ES.
Suffolk cheese--Danes, Saxons, and Normans--Philosophers and 320
statesmen--Artists and literati

CHAPTER I.
A SUFFOLK VILLAGE.

Distinguished people born there--Its Puritans and Nonconformists--The
country round Covehithe--Southwold--Suffolk dialect--The Great Eastern
Railway.

In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that if he had
never been born he never could have loved or hated. Following so
illustrious a precedent, I may observe that if I had not been born in
East Anglia I never could have been an East Anglian. Whether I should
have been wiser or better off had I been born elsewhere, is an
interesting question, which, however, it is to be hoped the public will
forgive me if I decline to discuss on the present occasion.

In a paper bearing the date of 1667, a Samuel Baker, of Wattisfield Hall,
writes: 'I was born at a village called Wrentham, which place I cannot
pass by the mention of without saying thus much, that religion has there
flourished longer, and that in much piety; the Gospel and grace of it
have been more powerfully and clearly preached, and more generally
received; the professors of it have been more sound in the matter and
open and steadfast in the profession of it in an hour of temptation, have
manifested a greater oneness amongst themselves and have been more
eminently preserved from enemies without (albeit they dwell where Satan's
seat is encompassed with his malice and rage), than I think in any
village of the like capacity in England; which I speak as my duty to the
place, but to my particular shame rather than otherwise, that such a dry
and barren plant should spring out of such a soil.' I resemble this
worthy Mr. Baker in two respects. In the first place, I was born at
Wrentham, though at a considerably later period of time than 1667; and,
secondly, if he was a barren plant--he of whom we read, in Harmer's
Miscellaneous Works, that 'he was a gentleman of fortune and education,
very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and
discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good conscience'--what am
I?

Nor was it only piety that existed in this distant parish. If the reader
turns to the diary of John Evelyn, under the date of 1679, he will find
mention made of a child brought up to London, 'son of one Mr. Wotton,
formerly amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and
perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and S