--so said
the holders of this doctrine; the former weakness. Now the Greshams
were ever a strong people, and never addicted to a false humility.

We will not pretend to decide the question. Alas! either construction
was now equally unsuited to the family fortunes. Such changes had
taken place in England since the Greshams had founded themselves that
no savage could any longer in any way protect them; they must protect
themselves like common folk, or live unprotected. Nor now was it
necessary that any neighbour should shake in his shoes when the
Gresham frowned. It would have been to be wished that the present
Gresham himself could have been as indifferent to the frowns of some
of his neighbours.

But the old symbols remained, and may such symbols long remain among
us; they are still lovely and fit to be loved. They tell us of the
true and manly feelings of other times; and to him who can read
aright, they explain more fully, more truly than any written history
can do, how Englishmen have become what they are. England is not yet
a commercial country in the sense in which that epithet is used for
her; and let us still hope that she will not soon become so. She
might surely as well be called feudal England, or chivalrous England.
If in western civilised Europe there does exist a nation among whom
there are high signors, and with whom the owners of the land are
the true aristocracy, the aristocracy that is trusted as being best
and fittest to rule, that nation is the English. Choose out the ten
leading men of each great European people. Choose them in France, in
Austria, Sardinia, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Spain (?), and
then select the ten in England whose names are best known as those of
leading statesmen; the result will show in which country there still
exists the closest attachment to, the sincerest trust in, the old
feudal and now so-called landed interests.

England a commercial country! Yes; as Venice was. She may excel
other nations in commerce, but yet it is not that in which she most
prides herself, in which she most excels. Merchants as such are not
the first men among us; though it perhaps be open, barely open, to
a merchant to become one of them. Buying and selling is good and
necessary; it is very necessary, and may, possibly, be very good; but
it cannot be the noblest work of man; and let us hope that it may not
in our time be esteemed the noblest work of an Englishman.

Greshamsbury Park was ve