A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 247 



marbles along the wall before me the pillared and 

 fastigiated Latin of the Baronet of 1728, the mean 

 little tablet that commemorates the last of his race, 

 dead in 1810. 



We sing the Psalms ; our choir of boys and men, 

 thanks to Mrs. Lydia's chastening, is much better than 

 most of the choirs in our country ; but we are a 

 hopelessly unmusical race, and our facility in rolling 

 our R's on a note nearly a semitone flat is appar- 

 ently ingrained. I think it is possible that the old 

 order of church singers and musicians, which was 

 largely hereditary and was a very distinct " mystery " 

 in Sussex, may have absorbed almost all the country 

 talent, and left a void when the Tractarian brooms 

 began to sweep the western galleries. At present the 

 people join almost inaudibly in the chants here a 

 fancy tenor, there a feminine trill. In the better- 

 known hymn tunes they make themselves heard, 

 tugging at the air, and seesawing fervidly with the 

 choir-boys. Of late years the Rector has relaxed 

 somewhat a high standard in the choice of the hymns 

 as he has let go several other matters, to grasp 

 weightier, perhaps. We now rhyme "woes" and 

 " clo'es ; " we describe our religious symptoms with 

 delighted analysis and many accidentals ; we mingle 



