l, and there are few, I imagine, of
the great proprietors who are not more or less occupied with improving
their estates, and with providing for the comfort of their tenantry, while
many take a leading part in the great political movements of the time.
There never was an aristocracy which combined so much practical knowledge
and industry with the advantages of exalted rank.

The Englishman is seen to most advantage in his country home. For he is
constitutionally both domestic and rural in his habits. His fireside and
his farm--these are the places in which one sees his simple and warm-
hearted nature more freely unfolded. There is a shyness in an Englishman,
--a natural reserve, which makes him cold to strangers, and difficult to
approach. But once corner him in his own house, a frank and full expansion
will be given to his feelings that we should look for in vain in the
colder Yankee, and a depth not to be found in the light and superficial
Frenchman,--speaking of nationalities, not of individualities.

The Englishman is the most truly rural in his tastes and habits of any
people in the world. I am speaking of the higher classes. The aristocracy
of other countries affect the camp and the city. But the English love
their old castles and country seats with a patriotic love. They are fond
of country sports. Every man shoots or hunts. No man is too old to be in
the saddle some part of the day, and men of seventy years and more follow
the hounds, and, take a five-barred gate at a leap. The women are good
whips, are fond of horses and dogs, and other animals. Duchesses have
their cows, their poultry, their pigs,--all watched over and provided with
accommodations of Dutch-like neatness. All this is characteristic of the
people. It may be thought to detract something from the feminine graces
which in other lands make a woman so amiably dependent as to be nearly
imbecile. But it produces a healthy and blooming race of women to match
the hardy Englishman,--the finest development of the physical and moral
nature which the world has witnessed. For we are not to look on the
English gentleman as a mere Nimrod. With all his relish for field sports
and country usages, he has his house filled with collections of art and
with extensive libraries. The tables of the drawing-rooms are covered with
the latest works, sent down by the London publisher. Every guest is
provided with an apparatus for writing, and often a little library of
books