What we now call the ‘life’ of the Church, with its meetings, committees, fraternities, guilds, societies, and organisations, then simply did not exist. The clergyman had an easy time; he visited little, he had an Evening Service once a week, he did not pretend to keep saints’ days and minor festivals and fasts--none of his congregation expected him to keep them; as for his being a teetotaller for the sake of the weaker brethren, that would have seemed to everybody pure foolishness, as, indeed, it is, only people now run to the opposite belief; yet he was a good man, for the most part, who lived a quiet and exemplary life, and a good scholar--scholars are, indeed, sadly to seek among the modern clergy--a sound theologian, a judge of good port, and a gentleman. But processions, banners, surpliced choirs, robes, and the like, he would have regarded as unworthy the consideration of one who was a Churchman, a Protestant, and a scholar. To complete this brief study of the Church fifty years ago, let us remark that out of 11,500 livings which it possessed, 3,000 were under 100_l._ and 1,000 under 60_l._ a year, that there were 6,080 pluralists and 2,100 non-residents, that the Dissenters had only been allowed to marry in their own chapels and by their own clergy in the year 1831, that they were not admitted, as Dissenters, to the Universities, and that the incomes of some of the Bishops were enormous. [Illustration: FASHIONS FOR AUGUST, 1836 FASHIONS FOR MARCH, 1837] As for Art, in the house or out of it, Art in pictures, sculpture, architecture, dress, furniture, fiction, oratory, acting, the middle-class person, the resident in the country town, knew nothing of it. His church was most likely a barn, his own house was four-square, his furniture was mahogany, his pictures were coloured engravings, the ornaments of his rooms were hideous things in china, painted red and white, his hangings were of a warm and comfortable red, his sofas were horsehair, his drawing-room was furnished with a round table, on which lay keepsakes and forget-me-nots; but as the family never used the room, which was generally kept locked, it mattered little how it was furnished. He dressed, if he was an elderly gentleman, in a spencer, buttoned tight, a high black satin stock, and boots up to his knees--very likely he still carried his hair in a tail. If he was young, he had long and flowing hair, waved and curled with the aid of pomade, bear’s grease, and oil; he cultivated whiskers, also curled and oiled all round his face; he wore a magnificent stock, with a liberal kind of knot in the front: in this he stuck a great pin; and he was magnificent in waistcoats. As for the ladies’ dresses, I cannot trust myself to describe them; the accompanying illustration will be of service in bringing the fashion home to the reader. But this is the effigy of a London and a fashionable lady. Her country cousin would be two or three years, at least, behind her. Well, the girls