142 Medi&val England. 



hibited the enormous difficulties it had to encounter, and the 

 causes of its very slow success. 



Even in the fifteenth century, notwithstanding the aug- 

 mented wealth of the middle class, and the importance assigned 

 to a more private apartment than the hall, the conveniences 

 were so few as to indicate that very little talent had been ex- 

 erted in contriving the arrangements of domestic life. Thus 

 the " parlour" was thought well furnished if it had a hanging 

 of worsted, a cupboard of ash board, a table and a pair of 

 tressels, "a, branch of latten with four lights;" a pair of 

 andirons, a pair of tongs, one form, and one chair. Looked at 

 as a social institution, the " parlour" was a grand invention. 

 Life then acquired the possibility of privacy, with some share 

 of comfort, and the morals of the ladies were improved by 

 having a convenient room to receive their visitors, without tak- 

 ing them, whether male or female, to the retirement of the bed- 

 chamber or ' ' bower." Domestic discipline was, however, still 

 founded upon "laws" analogous to those of which Canning 

 represented Mrs. Brownrigg to have dreamt, and the wife of Sir 

 William Paston, in 1454, probably did not depart far from the 

 general custom, in beating one of her daughters one or twice a 

 week, and sometimes twice a day. As vice and brutality were 

 common qualities, demure propriety of outward demeanour was 

 rigorously enforced while the sons and daughters were under 

 the parental eye. We have a sketch of a little party at which 

 all present sit with their hands crossed before them in solemn 

 state. There were, however, redeeming features; music was 

 commonly cultivated, and women began to distinguish them- 

 selves in literary acquirements, or through the practise of the 

 painter's art. In the sixteenth century, progress became more 

 rapid, and with the emancipation of intellect from mediaeval 

 bondage, we notice a wider departure from the ancient ways. 



The growth of a nation is no more an accident or a com- 

 bination of accidents, than the growth of a flower from its seed. 

 We are to this day what our forefathers made us, modified by 

 our own energies, and the circumstances of our time ; but as 

 society moves onward, the scope for individual exertion be- 

 comes enlarged. It may be more difficult for a single great 

 man to tower above the rest, but whoever can think a good 

 thought or suggest a valuable course of action has the many 

 to listen to him, instead of the few. Society is not an aggre- 

 gation of independent units, but a vital whole, so bound to- 

 gether that its highest advances, are possible only when the 

 interests of all are cared for and sustained. Our life is richer 

 than that of the past, because it is compounded of more varied 

 el ments, as both our exertions and our speculations take a 

 more extended range. It is richer also through the improved 



