The old poet who called himself Shepherd Tonie, and whom Sir Egerton with much likelihood supposes to have been Anthony Munday, gives in his Woodman's Walk an unfavourable representation of provincial morals, when after forsaking the court and the city because he had found nothing but selfishness and deceit in both, he tried the country. There did appear no subtle shows, But yea and nay went smoothly: But Lord! how country folks can glose When they speak most untruly! More craft was in a buttoned cap And in the old wives' rail, Than in my life it was my hap To see on down or dale. There was no open forgery, But underhanded gleaning, Which they call country policy But hath a worser meaning. Some good bold face bears out the wrong, Because he gains thereby; The poor mans back is crackt ere long, Yet there he lets him lie: And no degree among them all But had such close intending, That I upon my knees did fall And prayed for their amending. If the author of these verses, or any one who entertained the same opinion, had been a guest of Mr. Allison's at Thaxted Grange, and had remained under his roof long enough to see the way of life there, and the condition of the hamlet, he would have gone away with a very different persuasion. It was a remark of Bishop Percy's that you may discern in a country parish whether there is a resident clergyman or not, by the civil or savage manners of the people. The influence of the clergyman, however exemplary he may be, is materially impaired if his benefice is so poor and his means so straitened that his own necessities leave him little or nothing to spare; but when such a parish priest as Mr. Bacon has for his neighbour such a resident landholder as his friend at the Grange, happy are—not the cottagers only, but all who live within their sphere. There was no alehouse in the hamlet, and as the fashion of preserves had not yet been introduced, there were no poachers, the inhabitants being thus happily exempted from two of the great temptations with which in our days men of that class are continually beset. If a newspaper ever found its way among them, newspapers were at that time harmless; and when a hawker came he had no pestiferous tracts either seditious or sectarian for sale, or for gratuitous distribution: a scurvy jest-book was the worst article in his assortment. Mr. Bacon had nothing to counteract his pastoral labours except the pravity of human nature. Of this there must every where be but too much; but fortunate indeed is the parish priest who finds himself in like manner stationed where there are no external circumstances to aggravate and excite it.