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The Review of Reviews. 



wife, as vulgar as Ardnam's mother was re- 

 fined, and their son inherited many of her 

 characteristics. Both sons have been given 

 queer names — Seraph and Ardnam. 



The first-named is a good farmer, but until 

 he had attained manhood the youngest had 

 apparently been but a drone. Only his mother 

 knew of his aspirations until the chance came to 

 tell Mr. Pratt of his plans. Ardnam had pon- 

 dered deeply the problem of how best to utilise 

 the land allowed to go to waste and the men 

 who could not get work to do ; besides which 

 he wanted to get money, which spells power, 

 for himself. He could not leave his mother, but 

 his father had a neglected orchard and a field 

 left uncultivated. These his father agreed to 

 let him have in order to experiment as to 

 whether he could make a profit from Intensive 

 Culture. 



Our next couple are the Duke and Duchess, 

 both fine in many ways and presenting a keenly 

 interesting study. We guess that in the future 

 the Duke will have to suffer from the conse- 

 quences of early sins, and his children with him, 

 while to the poor little Duchess will come, not 

 the trouble alone, but also premonitions of it, 

 for she and Mrs. Pratt are both more or less 

 psychic. In the prologue the couple are loved 

 and honoured, and their two sons are good boys, 

 as the world goes. 



The Squire and his family come next. He 

 also has married badly, which gives rise to many 

 thoughtful remarks about heredity and environ- 

 ment. Adam Hurst, who was once the Duke's 

 butler, is now the principal innkeeper, and from 

 his occasional words we get the idea that Ella 

 Banks, the youngest child of a working farmer, 

 gets some of her fine characteristics from the 

 Duke. She is one of the foremost portraits ; 

 from her grandmother she has learnt a lost 

 secret in the art of lace-making, and she not 

 only makes lace but sells it, and for good prices. 

 One of the Duke's sons is certainly in love with 

 Ella, and she with him ; at the close of the 

 book the Duchess has put her in a shop in Bond 

 Street, and, wishing to separate the two, has 

 represented Ella as engaged to Ardnam, thus 

 driving Lord Melton to travel for two years. 

 These are only a few of the interesting people to 

 be met with between the covers of this book. 



Somehow the tone of the book prepares us for 

 tragedy ; Mrs. Pratt is not only a true Christian, 

 but also a mystic, and thus her own death and 

 that of her husband are foreshadowed, though 

 not the fact that there being only an early will 

 Ardnam is turned out in the world almost penni- 

 less by the step-brother, who hates him, and 

 friendless, because his uncle is absent and he is 

 too proud to go to the Duke cap in hand. The 

 next volume will be eagerly awaited. 



THE PASSING OF THE 

 SQUIREARCHY.* 



A VALUABLE rccord of an era (here supposed to 

 be passing) in the story of our country, inasmuch 

 as it contains pictures of the old English country 

 gentleman and his home under every condition, 

 starting with the age of chivalry, when the squire 

 w as a budding knight. 



'Mr. Ditchfield regards his vanishing as due 

 to the Liberal Government of these later years, 

 to the Corn Laws and taxing of land values — 

 yet, oddly enough, he unconsciously shows that 

 it is the personality of the squire himself which 

 is changing, owing possibly to the readier means 

 of communication due to railways, the telegraph, 

 and motor cars. No squire now would pride 

 himself upon never ha\ing visited London or 

 slept a night out of his own bed, as was the case 

 with more than one country gentleman of the 

 early 'fifties. 



A century before, as quoted by Mr. Ditchfield 

 from the Stapley Diaries, the schooling of a 

 squire's son was not a very elaborate affair : — 



In 1 73 1 the squire sent his son Anthony to Thomas 

 Painter to learn to write and read and cast accounts ; 

 but this instructor of the three R's only received sixpence 

 a week for his pains. This youth had been to a boarding- 

 school at Brighton, as his father records the payment of 

 ;^7 6s. lod. to Grover and Browne of that fashionable 

 resort. It seems to have been the fashion to send 

 children to board at some house, and to be taught 

 elementary schooling at some day school. Thus 

 Anthony's sister Sarah went to board at William Best's 

 at a cost of 3s. 6d. per week, and attended Miss Leach's 

 school, who received 6d. per week. The squire seems 

 to have had a nice liUle family. Besides Anthony and 

 Sarah there were Jane and John and Samuel. He had 

 a wife, too, but we gather little alx)ut her, save that 

 there is a curious record of her death conveyed in the 

 words, " Struck with the dead palsy from head to foot 

 in a moment of time. . . ." 



There is the record of a model squire told by 

 his daughter, who is yet living : — 



My father farmed his property of some 1,000 acres, 

 was a J. P., a Poor Law Guardian, and a most zealous 

 Tory. He was always in the saddle, and often tired 

 three and four horses a day, as he started out before 

 six and saw that the men were properly at work, and 

 then came country business, markets, etc. His temper 

 was fiery and his tongue sharp and cutting, but he had 

 no enemies, and his own men would do anything for 

 him. ... He "showed" at all the country shows — 

 pigs, sheep, and horses — and took so many prizes that 

 he latterly did not compete. The pigs were scrubbed 

 daily, their pens were marvels for those days, and the 

 squire was very proud that some were generally bought 

 by the Queen's purveyor at Windsor. 



The cottages of the people were in good order for 

 those days, and lodgers not allowed. Wages were low, 

 but my father gave the most he could without being 

 unfair to the tenant farmers around. Hay and corn 

 harvests were paid by " piecework," the whole family 



* The Old Enfrlish Countrv Squire. By P. H. 

 Ditchfield. (Methuen and Co., Ltd. los. 6d. 

 net.) 



