THE SQUIRE 201 



extent, make a business of it, for what else can he do ? Away 

 from his ordinary pursuits and occupations, he must either 

 hunt or he idle, and we need not observe that hunting in other 

 countries is about half as expensive again as hunting from 

 home. Not only is everything to be bought and paid for at full 

 price, but many things paid for that would be had for nothing 

 at home — lodging, for instance — while a stud that would be 

 ample for all the requirements of home work will be totally 

 unequal to the demands of a regular five or six days a week 

 hunting quarter. The resident, we think, must be very short 

 of occupation and resources who is not satisfied with three 

 days a week at the most. 



The last quarter of a centur}' has made a great difference 

 in the style and habits of the country gentleman, and indeed, 

 with the exception of a few of the old school still remaining, 

 such a thing as a real country gentleman — that is to say, a 

 gentleman who lives all the year round in the country — is 

 scarcely to be met with. The last five-and-twenty years have 

 effected a wonderful revolution in our whole social system. 

 The means of mental resources and bodily communication 

 have been increased a hundred-fold. Railways and steamboats 

 have superseded coaches, just as magazines and newspapers 

 have annihilated books. There is quite as much improvement 

 in the mode and economy of mental improvement as there is 

 in the way of bodily transit. Information, instead of being 

 bonded in costly quartos, and voluminous encyclopaedias, 

 irrigates the whole land in cheap tracts and treatises. A man 

 can buy just what he wants and nothing more. So with 

 newspapers. The son of the man who, twenty years ago, was 

 content with his country paper, now has his London daily, and 

 Sunday one on the " dies no7i." 



M'Adam was thought a miracle twenty or five-and-twenty 

 years ago, and gentlemen who had been accustomed to plough 

 their ways to their market towns with their carriage wheels up 



