Chapter III: Letter I: To a Youth (2)

38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative to the things to be _avoided_: let me now turn to the things which you ought _to do_. And, first of all, the _husbanding of your time_. The respect that you will receive, the real and _sincere respect_, will depend entirely on what you are able _to do_. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing, you must, as I observed before, do more than the common run of men in your state of life; and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage well _your time_: and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the _day-light_ and as little of the _candle-light_ as is consistent with the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of sitting up _merely for the purpose of talking_, it is no easy matter to break themselves of it: and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be, on an average, less than _eight_: and, if it be more in winter time, it is all the better; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour spent over fire and candle in an idle gossip. People never should sit talking till they do not know what to talk about. It is said by the country-people, that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two are worth after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact; but it is useless to go to bed early and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed after rising. In general, half the morning is _loitered_ away, the party being in a sort of half-dressed half-naked state; out of bed, indeed, but still in a sort of bedding. Those who first invented _morning-gowns_ and _slippers_ could have very little else to do. These things are very suitable to those who have had fortunes gained for them by others; very suitable to those who have nothing to do, and who merely live for the purpose of assisting to consume the produce of the earth; but he who has his bread to earn, or who means to be worthy of respect on account of his labours, has no business with morning gown and slippers. In short, be your business or calling what it may, _dress at once for the day_; and learn to do it _as quickly_ as possible. A looking-glass is a piece of furniture a great deal worse than useless. _Looking_ at the face will not alter its shape or its colour; and, perhaps, of all wasted time; none is so foolishly wasted as that which is employed in surveying one's own face. Nothing can be of _little_ importance, if one be compelled to attend to it _every day of our lives_; if we _shaved_ but once a year, or once a month, the execution of the thing would be hardly worth naming: but this is a piece of work that must be done once every day; and, as it may cost only about _five minutes_ of time, and may be, and frequently is, made to cost _thirty_, or even _fifty minutes_; and, as only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part of the hours of our average day-light; this being the case, this is a matter of real importance. I once heard SIR JOHN SINCLAIR ask Mr. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE, whether he meaned to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught Latin. 'No,' said Mr. JOHNSTONE, 'but I mean to do something a great deal better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other, 'teach him _to shave with cold water and without a glass_.' Which, I dare say, he did; and for which benefit I am sure that son has had good reason to be grateful. Only think of the inconvenience attending the common practice! There must be _hot water_; to have this there must be _a fire_, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have these, there must be a _servant_, or you must light a fire yourself. For the want of these, the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a stripping and _another dressing bout_; or, you go in a slovenly state all that day, and the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness must be abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey you must wait the pleasure of the servants at the inn before you can dress and set out in the morning; the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can move from the spot; instead of being at the end of your day's journey in good time, you are benighted, and have to endure all the great inconveniences attendant on tardy movements. And, all this, from the apparently insignificant affair of shaving! How many a piece of important business has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause! '_Toujours pret_' was the motto of a famous French general; and pray let it be yours: be '_always ready_;' and never, during your whole life, have to say, '_I cannot go till I be shaved and dressed_.' Do the whole at once for the day, whatever may be your state of life; and then you have a day unbroken by those indispensable performances. Begin thus, in the days of your youth, and, having felt the superiority which this practice will give you over those in all other respects your equals, the practice will stick by you to the end of your life. Till you be shaved and dressed for the day, you cannot set steadily about any business; you know that you must presently quit your labour to return to the dressing affair; you, therefore, put it off until that be over; the interval, the precious interval, is spent in lounging about; and, by the time that you are ready for business, the best part of the day is gone.

39. Trifling as this matter appears upon _naming_ it, it is, in fact, one of the great concerns of life; and, for my part, I can truly say, that I owe more of my great labours to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have here given you, than to all the natural abilities with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was _always ready_: if I had to mount guard at _ten_, I was ready at _nine_: never did any man, or any thing, wait one moment for me. Being, at an age _under twenty years_, raised from Corporal to Serjeant Major _at once_, over the heads of thirty Serjeants, I naturally should have been an object of envy and hatred; but this habit of early rising and of rigid adherence to the precepts which I have given you, really subdued these passions; because every one felt, that what I did he had never done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to make out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and, long before any other man was dressed for the parade, my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade, walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this: to get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o'clock; shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came for any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment or part of it went out to exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the matter was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the bayonets glistened in the _rising sun_, a sight which gave me delight, of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to describe. If the _officers_ were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in upon the time for cooking their dinner, putting all things out of order and all men out of humour. When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure before them: they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to work at their trades. So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.

