An Old English Home

throbbed the vital force through the district, and to which it returned. The hall was not merely the place whe

y held in common, and that private proprietorship

nations; it has so eaten into his habits of mind as to have rendered him incapable of being other th

involved therein, have not the power or will or chance to turn back and take another. That is how some men make a botch of their lives

wrong at the outstart, and that is it which has been his bane through cent

, and that it was well to have these swept away, but that which I think was fatal to France at the Revolution was reversion to the Cel

AXALL, W

Quad

nts in which the mortality exceeded the natality, now there a

in departments where the soil is poor, there the houses are smiling and well kept-there is evidence of comfort. But, on the contrary, in the departments formerly the richest, the

tments is dwindling at the rate

districts, too, land will not support all those born, and t

ance per thousand in the year is

across some fields, as a short cut. I remarked on the beauty of the place, and the fertility of the soi

ul colonists, and it is the absence of this which makes French colonies dead failures. Whereas we and the Germans pour forth tens of thous

ystallization that gives to pottery its cohesion. Without these particles it goes to pieces in burning, it breaks up with the least pressure. And our manor houses are these p

branches of the great Scandinavian-Teutonic stock, we cannot do better than o

families. The land thus fell into shares, such as we should call manors, and each share was under a chief, who planted on the soil his kinsmen, and any others who applied to him for allotments. No f

d a little kingdom of itself, allotting his land to new comers, whose kinship, turn of mind, or inferiority in rank allowed them to accept the gift, marrying and inter-marrying with the families of neighbouring chiefs, setting up his children in abodes of their own, puttin

ned the original inhabitants into serfs; to some of these they gave tenements to hold subject to service: these are now represented by ou

rifice therein. In his hall were assembled the free householders, to consult relative to the affairs of the district. This was the husting, or house council. We

s, when small, combined to keep a priest between them; but when the church adjoins the manor house, then almost certain

There the lord showed hospitality, administered justice, appoint

apartment, which in time became the with-drawing room. Bedrooms, kitchens, parlours, were aftergrowths, as men sought more comfo

nor-house, hall, court, imply nothing military, give token of no exclusiveness, make no threat. The chronic warfare and petty disturbances that prevailed on the continent of Europe obliged the lords of the soil to perch their residences on inaccessible and barren rocks, whereas in England they are seated comfortably in valleys, in the midst of the richest land.

rs of manors who had castles. But the castles never affected English domestic architecture; on the contrary, the English sense of comfort, peace, and goodwill pre

rets, but were indispensable wherever a gentleman had a chateau. As to the English noble or squire, his only tower

e of a cast

act on the top of a hill, if a suitable hill could be found; within was a mound, a motte; on this stood a great round tower of woodwork, in which lived the

h the one exception-that stone took the place o

es their material, from France. But, whereas this became the type of the chateau in France, it had nothing to do with the genesis of the manor-house in old England. Our

in his great wooden hall, with his tenants and bonders about him. If he squeezed them, it was

e he conveyed his goods to the church, and the entire building became to him a city of refuge. That

hen the roofs were not steep, and instead of being slated or shingled, were covered with lead. To a lead roof, a parapet is necessary, or rather advisable; and the parapet not only finishes it off above the

s of pillars. It would seem as though, in the sense of security in which the English were, they took a pleasure in laughing at the gra

MENTED

and umbrellas. Originally it was the main feature of the manor-house, to which everything else was subsidiary; then

ruous in a villa residence, and wholly out of place in a town dwelling. Many a modern gentleman's place in the country is designed to

pen-doored as to invite not people only but all

ened into it, and immediately opposite was the door out of

e was the minstrels' gallery; and in the screen were, of course, doors into the hall, and a

ysius of Syracuse had a prison which was so constructed that every whisper in it from one prisoner to anoth

velled and joked in the hall with his boon companions, and afterwards-behind the curtains-his words were commented on and his jokes submitted to searching criticism. Mor

rant is, I am credibly informed, still with us, advancing triumphant through a