not only cause him to read it over, but also to practise the precepts of the same.  After this he exerciseth his hand in writing one or two hours, and readeth upon Fabyan’s Chronicle as long.  The residue of the day he doth spend upon the lute and virginals.  When he rideth, as he doth very oft, I tell him by the way some history of the Romans or the Greeks, which I cause him to rehearse again in a tale.  For his recreation he useth to hawk and hunt and shoot in his long bow, which frameth and succeedeth so well with him that he seemeth to be thereunto given by nature."[57]

I have spoken of the organisation of the country population, I have now to speak of that of the towns, of the trading classes and manufacturing classes, the regulations respecting which are no less remarkable and no less illustrative of the national character.  If the tendency of trade to assume at last a form of mere self-interest be irresistible, if political economy represent the laws to which in the end it is forced to submit itself, the nation spared no efforts, either of art or policy, to defer to the last moment the unwelcome conclusion.

The names and shadows linger about London of certain ancient societies, the members of which may still occasionally be seen in quaint gilt barges pursuing their own difficult way among the swarming steamers; when on certain days, the traditions concerning which are fast dying out of memory, the Fishmongers’ Company, the Goldsmiths’ Company, the Mercers’ Company, make procession down the river for civic feastings at Greenwich or Blackwall.  The stately tokens of ancient honour still belong to them, and the remnants of ancient wealth and patronage and power.  Their charters may be read by curious antiquaries, and the bills of fare of their ancient entertainments.  But for what purpose they were called into being, what there was in these associations of common trades to surround with gilded insignia, and how they came to be possessed of broad lands and church preferments, few people now care to think or to inquire.  Trade and traders have no dignity any more in the eyes of any one, except what money lends to them; and these outward symbols scarcely rouse even a passing feeling of curiosity.  And yet these companies were once something more than names.  They are all which now remain of a vast organisation which once penetrated the entire trading life of England—­an organisation set on foot to realise that most necessary, if most difficult, condition of commercial excellence under which man should deal faithfully with his brother, and all wares offered for sale, of whatever kind, should honestly be what they pretend to be.[58] I spoke of the military principle which directed the distribution and the arrangements of land.  The analogy will best explain a state of things in which every occupation was treated as the division of an army; regiments being quartered in every town, each with its own self-elected officers, whose duty was