held in articles of common consumption, articles of luxury were
very dear indeed.[45]

Passing down from the king and his nobles, to the body of the people, we
find that the income qualifying a country gentleman to be justice of the
peace was L20 a year, [46] and if he did his duty, his office was no
sinecure. We remember Justice Shallow and his clerk Davy, with his novel
theory of magisterial law; and Shallow's broad features have so English a
cast about them, that we may believe there were many such, and that the
duty was not always very excellently done. But the Justice Shallows were
not allowed to repose upon their dignity. The justice of the peace was
required not only to take cognisance of open offences, but to keep
surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his
own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect
prompt and peremptory.[47] Four times a year he was to make proclamation of
his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against him who had occasion.

Twenty pounds a year, and heavy duties to do for it, represented the
condition of the squire of the parish.[48] By the 2nd of the 2nd of Henry
V., "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to L5 6s. 8d., except in
cases where there was special licence from the bishop, when they might be
raised as high as L6. Priests were probably something better off under
Henry VIII., but the statute remained in force, and marks an approach at
least to their ordinary salary.[49] The priest had enough, being unmarried,
to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of life. The squire had
enough to provide moderate abundance for himself and his family. Neither
priest nor squire was able to establish any steep difference in outward
advantages between himself and the commons among whom he lived.

The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two
expressions corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with
in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the
condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of "merry
England;"--when England was not merry, things were not going well with it.
We hear of "the glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast,-by the
rules of which all tables, from the table of the twenty-shilling freeholder
to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the
dinner hour to all comers, without stint or rese