It was wonderful the utter stagnation of the village. The chapel was the only centre of intellectual life; next to that was the alehouse, whither some of the conscript fathers repaired to get a sight of the county paper, to learn the state of the markets, and at times to drink more ale than was good for them. About ten I had my first experience of death. I had lost an aged grandmother, but I was young, and it made little impression on me, except the funeral sermon—preached by my father to an overflowing congregation—which still lives in my recollections of a dim and distant past. I was a small boy. I was laid up with chilblains and had to be carried into the chapel; and altogether the excitement of the occasion was pleasing rather than the reverse. But the next who fell a victim was a young girl—whom I thought beautiful—who was the daughter of a miller who attended our chapel, and with whom I was on friendly terms. On the day of her funeral her little brothers and sisters came to our house to be out of the way. But I could not play with them, as I was trying to realise the figure I thought so graceful lying in the grave—to be eaten of worms, to turn to clay. But I shuddered as I thought of what we so often say: There are no acts of mercy past In the cold grave to which we haste, But darkness, death, and long despair Reign in eternal silence there. I was sick at heart—I am sick at heart now—as I recall the sad day, though more than seventy years have rolled over my head since then. I have spoken of the excitement of the Reform struggle. It was to most of us a time of fear. A mob was coming from Yarmouth to attack Benacre Hall, and then what would become of Sir Thomas “Guche”? But older heads began to think that the nation would survive the blow, even if Benacre Hall were burnt and Sir Thomas “Guche” had to hide his diminished head. As it happened, we did lose Sir Thomas’s services. He was thrown out for Suffolk, and Mr. Robert Newton Shaw, a Whig, reigned in his stead. How delighted we all were! Now had come the golden age, and the millennium was at hand. Pensioners and place men were no longer to fatten on the earnings of a suffering people, Radical politicians even looked forward to the time when the parson would lose his tithes.