40. _Money_ is said to be _power_, which is, in some cases, true; and the same may be said of _knowledge_; but superior _sobriety_, _industry_ and _activity_, are a still more certain source of power; for without these, _knowledge_ is of little use; and, as to the power which _money_ gives, it is that of _brute force_, it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen. Superior sobriety, industry, activity, though accompanied with but a moderate portion of knowledge, command respect, because they have great and visible influence. The drunken, the lazy, and the inert, stand abashed before the sober and the active. Besides, all those whose interests are at stake prefer, of necessity, those whose exertions produce the greatest and most immediate and visible effect. Self-interest is no respecter of persons: it asks, not who knows best what ought to be done, but who is most likely to do it: we may, and often do, admire the talents of lazy, and even dissipated men, but we do not trust them with the care of our interests. If, therefore, you would have respect and influence in the circle in which you move, be more sober, more industrious, more active than the general run of those amongst whom you live.

41. As to EDUCATION, this word is now applied exclusively to things which are taught in schools; but _education_ means _rearing up_, and the French speak of the education of _pigs_ and _sheep_. In a very famous French book on rural affairs, there is a Chapter entitled '_Education du Cochon_,' that is, _education of the hog_. The word has the same meaning in both languages; for both take it from the Latin. Neither is the word LEARNING properly confined to things taught in schools, or by books; for, _learning_ means _knowledge_; and, but a comparatively small part of useful knowledge comes from books. Men are not to be called _ignorant_ merely because they cannot make upon paper certain marks with a pen, or because they do not know the meaning of such marks when made by others. A ploughman may be very _learned_ in his line, though he does not know what the letters _p. l. o. u. g. h_ mean when he sees them combined upon paper. The first thing to be required of a man is, that he understand well his own _calling_, or _profession_; and, be you in what state of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought to be your first and greatest care. A man who has had a new-built house tumble down will derive little more consolation from being told that the architect is a great astronomer, than this distressed nation now derives from being assured that its distresses arise from the measures of a long list of the greatest orators and greatest heroes that the world ever beheld.

42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means to be despised; and it is a thing which may be laudably sought after by persons in all states of life. In those pursuits which are called _professions_, it is necessary, and also in certain trades; and, in persons in the middle ranks of life, a total absence of such learning is somewhat disgraceful. There is, however, one danger to be carefully guarded against; namely, the opinion that your genius, or your literary acquirements, are such as to warrant you in disregarding the calling in which you are, and by which you gain your bread. Parents must have an uncommon portion of solid sense to counterbalance their natural affection sufficiently to make them competent judges in such a case. Friends are partial; and those who are not, you deem enemies. Stick, therefore, to _the shop; _rely upon your mercantile or mechanical or professional calling; try your strength in literature, if you like; but, _rely_ on the shop. If BLOOMFIELD, who wrote a poem called the FARMER'S BOY, had placed no _reliance_ on the faithless muses, his unfortunate and much-to-be-pitied family would, in all probability, have not been in a state to solicit relief from charity. I remember that this loyal shoemaker was flattered to the skies, and (ominous sign, if he had understood it) feasted at the tables of some of the great. Have, I beseech you, no hope of this sort; and, if you find it creeping towards your heart, drive it instantly away as the mortal foe of your independence and your peace.

