2 T. WARTON.
For so small a household, a more active or cheerful one could no where have been found than at the Grange. Ben Jonson reckoned among the happinesses of Sir Robert Wroth, that of being “with unbought provision blest.” This blessing Mr. Allison enjoyed in as great a degree as his position in life permitted; he neither killed his own meat nor grew his own corn; but he had his poultry yard, his garden and his orchard; he baked his own bread, brewed his own beer, and was supplied with milk, cream and butter from his own dairy. It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that the most intelligent farmers in the neighbourhood of London, are persons who have taken to farming as a business, because of their strong inclination for rural employments; one of the very best in Middlesex, when the Survey of that County was published by the Board of Agriculture, had been a Tailor. Mr. Allison did not attempt to manage the land which he kept in his own hands; but he had a trusty bailiff, and soon acquired knowledge enough for superintending what was done. When he retired from trade he gave over all desire for gain, which indeed he had never desired for its own sake; he sought now only wholesome occupation, and those comforts which may be said to have a moral zest. They might be called luxuries, if that word could be used in a virtuous sense without something so to qualify it. It is a curious instance of the modification which words undergo in different countries, that luxury has always a sinful acceptation in the southern languages of Europe, and lust an innocent one in the northern; the harmless meaning of the latter word, we have retained in the verb to list.
Every one who looks back upon the scenes of his youth, has one spot upon which the last light of the evening sunshine rests. The Grange was that spot in Deborah's retrospect.
CHAPTER CIV.
A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE, SHOWING THAT A WISE MAN, WHEN HE RISES IN THE MORNING, LITTLE KNOWS WHAT HE MAY DO BEFORE NIGHT.
—Now I love,
And so as in so short a time I may;
Yet so as time shall never break that so,
And therefore so accept of Elinor.
ROBERT GREENE.
One summer evening the Doctor on his way back from a visit in that direction, stopt, as on such opportunities he usually did, at Mr. Bacon's wicket, and looked in at the open casement to see if his friends were within. Mr. Bacon was sitting there alone, with a book open on the table before him; and looking round when he heard the horse stop, “Come in Doctor,” said he, “if you have a few minutes to spare. You were never more welcome.”