A Modern ‘ Ironside. 9g! 
the last remaining relics of former prosperity. It is. 
not at all uncommon to find men like this, whose 
forefathers no great while since held farms, and even 
owned them, but fell by degrees in the social scale, 
till at last their grandchildren work in the fields for 
wages. An old chair or cabinet which once stood in 
the farmhouse generations ago is still preserved. 
Upon the shelf may be found a few books—a 
Bible, of course ; hardly a cottager who can read is. 
without his Bible—and among the rest an ancient 
volume of polemical theology, bound in leather ; it 
dates back to the days of the fierce religious contro- 
versies which raged in the period which produced 
Cromwell. There is a rude engraving of the author 
for frontispiece, title in red letter, a tedious preface, 
and the text is plentifully bestrewn with Latin and 
Greek quotations. These add greatly to its value in 
the cottager’s eyes, for he still looks upon a knowledge 
of Latin as the essential of a ‘scholard. This book has 
evidently been handed down for many generations as a 
kind of heirloom, for on the blank leaves may be seen 
the names of the owners with the inevitable addition 
of ‘his’ or ‘her book.’ It is remarkable that litera- 
ture of this sort should survive so long. 
Even yet not a little of that spirit which led to 
the formation of so many contending sects in the 
seventeenth century lingers in the cottage. I have 
known men who seemed to reproduce in themselves 
the character of the close-cropped soldiers who 
