OSWALDKIRK; 227 



And thundering loud, with his ten thousand wheels ? 



They would be, were not madness in the head, 



And folly in the heart ; were England now, 



What England was, plain, hospitable, kind, 



And undebauched. But we have bid farewell 



To all the virtues of those better days, 



And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once 



Knew their ownmasteri ; and laborious hinds, 



Who had survived the father, served the son. 



Now the legitimate and rightful lord 



Is RUT A TRANSIENT GUEST, newly arrived, 



As soon to be supplanted. He, that saw 



His patrimonial timber cast its leaf, 



Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price 



To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again. 



Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile, 



Then advertised, and auctioneered away. 



Cowper's Task, book iii. 



The unfortunate influence of a southern resi- 

 dence on our hardy sons of the north, was a com- 

 plaint as old as the time of Caraden, who speaking 

 of the deleterious effects of a southern climate ob- 

 serves. "As these and such families in these north- 

 <c ern counties, as I before observed, owe their rise 

 <; to their valour, and their progress to their fru- 

 < gality and primitive simplicity, content with 

 " their own estates ; so those most flourishing 

 t( ones in the southern counties of England were 

 " utterly ruined by luxury, usury, debauchery, and 

 " knavery, insomuch that it has become the com- 

 ** mon complaint at present that the old race of our 

 ** nobility is decayed." 



Gough's Catnden iii, p. 376* 



