llage green, the stern grey walls that still guard some
few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall
see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and
market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics
of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of the
twentieth century to record.

Our age is an age of progress. _Altiora peto_ is its motto. The spirit
of progress is in the air, and lures its votaries on to higher
flights. Sometimes they discover that they have been following a mere
will-o'-the-wisp, that leads them into bog and quagmire whence no
escape is possible. The England of a century, or even of half a
century ago, has vanished, and we find ourselves in the midst of a
busy, bustling world that knows no rest or peace. Inventions tread
upon each other's heels in one long vast bewildering procession. We
look back at the peaceful reign of the pack-horse, the rumbling wagon,
the advent of the merry coaching days, the "Lightning" and the
"Quicksilver," the chaining of the rivers with locks and bars, the
network of canals that spread over the whole country; and then the
first shriek of the railway engine startled the echoes of the
countryside, a poor powerless thing that had to be pulled up the steep
gradients by a chain attached to a big stationary engine at the
summit. But it was the herald of the doom of the old-world England.
Highways and coaching roads, canals and rivers, were abandoned and
deserted. The old coachmen, once lords of the road, ended their days
in the poorhouse, and steam, almighty steam, ruled everywhere.

Now the wayside inns wake up again with the bellow of the motor-car,
which like a hideous monster rushes through the old-world villages,
startling and killing old slow-footed rustics and scampering children,
dogs and hens, and clouds of dust strive in very mercy to hide the
view of the terrible rushing demon. In a few years' time the air will
be conquered, and aeroplanes, balloons, flying-machines and air-ships,
will drop down upon us from the skies and add a new terror to life.

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Life is for ever changing, and doubtless everything is for the best in
this best of possible worlds; but the antiquary may be forgiven for
mourning over the destruction of many of the picturesque features of