the most favoured among the religious world.  The most eloquent expounders, the most gifted missionaries, the most interesting converts from foreign islands were to be found at her sumptuous table, spread with the produce of her magnificent gardens ... a great, shining, mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum-cake, port wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black, with baggy white neckcloths, who took little Tommy on their knees and questioned him as to his right understanding of the place whither naughty boys were bound.”

Again, in his paper on Dinners the same great master of a fascinating subject speaks the words of truth and soberness when he says:  “I don’t know when I have been better entertained, as far as creature comforts go, than by men of very Low Church principles; and one of the very best repasts that ever I saw in my life was at Darlington, given by a Quaker.”  This admirable tradition of material comfort allied with Evangelical opinion extended into my own time.  The characteristic weakness of Mr. Stiggins has no place in my recollection; but Mr. Chadband I have frequently met in Evangelical circles, both inside and outside the Establishment.  Debarred by the strictness of their principles from such amusements as dancing, cards, and theatres, the Evangelicals took their pleasure in eating and drinking.  They abounded in hospitality; and when they were not entertaining or being entertained, occupied their evenings with systematic reading, which gave their religious compositions a sound basis of general culture.  Austerity, gloom, and Pharisaism had no place among the better class of Evangelicals.  Wilberforce, pronounced by Madame de Stael to be the most agreeable man in England, was of “a most gay and genial disposition;” “lived in perpetual sunshine, and shed its radiance all around him.”  Legh Richmond was “exceedingly good company.”  Robinson of Leicester was “a capital conversationalist, very lively and bright.”  Alexander Knox found that Mrs. Hannah More “far exceeded his expectations in pleasant manners and interesting conversation.”

The increasing taste for solid comfort and easy living which accompanied the development of humanitarianism, and in which, as we have just seen, the Evangelicals had their full share, was evidenced to the eye by the changes in domestic architecture.  There was less pretension in exteriors and elevations, but more regard to convenience and propriety within.  The space was not all sacrificed to reception-rooms.  Bedrooms were multiplied and enlarged; and fireplaces were introduced into every room, transforming the arctic “powdering-closet” into a habitable dressing-room.  The diminution of the Window-Tax made light and ventilation possible.  Personal cleanliness became fashionable, and the means of attaining it were cultivated.  The whole art or science of domestic sanitation—­rudimentary enough in its beginnings—­belongs to the nineteenth century.  The system which went before