43. With this precaution, however, book-learning is not only proper, but highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading, plain and neat writing, and _arithmetic_. The two former are mere child's work; the latter not quite so easily acquired, but equally indispensable, and of it you ought to have a thorough knowledge before you attempt to study even the grammar of your own language. Arithmetic is soon learned; it is not a thing that requires much natural talent; it is not a thing that loads the memory or puzzles the mind; and it is a thing of _every-day utility_. Therefore, this is, to a certain extent, an absolute necessary; an indispensable acquisition. Every man is not to be a _surveyor_ or an _actuary_; and, therefore, you may stop far short of the knowledge, of this sort, which is demanded by these professions; but, as far as common accounts and calculations go, you ought to be perfect; and this you may make yourself, without any assistance from a master, by bestowing upon this science, during six months, only one half of the time that is, by persons of your age, usually wasted over the tea-slops, or other kettle-slops, alone! If you become _fond_ of this science, there may be a little danger of wasting your time on it. When, therefore, you have got as much of it as your business or profession can possibly render necessary, turn the time to some other purpose. As to _books_, on this subject, they are in everybody's hand; but, there is _one book_ on the subject of calculations, which I must point out to you; 'THE CAMBIST,' by Dr. KELLY. This is a bad title, because, to men in general, it gives no idea of what the book treats of. It is a book which shows the value of the several pieces of money of one country when stated in the money of another country. For instance, it tells us what a Spanish Dollar, a Dutch Dollar, a French Frank, and so on, is worth in English money. It does the same with regard to _weights_ and _measures_: and it extends its information to _all the countries in the world_. It is a work of rare merit; and every youth, be his state of life what it may, if it permit him to pursue book-learning of any sort, and particularly if he be destined, or at all likely to meddle with commercial matters, ought, as soon as convenient, to possess this valuable and instructive book.

44. The next thing is the GRAMMAR of your own language. Without understanding this, you can never hope to become fit for anything beyond mere trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do (God knows!) but too often see men have great wealth, high titles, and boundless power heaped upon them, who can hardly write ten lines together correctly; but, remember, it is not _merit_ that has been the cause of their advancement; the cause has been, in almost every such case, the subserviency of the party to the will of some government, and the baseness of some nation who have quietly submitted to be governed by brazen fools. Do not you imagine, that you will have luck of this sort: do not you hope to be rewarded and honoured for that ignorance which shall prove a scourge to your country, and which will earn you the curses of the children yet unborn. Rely you upon your merit, and upon nothing else. Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible for you to write correctly, and it is by mere accident if you speak correctly; and, pray bear in mind, that all well-informed persons judge of a man's mind (until they have other means of judging) by his writing or speaking. The labour necessary to acquire this knowledge is, indeed, not trifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. The subject is abstruse: it demands much reflection and much patience: but, when once the task is performed, it is performed _for life_, and in every day of that life it will be found to be, in a greater or less degree, a source of pleasure or of profit or of both together. And, what is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion; it exposes the student to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort. The study need subtract from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only _one year_, employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of _the fire_, and only my _turn_ even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for _any youth_, however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the _farthing_ that I had to give, now and then, for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a _great sum_ to me! I was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was _two-pence a week_ for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a _red-herring_ in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had _lost my halfpenny_! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child! And, again I say, if I, under circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse for the non-performance? What youth, who shall read this, will not be ashamed to say, that he is not able to find time and opportunity for this most essential of all the branches of book-learning?

45. I press this matter with such earnestness, because a knowledge of grammar is the foundation of all literature; and because without this knowledge opportunities for writing and speaking are only occasions for men to display their unfitness to write and speak. How many false pretenders to erudition, have I exposed to shame merely by my knowledge of grammar! How many of the insolent and ignorant great and powerful have I pulled down and made little and despicable! And, with what ease have I conveyed upon numerous important subjects, information and instruction to millions now alive, and provided a store of both for millions yet unborn! As to the course to be pursued in this great undertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar from the first word to the last, very attentively, several times over; then, to copy the whole of it very correctly and neatly; and then to study the Chapters one by one. And what do this reading and writing require as to time? Both together not more than the tea-slops and their gossips for _three months_! There are about three hundred pages in my English Grammar. Four of those little pages in a day, which is a mere trifle of work, do the thing in _three months_. Two hours a day are quite sufficient for the purpose; and these may, in any _town_ that I have ever known, or in any village, be taken from that part of the morning during which the main part of the people are in bed. I do not like the evening-candle-light work: it wears the eyes much more than the same sort of light in the morning, because then the faculties are in vigour and wholly unexhausted. But for this purpose there is sufficient of that day-light which is usually wasted; usually gossipped or lounged away; or spent in some other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time that they have consumed in earning merited contempt for their affected gentility, would have laid the foundation of sincere respect towards them for the whole of their lives!

