glass, in scrupulous preservation; its stately monuments of
warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present
lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording successive
generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the
same fields, and kneel at the same altar;--the parsonage, a
quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and
altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants;--the stile
and foot-path leading from the churchyard, across pleasant
fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial
right of way;--the neighboring village, with its venerable
cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the
forefathers of the present race have sported;--the antique family
mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking
down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these
common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled
security, a hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local
attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral
character of the nation.

It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell is
sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the
peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest
cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to
church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the
evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to
exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own
hands have spread around them.

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection
in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the