We may thus place England before us as a perpetual
volume of reference, wherein are recorded sound deductions from
ages of experience; and while we avoid the errors and absurdities
which may have crept into the page, we may draw thence golden
maxims of practical wisdom, wherewith to strengthen and to
embellish our national character.
RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.
Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue and to peace,
Domestic life in rural pleasures past!
COWPER.
THE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English
character, must not confine his observations to the metropolis.
He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages
and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses,
cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens; along hedges
and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches; attend
wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals; and cope with the
people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors.
In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion
of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and
intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely
by boorish peasantry.
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