d hung round with portraits
of his ancestors--the men, some in the character of shepherds with
their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes,
and others in complete armor or buff-coats; the females, likewise
as shepherdesses with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads
and flowing robes. Alas! these men and these houses are no more!
The luxury of the times has obliged them to quit the country and
become humble dependants on great men, to solicit a place or
commission, to live in London, to rack their tenants and draw their
rents before due. The venerable mansion is in the mean time
suffered to tumble down or is partly upheld as a farm-house,
till after a few years the estate is conveyed to the steward of the
neighboring lord, or else to some nabob, contractor or limb of the law."

It is unquestionably owing to the love of country life amongst the
higher classes that England so early attained in many respects what
may be termed an even civilization. In almost all other countries the
traveler beyond the confines of a few great cities finds himself in a
region of comparative semi-barbarism. But no one familiar with English
country life can say that this is the case in the rural districts
of England, whilst it is most unquestionably so in Ireland, simply
because she has through absenteeism been deprived of those influences
which have done so much for her wealthy sister. Go where you will
in England to-day, and you will find within five miles of you a good
turnpike road, leading to an inn hard by, where you may get a clean
and comfortable though simple dinner, good bread, good butter, and
a carriage--"fly" is the term now, as in the days of Mr. Jonathan
Oldbuck--to convey you where you will. And this was the case long
before railways came into vogue.

The influence of the great house has very wide ramifications, and
extends far beyond the radius of park, village and estate. It greatly
affects the prosperity of the country and county towns. Go into Exeter
or Shrewsbury on a market-day in the autumn months, and you will find
the streets crowded with carriages. If a local herald be with you, he
will tell you all about their owners by glancing at the liveries and
panels. They belong, half of them, to the old county gentry, who have
shopped here--always at the same shops, according as their proprietors
are Whigs or Tories--for generations. It may well be imagined what
a difference the custom of twent