35 



tended, the military consideration again operated to enforce the idea of 

 compactness in every possible way. 



The government of these towns also, however its tonus varied, was 

 always essentially a military despotism of the most direcl and Btringent 

 character, under which the life, property, health and comfort of the 

 greal body of their people were matters, at, best, of very subordinate 

 consideration. 



Thus the policy, the custom and the fashion was established in the 

 roots of our present form of society of regarding the wants of a town, 

 and planning to meet them, as if its population were a garrison, to be 

 housed in a barrack, with only such halls and passages in it, from door 

 to door, as would be necessary to turn it in, to sleep and i'ri'd, and 

 t urn it out, to get its ralions. 



It naturally fell out that when at length the general advance of 

 society, in other respects, made it no longer necessary that a man 

 should build a castle, and control, as personal property, the services 

 of a, numerous body of fighting men, in order to live with some degree 

 of safety in a house of his own, apart from others, all the principal towns 

 declined for a time in wealth and population, because of the number of 

 opulent citizens who abandoned their old residences, and moved, with 

 servants and tenants, to make new settlements in the country. 



The excessive suppression of personal independence and individual 

 inclinations which had before been required in town-life caused a strong 

 reactionary ambition to possess each prosperous citizen to relieve him- 

 self as much as possible from dependence upon and duties to society in 

 general, and it became his aim to separate himself from all the human 

 race except such part as would treat him with deference. To secure 

 greater seclusion and at the same time opportunity for the only forms 

 of out-door recreation, which the rich, after the days of jousts and 

 tournaments, were accustomed to engage in, all those who could com- 

 mand favor at Court, sought grants of land abounding in the larger 

 game, and planted their houses in the midst of enclosures called 

 parks, which not only kept neighbors at a distance, but served as nur- 

 series for objects of the chase. 



The habits of the wealthy, under these circumstances, though often 

 gross and arrogant, and sometimes recklessly extravagant, were far 

 from luxurious, according to modern notions, and as, in order to realize 

 as fully as possible the dream of independence, every country gent le- 

 nnii had his private chaplain, surgeon, farrier, tailor, weaver and 

 spinner, raised his own wool, malt, barley and breadstuff's, killed his 

 <>wn beef, mutton and venison, and brewed his own ale, he Avas able to 

 despise oonnAerce and to avoid towns. The little finery his household 



