of the century) it was about the most retired village in England not of a mountainous district.  No turnpike road went through the parish.  It lay in the line of no thoroughfare.  The only inhabitants of education were the clergyman, a man of great simplicity of character, who had never been at the University, and my great-uncle, of above fourscore, and a recluse.  The people were uneducated to an extent now unusual.  Nearly all the letters of the village were written by my uncle’s gardener, a Scotchman, who, having the degree of education usual with his countrymen of the profession, and who being very good natured, had abundant occupation for his evenings, and being, moreover, a prudent man, and safe, became the depository of nine-tenths of the family secrets of the inhabitants.  Being thus ignorant generally, and few of them ever having been twenty miles from the place, I may consider the parish fifty years behind the rest of the world when I went there, so that it now furnishes recollection of rural people, of manners and intelligence, dating back a hundred years from the present time.  It was indeed a very primitive race; and it is curious to recall the many indications afforded in that obscure village of unmitigated ignorance.  With all this were found in full exercise also the more violent and vindictive passions of our nature.  They might have the simplicity, but not the virtues, of Arcadia....  There were some old English customs of an interesting nature which lingered in the parish.  For example, the old habit of bowing to the altar was retained by the rustics on entering church, and bowing respectfully to the clergyman in his place.  A copy of the Scriptures was in the vestry chained to the desk on which it lay, and where it had evidently been since that mode of introducing the Bible was practised in the time of Edward VI.  The passing bell was always sounded on notice of the death of a parishioner, and sounded at any hour, night or day, immediately on the event happening.  One striking custom prevailed at funerals.  The coffin was borne through the village to the churchyard by six or eight bearers of the same age and sex as the deceased.  Thus young maidens in white carried the remains of the girl with whom they had lately sported.  Boys took their playfellow and companion to the churchyard.  The young married woman was borne by matrons; the men of middle age did the same office for their contemporary....  The worship of the little church was, as may be supposed, extremely simple, and yet even there innovation and refinement had appeared in the musical department.  The old men who used to execute the psalmody, with the clerk at their head, had been superseded.  A teacher of singing had been engaged, and a choir, consisting of maidens, boys and men, executed various sacred pieces with the assistance of a bassoon and violin.  I recollect in the church a practice which would have shocked the strict rubricians of the present day.  Whenever banns of marriage were proclaimed,