NATURE NEAR LONDON S& 



with its swift, luxurious service of Pullman cars, 

 its piers, and social pleasures, there exists a collec- 

 tion which in a few strokes, as it were, sketches 

 the ways and habits and thoughts of old rural 

 England. It is not easy to realise in these days 

 of quick transit and still quicker communication 

 that old England was mostly rural. 



There were towns, of course, seventy years ago, 

 but even the towns were penetrated with what, for 

 want of a better word, may be called country 

 sentiment. Just the reverse is now the case ; the 

 most distant hamlet which the wanderer in his 

 autumn ramblings may visit, is now more or less 

 permeated with the feelings and sentiment of the 

 city. No written history has preserved the daily 

 life of the men who ploughed the Weald behind 

 the hills there, or tended the sheep on the Downs, 

 before our beautiful land was crossed with iron 

 roads ; while news, even from the field of Water- 

 loo, had to travel slowly. And, after all, written 

 history is but words, and words are not tangible. 



But in this collection of old English jugs, and 

 mugs, and bowls, and cups, and so forth, exhibited 

 in the Museum, there is the real presentment of 

 old rural England. Feeble pottery has ever borne 

 the impress of man more vividly than marble. 

 From these they quenched their thirst, over these 

 they laughed and joked, and gossiped, and sang old 

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