his century were not at all due to the mistakes of our
administrators; and that England, with its fine Church and Constitution,
would have been exceedingly well off if every British subject had been
thankful for what was provided, and had minded his own business--if,
for example, numerous Catholics of that period had been aware how very
modest they ought to be considering they were Irish. The times, I heard,
had often been bad; but I was constantly hearing of "bad times" as a
name for actual evenings and mornings when the godfathers who gave them
that name appeared to me remarkably comfortable. Altogether, my father's
England seemed to me lovable, laudable, full of good men, and having
good rulers, from Mr Pitt on to the Duke of Wellington, until he was for
emancipating the Catholics; and it was so far from prosaic to me that I
looked into it for a more exciting romance than such as I could find in
my own adventures, which consisted mainly in fancied crises calling for
the resolute wielding of domestic swords and firearms against unapparent
robbers, rioters, and invaders who, it seemed, in my father's prime had
more chance of being real. The morris-dancers had not then dwindled to a
ragged and almost vanished rout (owing the traditional name probably to
the historic fancy of our superannuated groom); also, the good old king
was alive and well, which made all the more difference because I had no
notion what he was and did--only understanding in general that if he had
been still on the throne he would have hindered everything that wise
persons thought undesirable.

Certainly that elder England with its frankly saleable boroughs, so
cheap compared with the seats obtained under the reformed method, and
its boroughs kindly presented by noblemen desirous to encourage
gratitude; its prisons with a miscellaneous company of felons and
maniacs and without any supply of water; its bloated, idle charities;
its non-resident, jovial clergy; its militia-balloting; and above all,
its blank ignorance of what we, its posterity, should be thinking of
it,--has great differences from the England of to-day. Yet we discern a
strong family likeness. Is there any country which shows at once as much
stability and as much susceptibility to change as ours? Our national
life is like that scenery which I early learned to love, not subject to
great convulsions, but easily showing more or less delicate (sometimes
melancholy) effects from minor changes.