46. _Perseverance_ is a prime quality in every pursuit, and particularly in this. Yours is, too, the time of life to acquire this inestimable habit. Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of talent and of good disposition: as the race was not to the hare but to the tortoise, so the meed of success in study is to him who is not in haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and even step. It is not to a want of taste or of desire or of disposition to learn that we have to ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient perseverance. Grammar is a branch of knowledge; like all other things of high value, it is of difficult acquirement: the study is dry; the subject is intricate; it engages not the passions; and, if the _great end_ be not kept constantly in view; if you lose, for a moment, sight of the _ample reward_, indifference begins, that is followed by weariness, and disgust and despair close the book. To guard against this result be not in _haste_; keep _steadily on_; and, when you find weariness approaching, rouse yourself, and remember, that if you give up, all that you have done has been done in vain. This is a matter of great moment; for out of every ten, who undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine who abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the want of resolution to overcome the first approaches of weariness. The most effectual means of security against this mortifying result is to lay down a rule to write or to read a certain fixed quantity _every day_, Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the same state; they have not, at all times, the same elasticity; to-day we are full of hope on the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all: every human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if reason interfere, and bid you _overcome the fits of lassitude_, and almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or despair lay the foundation of certain success; and, what is of still more importance, fix in you the _habit of perseverance_.

47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space on this topic, it has been because I know, from experience as well as from observation, that it is of more importance than all the other branches of book-learning put together. It gives you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and practical superiority over the far greater part of men. How often did I experience this even long before I became what is called an author! The _Adjutant_, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least _were_, a very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the same form and manner as sentences in _print_, became shy of letting me see pieces of _his_ writing. The writing of _orders_, and other things, therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. In short, I owe to the possession of this branch of knowledge everything that has enabled me to do so many things that very few other men have done, and that now gives me a degree of influence, such as is possessed by few others, in the most weighty concerns of the country. The possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in your own esteem, gives just confidence in yourself, and prevents you from being the willing slave of the rich and the titled part of the community. It enables you to discover that riches and titles do not confer merit; you think comparatively little of them; and, as far as relates to you, at any rate, their insolence is innoxious.

48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce you to set resolutely about the study of _grammar_, I might here leave the subject of _learning_; arithmetic and grammar, both _well learned_, being as much as I could wish in a mere youth. But these need not occupy the whole of your spare time; and, there are other branches of learning which ought immediately to follow. If your own calling or profession require book-study, books treating of that are to be preferred to all others; for, the first thing, the first object in life, is to secure the honest means of obtaining sustenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to your rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in your own calling is, therefore, the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come _general knowledge_, and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of _your own country_; for, how ridiculous is it to see an English youth engaged in reading about the customs of the Chinese or of the Hindoos, while he is content to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Cornwall! Well employed he must be in ascertaining how Greece was divided and how the Romans parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, and apparently does not want to know, how England came to be divided into counties, hundreds, parishes and tithings.

49. GEOGRAPHY naturally follows Grammar; and you should begin with that of this kingdom, which you ought to understand well, perfectly well, before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight knowledge of the divisions and customs of other countries is, generally speaking, sufficient; but, not to know these full well, as far as relates to our own country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman or a scholar, somewhat disgraceful. Yet how many men are there, and those called _gentlemen_ too, who seem to think that counties and parishes, and churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and manors and courts-leet, and paupers and poor-houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down upon it, immediately after Noah's flood! Surely, it is necessary for every man, having any pretensions to scholarship, to know _how these things came_; and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the better; for, until it be acquired, you read the _history_ of your country in vain. Indeed, to communicate this knowledge is one main part of the business of history; but it is a part which no historian, commonly so called, has, that I know of, ever yet performed, except, in part, myself, in the History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION. I had read HUME'S History of England, and the Continuation by SMOLLETT; but, in 1802, when I wanted to write on the subject of the _non-residence of the clergy_, I found, to my great mortification, that I knew nothing of the foundation of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that I could not even guess at the _origin of parishes_. This gave a new turn to my inquiries; and I soon found the romancers, called historians, had given me no information that I could rely on, and, besides, had done, apparently, all they could to keep me in the dark.

