drinking habits have died out. It is not that there is any
prejudice against the inn; but there is a cessation of the
inducement to sit there night after night. People do not care to
drink as they used to, and they can get the news just as well at
home. The parlour at the inn has ceased to be the village
parliament. The hunting-field is an unfavourable place for
discussion, since in the midst of a remark the hounds may start,
and away go speaker and listener, and the subject is forgotten. The
market dinner is not so general and friendly a meeting as it was.
There is a large admixture of manure and machinery agents,
travellers for seed-merchants, corn-dealers, and others who have no
interest in purely local matters, and the dinner itself is somewhat
formal, with its regular courses of fish and so forth, till the
talk is more or less constrained and general. The churchyard is a
singular place of meeting, but it is still popular. The
agriculturist walks into the yard about a quarter to eleven, sees a
friend; a third joins; then the squire strolls round from his
carriage, and a pleasant chat ensues, till the ceasing bell reminds
them that service is about to commence. But this is a very narrow
representation of the village, and is perhaps never made up on two
occasions of the same persons. The duration of the gathering is
extremely short, and it has no cohesion or power of action.

It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of the desultory nature
of village life. There is an utter lack of any kind of cohesion, a
total absence of any common interest, or social bond of union. There
is no _esprit de corps_. In old times there was, to a certain
extent--in the days when each village was divided against its
neighbour, and fiercely contested with it the honour of sending
forth the best backsword player. No one wishes those times to
return. We have still village cricket clubs, who meet each other in
friendly battle, but there is no enthusiasm over it. The players
themselves are scarcely excited, and it is often difficult to get
sufficient together to fulfil an engagement. There is the dinner of
the village benefit club, year after year. The object of the club is
of the best, but its appearance upon club-day is a woeful spectacle
to eyes that naturally look for a little taste upon an occasion of
supposed festivity. What can be more melancholy than a procession of
men clad in ill-fitting black clothes, in which they are evidently