education usual with his countrymen of the
profession, and who being very good natured, had abundant occupation for
his evenings, and being, moreover, a prudent man, and _safe_, became the
depository of nine-tenths of the family secrets of the inhabitants.
Being thus ignorant generally, and few of them ever having been twenty
miles from the place, I may consider the parish fifty years behind the
rest of the world when I went there, so that it now furnishes
recollection of rural people, of manners and intelligence, dating back a
hundred years from the present time. It was indeed a very primitive
race; and it is curious to recall the many indications afforded in that
obscure village of unmitigated ignorance. With all this were found in
full exercise also the more violent and vindictive passions of our
nature. They might have the simplicity, but not the virtues, of
Arcadia.... There were some old English customs of an interesting
nature which lingered in the parish. For example, the old habit of
bowing to the altar was retained by the rustics on entering church, and
bowing respectfully to the clergyman in his place. A copy of the
Scriptures was in the vestry _chained_ to the desk on which it lay, and
where it had evidently been since that mode of introducing the Bible was
practised in the time of Edward VI. The passing bell was always sounded
on notice of the death of a parishioner, and sounded at any hour, night
or day, immediately on the event happening. One striking custom
prevailed at funerals. The coffin was borne through the village to the
churchyard by six or eight bearers of the same age and sex as the
deceased. Thus young maidens in white carried the remains of the girl
with whom they had lately sported. Boys took their playfellow and
companion to the churchyard. The young married woman was borne by
matrons; the men of middle age did the same office for their
contemporary.... The worship of the little church was, as may be
supposed, extremely simple, and yet even there innovation and refinement
had appeared in the musical department. The old men who used to execute
the psalmody, with the clerk at their head, had been superseded. A
teacher of singing had been engaged, and a choir, consisting of maidens,
boys and men, executed various sacred pieces with the assistance of a
bassoon and violin. I recollect in the church a practice which would
have shocked the strict rubricians of the present day. Whenever banns of
mar