50. When you come to HISTORY, begin also with that _of your own country_; and here it is my bounden duty to put you _well on your guard_; for in this respect we are _peculiarly_ unfortunate, and for the following reasons, to which I beg you to attend. Three _hundred years ago_, the religion of England had been, during _nine hundred years_, the Catholic religion: the Catholic clergy possessed about a third part of all the lands and houses, which they held _in trust_ for their own support, for the _building and repairing of churches_, and for the relief of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; but, at the time just mentioned, the king and the aristocracy changed the religion to _Protestant_, took the estates of the church and the poor _to themselves as their own property_, and _taxed the people at large_ for the building and repairing of churches and for the relief of the poor. This great and terrible change, effected partly by force against the people and partly by the most artful means of deception, gave rise to a series of efforts, which has been continued from that day _to this_, to cause us all to believe, _that that change was for the better_, that it was for _our good_; and that, _before that time_, our forefathers were a set of the most miserable slaves that the sun ever warmed with his beams. It happened, too, that the _art of printing_ was not discovered, or, at least, it was very little understood, until about the time when this change took place; so that the books relating to former times were confined to manuscript; and, besides, even these manuscript libraries were destroyed with great care by those who had made the change and had grasped the property of the poor and the church. Our '_Historians_,' as they are called, have written under _fear_ of the powerful, or have been _bribed_ by them; and, generally speaking, both at the same time; and, accordingly, their works are, as far as they relate to former times, masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.

51. The great object of these lies always has been to make the main body of the people believe, that the nation is now more happy, more populous, more powerful, _than it was before it was Protestant_, and thereby to induce us to conclude, that it was _a good thing for us_ that the aristocracy should take to themselves the property of the poor and the church, and make the people at large _pay taxes for the support of both_. This has been, and still is, the great object of all those heaps of lies; and those lies are continually spread about amongst us in all forms of publication, from heavy folios down to halfpenny tracts. In refutation of those lies we have only very few and rare ancient books to refer to, and their information is incidental, seeing that their authors never dreamed of the possibility of the lying generations which were to come. We have the ancient acts of parliament, the common-law, the customs, the canons of the church, and _the churches themselves_; but these demand _analyses_ and _argument_, and they demand also a _really free press_, and _unprejudiced and patient readers_. Never in this world, before, had truth to struggle with so many and such great disadvantages!

52. To refute lies is not, at present, my business; but it is my business to give you, in as small a compass as possible, one striking proof that they are lies; and thereby to put you well upon your guard for the whole of the rest of your life. The opinion sedulously inculcated by these '_historians_' is this; that, before the _Protestant_ times came, England was, comparatively, an insignificant country, _having few people in it, and those few wretchedly poor and miserable_. Now, take the following _undeniable facts_. All the parishes in England are now (except where they have been _united_, and two, three, or four, have been made into one) in point of _size_, what they were _a thousand years ago_. The county of Norfolk is the best cultivated of any one in England. This county has _now_ 731 parishes; and the number was formerly greater. Of these parishes 22 _have now no churches at all_; 74 contain less than 100 souls each: and 268 have _no parsonage-houses_. Now, observe, every parish had, in old times, a church and a parsonage-house. The county contains 2,092 square miles; that is to say, something less than 3 square miles to each parish, and that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the _size_ of each parish is, on an average, that of a piece of ground about one mile and a half each way; so that the churches are, even now, on an average, only about _a mile and a half from each other_. Now, the questions for you to put to yourself are these: Were churches formerly built and kept up _without being wanted_, and especially by a poor and miserable people? Did these miserable people build 74 churches out of 731, each of which 74 had not a hundred souls belonging to it? Is it a sign of an augmented population, that 22 churches out of 731 have tumbled down and been effaced? Was it a country _thinly_ inhabited by miserable people that could build and keep a church in every piece of ground a mile and a half each way, besides having, in this same county, 77 monastic establishments and 142 free chapels? Is it a sign of augmented population, ease and plenty, that, out of 731 parishes, 268 have suffered the parsonage houses to fall into ruins, and their sites to become patches of nettles and of brambles? Put these questions calmly to yourself: common sense will dictate the answers; and truth will call for an expression of your indignation against the lying historians and the still more lying population-mongers.