pronunciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the
most ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of
abuse, were uttered with the broadest accent of his province. It was
easy to discern, from the first words which he spoke, whether he came
from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about
decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced
anything but deformity. The litter of a farmyard gathered under the
windows of his bedchamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew
close to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty; and
guests were cordially welcomed to it. But, as the habit of drinking to
excess was general in the class to which he belonged, and as his fortune
did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies daily with claret
or canary, strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer
consumed in those days was indeed enormous. For beer then was to the
middle and lower classes, not only all that beer is, but all that wine,
tea, and ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses, or on
great occasions, that foreign drink was placed on the board. The ladies
of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook the repast,
retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the gentlemen
to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often
prolonged till the revellers were laid under the table.

It was very seldom that the country gentleman caught glimpses of the
great world; and what he saw of it tended rather to confuse than
to enlighten his understanding. His opinions respecting religion,
government, foreign countries and former times, having been derived,
not from study, from observation, or from conversation with enlightened
companions, but from such traditions as were current in his own small
circle, were the opinions of a child. He adhered to them, however, with
the obstinacy which is generally found in ignorant men accustomed to be
fed with flattery. His animosities were numerous and bitter. He
hated Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irishmen, Papists and
Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, Quakers and Jews. Towards
London and Londoners he felt an aversion which more than once produced
important political effects. His wife and daughter were in tastes and
acquirements below a housekeeper or a stillroom maid of the present day.
They stitched and spun, brewed goose