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the more peaceful habits that were growing in society.

4. In addition to Bath,3 Tunbridge Wells,3 Epsom, Buxton, and the more modest Islington,3 retained their popularity, and a new rival was rising into note. The mineral springs of Cheltenham* were discovered about 1730, and in 1738 a regular Spa was built.

5. Sea-bathing in the first half of the eighteenth century is very rarely noticed. Lord Chesterfield, indeed, having visited Scarborough in 1733, observed that it was there commonly practised by both sexes, but its general popularity dates only from the appearance of a medical work by Dr. Richard Russell, “On Glandular Consumption, and the Use of Sea-water in Diseases of the Glands,” which was published in Latin in 1750, and translated in 1753. The new remedy acquired an extraordinary favour, and it produced a great, permanent, and, on the whole, very beneficial change in the national tastes. In a few years obscure fishing villages along the coast began to assume the dimensions of stately watering places.

6. Before the century had closed, Cowper described, in the following indignant lines, the common enthusiasm with which all ages and classes rushed for health or pleasure to the sea :“ Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles,

Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells,
When health required it, would consent to roam,
Else more attached to pleasures found at home;
But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife,

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3

3 7

8

Ingenious to diversify dull life,
In coaches, chaises, caravans, and boys,
Fly to the coast for daily, nightly joys,
And all, impatient of dry land, agree

With one consent to rush into the sea. 7. The favourite occupations of the country gentry were field sports. Hawking,” which had been extremely popular in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and which was a favourite sport of Charles 11.,* almost disappeared in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Stag-hunting declined with the spread of agriculture, but hare-hunting held its ground, and fox-hunting greatly increased.

8. Cricket, which would occupy a distinguished place in any modern picture of English manners, had apparently but just arisen. The earliest notice of it is to be found in some songs written in the beginning of the century. It was mentioned as one of the amusements of London by a writer in 1720, and towards the close of the century it had greatly increased.

Adapted from Lecky's “ History of England during the Eighteenth Century.”

MARK ANTONY'S ORATION OVER THE

BODY OF CÆSAR.2
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious :
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,

H

10 (For Brutus is an honourable man

So are they all, all honourable men,)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me :
But Brutus says he was ambitious ;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill :
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious ?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept; 20 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff :

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that, on the Lupercal, 4
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse : was this ambition ?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.
30 You all did love him once, not without cause :

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ?
O judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.—Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world ; now lies he there,

l
And none so poor to do him reverence.

O masters, if I were disposed to stir
40 Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius: wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable mom.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet,—'tis his will :
Let but the commons hear this testament-

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read50 And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,-

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;
It is not meet you know how Cæsar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ;

And, being men, hearing the will of Cæsar, 60 It will inflame you, it will make you mad :

'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ;
For, if you should, oh, what would come of it!

Will you be patient ? will you stay awhile ?

?
I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it:
I fear I wrong the honourable men
Whose daggers have stabbed Cæsar; I do fear it.

You will compel me, then, to read the will ?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Cæsar,

And let me show you him that made the will. 70 Shall I descend ? and will you give me leave ?

*

*

*

*

Nay, press not so upon me; stand far off.

you bave tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle : I remember