istorical literature. The veil is lifted up from the
England of a century and a half ago; its geographical, industrial,
social, and moral condition is revealed; and, as the panorama passes
before us of lonely heaths, fortified farm-houses, bands of robbers,
rude country squires doling out the odds and ends of their coarse fare
to clerical dependents,--rough roads, serviceable only for horseback
travelling,--towns with unlighted streets, reeking with filth and offal,
--and prisons, damp, loathsome, infected with disease, and swarming with
vermin,--we are filled with wonder at the contrast which it presents to
the England of our day. We no longer sigh for "the good old days." The
most confirmed grumbler is compelled to admit that, bad as things now
are, they were far worse a few generations back. Macaulay, in this
elaborate and carefully prepared chapter, has done a good service to
humanity in disabusing well-intentioned ignorance of the melancholy
notion that the world is growing worse, and in putting to silence the
cant of blind, unreasoning conservatism.

In 1685 the entire population of England our author estimates at from
five millions to five millions five hundred thousand. Of the eight
hundred thousand families at that period, one half had animal food twice
a week. The other half ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than
once a week. Wheaten, loaves were only seen at the tables of the
comparatively wealthy. Rye, barley, and oats were the food of the vast
majority. The average wages of workingmen was at least one half less
than is paid in England for the same service at the present day. One
fifth of the people were paupers, or recipients of parish relief.
Clothing and bedding were scarce and dear. Education was almost unknown
to the vast majority. The houses and shops were not numbered in the
cities, for porters, coachmen, and errand-runners could not read. The
shopkeeper distinguished his place of business by painted signs and
graven images. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were little better than
modern grammar and Latin school in a provincial village. The country
magistrate used on the bench language too coarse, brutal, and vulgar for
a modern tap-room. Fine gentlemen in London vied with each other in the
lowest ribaldry and the grossest profanity. The poets of the time, from
Dryden to Durfey, ministered to the popular licentiousness. The most
shameless indecency polluted their pages. The