DOMESTIC CHARACTER. 331
ions and prejudices of those with whom they converse. They are also distinguished by a love of order. The ranks are clearly defined, and are not ambitious to en croach on established boundaries. Children are taught to obey. Servants are not ashamed of their stations. The young submit to the discipline of schools and col leges. The course of education is to give a solid base, rather than to hang out a broad, gay banner. Strict ness and punctuality, in those who rule, beget the spirit of trust in those who are subordinate, and aid to keep things upon their right foundations.
The old English character is emphatically best seen at home, by the fireside, and at the family altar. In the enjoyment of the comfort which they so well un derstand ; in the exercise of a hospitality, which, more than any other people, they know how to render per fect ; in the maintenance of that authority on which the strength and symmetry of the domestic fabric depends, and in the admixture of religious obligation with the daily routine of duties and affections, there is a straight forwardness, a whole-heartedness, that commands re spect, and incite those, who have descended from them, to glory in their ancestry.
While at Upton Lea, I went with Mr. and Mrs. N., and their sister, Miss H., to Windsor Castle, the classic ground of Eton, and the sequestered churchyard, where Gray wrote that unequalled Elegy which finds an echo in every bosom. How touching is the circum stance, that it should have been repeated by Wolfe, the night before his fatal attack on Quebec, and by our
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