that I knew nothing of the foundation
of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that I could not even
guess at the _origin of parishes_. This gave a new turn to my inquiries;
and I soon found the romancers, called historians, had given me no
information that I could rely on, and, besides, had done, apparently,
all they could to keep me in the dark.