d occupied
itself almost wholly with country churches; whereas I had purposed to
attempt a description of some of the many old towns--Warwick, Coventry,
Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon--which lie within an easy scope of
Leamington. And still another church presents itself to my remembrance.
It is that of Hatton, on which I stumbled in the course of a forenoon's
ramble, and paused a little while to look at it for the sake of old
Doctor Parr, who was once its vicar. Hatton, so far as I could discover,
has no public-house, no shop, no contiguity of roofs, (as in most
English villages, however small,) but is merely an ancient neighborhood
of farm-houses, spacious, and standing wide apart, each within its own
precincts, and offering a most comfortable aspect of orchards,
harvest-fields, barns, stacks, and all manner of rural plenty. It seemed
to be a community of old settlers, among whom everything had been going
on prosperously since an epoch beyond the memory of man; and they kept a
certain privacy among themselves, and dwelt on a cross-road at the
entrance of which was a barred gate, hospitably open, but still
impressing me with a sense of scarcely warrantable intrusion. After all,
in some shady nook of those gentle Warwickshire slopes there may have
been a denser and more populous settlement, styled Hatton, which I never
reached.

Emerging from the by-road, and entering upon one that crossed it at
right angles and led to Warwick, I espied the church of Doctor Parr.
Like the others which I have described, it had a low stone tower,
square, and battlemented at its summit: for all these little churches
seem to have been built on the same model, and nearly at the same
measurement, and have even a greater family-likeness than the
cathedrals. As I approached, the bell of the tower (a remarkably
deep-toned bell, considering how small it was) flung its voice abroad,
and told me that it was noon. The church stands among its graves, a
little removed from the wayside, quite apart from any collection of
houses, and with no signs of a vicarage; it is a good deal shadowed by
trees, and not wholly destitute of ivy. The body of the edifice,
unfortunately, (and it is an outrage which the English churchwardens are
fond of perpetrating,) has been newly covered with a yellowish plaster
or wash, so as quite to destroy the aspect of antiquity, except upon the
tower, which wears the dark gray hue of many centuries. The
chancel-window is painted