--_Christmas Ordinary_.
ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMEN.
His certain life, that never can deceive him,
Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content;
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shade, till noontide's heat be spent.
His life is neither tost in boisterous seas
Or the vexatious world; or lost in slothful ease.
Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.
--Phineas Fletcher.
I take great pleasure in accompanying the Squire in his Perambulations
about his estate, in which he is often attended by a kind of cabinet
council. His prime minister, the steward, is a very worthy and honest
old man, that assumes a right of way; that is to say, a right to have
his own way, from having lived time out of mind on the place. He loves
the estate even better than he does the Squire; and thwarts the latter
sadly in many of his projects of improvement, being a little prone to
disapprove of every plan that does not originate with himself.
In the course of one of these perambulations, I have known the Squire
to point out some important alteration which he was contemplating, in
the disposition or cultivation of the grounds; this, of course, would
be opposed by the steward, and a long argument would ensue, over a
stile, or on a rising piece of ground, until the Squire, who has a
high opinion of the other's ability and integrity, would be fain to
give up the point.
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