'_Reynard._ So that instead of providing her a Gentleman, you'd Sacrifice her to a Brute; who has neither Manners enough to be thought Rational, Education enough for a Justice of the Peace, nor wit enough to distinguish fine Conversation from the Yelping of Dogs; Hunts all the Morning, topes all the Afternoon, and then goes lovingly Drunk to Bed to his Wife. '_Woodcock._ And pray, what are your Town Diversions? To hear a parcel of _Italian_ Eunuchs, like so many Cats, squawll out somewhat you don't understand. The Song of my Lady's _Birthday_, by an honest Farmer, and a Merry Jig by a Country Wench that has Humour in her Buttocks, is worth Forty on't; Your Plays, your Park, and all your Town Diversions together, don't afford half so substantial a Joy as going home thoroughly wet and dirty after a fatiguing Fox Chace, and Shifting one's self by a good Fire. Neither are we Country Gentlemen such Ninnies as you make us; we have good Estates, therefore want not the Knavery and Cunning of the Town; but we are Loyal Subjects, true Friends, and never scruple to take our Bottle, because we are guilty of nothing which we are afraid of discovering in our Cups.'[409] A very pretty quarrel as it stood, and one on which, as Sir Roger remarked, 'much might be said on both sides,' for Addison[410] rather grumbles at the old-fashioned courtesy of the well-bred squire as opposed to the greater ease of manners then in vogue: 'If, after this, we look on the People of Mode in the Country, we find in them the Manners of the last Age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the Fashion of the polite World, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the first State of Nature than to those refinements which formerly reign'd in the Court and still prevail in the Country. One may now know a Man that never conversed in the World, by his Excess of Good Breeding. A polite Country Squire shall make you as many Bows in half an hour, as would serve a Courtier for a Week. There is infinitely more to do about Place and Precedency in a meeting of Justices Wives, than in an Assembly of Dutchesses.' [Footnote 409: _Tunbridge Walks._] [Footnote 410: _Spectator_, No. 119.] But if the country aristocracy were so behindhand, in what state were the labourers? Their lot was hard work and scant wage, only relieved by a village wake or a country fair; no education, no hope of any better position, of the earth, earthy; a man rose at early morning, worked hard all day, came home to sleep, and so on without intermission. Gay thus describes him and his labours:--