An Old English Home

mine ease a

ueness is introduced into the village by the inn! T

h the past. In relation to quite another matter, Professor G. T. Stokes says: "History is all continuous. Just as the skilful geologist or pal?ontologist can reconstruct from an inspection of the strata of a quarry the animal and vegetable life of past ages, so can the historian reconstruct out of modern forms, rites, and ceremonies, often now but very shadowy and unreal, the essential and vigorous

of the village inn-that is to say the manorial inn with its heraldic sign, in contradistinction to the chu

THE VIL

a village carpenter, in the posse

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f a sovereign or queen. The Swan sign is said to date from Anne of Cleves; the White Hart was the badge of Richard II., and inns with this sign probably were erected in that reign, and have retained this cognizance unchanged since. We know of inns under the name of the Rose, which there can be little question came int

r the token of the Bull's Head, or from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Burleigh was in power, because of the Wheatsheaf; for it will not inf

nt, and not a payment. In many parts of Tyrol it is much the same. The excursionist is put up at the priest's house. The writer has been thus received, among other places, at Heiligkreutz, in the Oetz Thal. In the evening the room-the curé's parlour-was filled with peasants who asked for wine, and were supplied. When they left they put money in the hand of the pastor's sister, whilst he, smoking his pipe, looked out of the window. When the writer left next morning the same farce was enacted. Further up the same valley is

ers always seeking the castle of some knight, and

unjust one for foreigners. Why, the traveller should be treated freely, the Ostrogoth argued; and Cassiodorus, under the orders of the king, drew up laws to enforce at least honesty, if he could not bring about liberality, in the Latin osteria. We are inclined to be overhard in our judgment of the knights and barons of Germany in the Middle Ages, whose castles are perched on every commanding rock by every road and river, but we are scarcely just. It is true that there were robber knights, but so there are at all times rascals among a class, and we are wrong

all the knights and barons along the highway to keep the communication open, and not to divert it into another channel; consequently w

n the village built on the highway. Moreover, he himself did not always inhabit the castle. It was irksome to him, and his wife and servants, to be perched on a rock like an eagle, consequently in time of peace he lived in his "town house," that is, his mansion at the foot of the hill, where he could get his provisions easily, and see

the expense of entertainment; but it is not improbable that the servant, the butler, received a present which he transmitted to h

was always armorial. In many a Tyrolean and in some old German inns may still be seen the coat-of-arms of the noble owner, now plain publican, carved in f

nchions of richly twisted ironwork painted and gilt, hanging out on each side over the narrow street, supporting large shields with armorial beasts. In the church may be seen t

ly. Moreover, the Thirty Years' War, again the Seven Years' War, and finally the Napoleonic wars, had

epers represent the best blood in the land. They have well-attested pedigrees, of which they are proud; and they dispense hospitality, not now gratuitously, but with courtesy and kindliness, in the

e family, containing among them prelates, and warriors, and stately ladies; and the homely Tyrolese girl in costume

all appearance, yet he could show his pedigree in an emblazoned tree, and right to bear arms as an adeliger. So, also, at the Croce at Cortina d' Ampezzo. The family tree adorns the passage of the humble inn, and a few years ago, before the run of tourists to the Dolomites, the pretty newly married hostess wore the local costume. On the post road be

nd is not very productive, and they were not able to become rich on the yield of the soil. They lived on the tolls they took of travellers, and when the postal system was established and passed into the hands of Government, they lost a source of revenue, and went down in the world. At Mals are two or three inns, and two or three general stores. At the latter can be bought anything, from ready-made clothes to sheets of notepaper and sealing-wax. The principal of these stores is held

h was once a noble family's residence, and then discovering that they were the guests of this noble family; but such a state of things is by no means

the servants of guests are accommodated at the manorial inn, by the park gates. It was not so in Tyrol, and to this day the evidence of this old custom remains. As already said, in Tyrol one may be entertained by the curé. This is only where there is no inn. Where the lord did not have a mansion and receive, there the pastor received in his parsonage. Now, in England there is scarcely a parish without its church inn-an inn generally situated on the glebe, of which the parson is the owner; and very often this church inn is a great cause of vexation to him. It stands close to the church-sometimes consp

hard II. It consists of two rooms-one above stairs, and one below. The men sat in the lower, the women in the upper room.

e porches were made so large. Great abuses were consequent, and several of the French bis

vice in the afternoon; but they are no longer served there with ale and wine by the clergy. Flodoard, in his account of S. Remigius, says that that saint could only stop the inveterate custom at Rheims by a miracle: he made all the taps of those who supplied the w

an annual charge on his estate of three hundred sous for the support of the village hostelry, which shows us that in Fra

ficulty arose, as it was found that the nobles were the innkeepers of the city, and to expel them was to cl

fore left the care of the ceremonial to his sister, who indulged herself in all the pride of formality, while he himself, having made a discovery of a public-house in the neighbourhood, went thither every evening, and enjoyed his pipe and can, being well satisfied with the behaviour of the landlord, whose communicative temper was a great comfort to his own taciturnity. At the village tavern squire and attorney and doctor were wont to meet, and not infrequently the parson appeared there as well. That

not "cut" the tavern, and instead have taken their ease there, in sobriety and kindly intercourse, yeoman, squire, and farm labourer, on the one level of