The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1865-10-12
GEORGE III. OF ENGL1ND.
BY VIM. NJ. THACKERAY.
lCONCLUDED.l

of our ancestors, than the island which
we inhabit. People high and low anus
ed themselves very much more. I have
calculated the manner in which states
men and persons of condition passed
their time-and what with drinking,
and dining, and supping, and cards, Won
der how they got through with their
business at all. They played all sorts of
games, which, with the exception ofcrick-
EFT and tennis, have quite gone out of
your manners now. In old prints of st.
James's Park, you still see the marks
along the walk, to note the balls when
the court played at Mall. Fancy Bird
cage Walk now so laid out, and Lord
John and Lord Palmerston knocking
balls up and down the avenue! Mosto Of
those jolly sports belong to the past, and
the good old games of England are only
or the columns of dingy old newspapers,
fought at Winchester between the Win
chester men and the Hampton men; or
how the Cornwall men and the Devon
men are going to hold great wrestling
match at Totness, and SO on.
A hundred and twenty yearsago there
were not only country towns in England,
but people who inhabited them. We
We're very much more gregarious; we
were amused by very simple pleasures.
Every town had it's fair, every village its
wake. The old poets have sung hum
dred jolly ditties about great cudgel-
playings, grinning through horse
collars, great may-pole meetings, and
morris-danees. The girls used to run
races clad in very light attire and the
kind gentry and good parsons thought
no shame in looking on. Dancing bears
went about the country with pipes and
tabor. Certain well-knoWn tunes were
sung all over the lands for hundreds of
years, and high and low rejoiced in that
simple music. Gentlemen who wished
to entertain their female friends con-
stantly sent for band. When Beau
Fielding, a mighty fine gentleman, was
counting the lady whom he married, he
treated her and her companion at his
lodgings to a supper from the tavern,
and after supper they sent out for a fid-
dler-three of them. Fancy the three, in
a great WainscOted room, in Covent Gar
den or Soho, lighted by two or the can
dies in silver scOnces, some grapes and a
bottle of Florence wine on the table, and
the honest fiddler playing old tunes in
quaint old minor keys, and the Beau
takes one lady after the other, and SOL
emily dances with her!
The very great folks, young noblemen,
with their governors, and the like, went
abroad and made the grand tour; the
home satirists jeered at the Frenchified
and Italian ways which they brought
back; but the greater number of the
people never left the country. Thejolly
squire often had never been twenty miles
from home. Those who did go went to
the baths, to Harrogate, or Scarborough,
or Bath, or EPSON. Old letters are full
of these places of pleasure. Gay writes
to us about the fiddlers at Tunbridge; of
balls among themselves; and the gen.
tlemen entertaining them by turns with
| tea and music. One of the young beau
! ties whom he met did not care for tea:
1--WE have young lady here" he says,
"that is very particular in her desires.
/ have known some young ladies who,
| if ever they prayed, would ask for some
equipage or title, a husband Ormatadores;
but this lady, who is but seventeen, and
has f3O, 900 to her fortune, places all her
wishes on pot of good ale. When her
| friends, for the sake of her shape and
complexion, would dissuade her from it,
she answers, with the truest sincerity,
that by the loss Of shape and complexion
she could only lose a husband, whereas
ale is her passion"
Every country town had its assembly
room-mouldy old tenements, which we
may still see in deserted Vineyards, in
decayed provincial cities. out of which
the great wen of London has sucked all
the life. York, at assize times, and
throughout the winter, harbored large
society of northern gentry. Shrewsbury
was celebrated for its festivities. At
Newmarket read of "a vast deal OF
good company, besides rogues and black
legs" at Norwich, of two assemblies,
with prodigious crowd in the hall, the
rooms, and the gallery. In Cheshire ut
isa maid of honor of Queen Caroline who
writes, and who is longing to be back at
Hampton Court and the fun there) peep
into country house, and see avery mer-
ry party: eve meet in the work-room
before nine, eat and brake joke or two
till twelve, then we repair to our own
chambers and make ourselves ready, for
it can not be called dressing. At noon
the great bell fetches lis into a parlor,
adorned with all sorts of fine arms, pois.
Oned darts, several pair of old boots and