RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



when he suppressed the convents he felt himself obliged 

 to distribute among the nobles a portion of the spoil 

 taken from the monks. This accounts for the immense 

 properties owned by some families. When his daughter 

 Elizabeth beheld these same nobles leave their country 

 mansions to flock to her court, she herself recommended 

 them to return to their lands, where they would enjoy 

 more consequence. "You see," said she, "these ships 

 accumulated in the port of London ; they have no state- 

 liness here with their sails loose, their holds empty, and 

 all huddled together without order ; but see them with 

 their sails filled and spread over the wide ocean, each will 

 then be free, powerful, and majestic." A picturesque and 

 true comparison this, but one which Elizabeth's contem- 

 porary, Henry IV., and his grandson Louis XIV., could 

 never have made. 



During the revolution of the seventeenth and the poli- 

 tical agitation of the eighteenth century, the country 

 aristocracy continued to maintain its ascendancy : it was 

 they who established the authority of 1688, who kept the 

 house of Hanover upon the throne, and who sustained 

 the contest against the French Eevolution. Until the 

 Keform Bill gave a greater representation to the towns, 

 which had become rich and more populous, the two 

 Houses of Parliament were entirely composed of this 

 party ; at this moment they are still labouring energe- 

 tically to maintain their threatened supremacy, and to 

 hold the new reformers in check. All the great and 

 glorious incidents in the national history are connected 

 with this class, hence its popularity. A country life is 

 sought after, not only for itself for its absence of re- 

 straint, its comfort, quiet occupation, and domestic hap- 

 piness, those cherished penates of the English but in 

 addition it gives consideration, influence, power, every- 



