Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/313

Rh England of to-day. Dancing, drinking, card-playing, dining, hunting, took up a large share of men's thoughts. "Every town had its fair, every village its wake." But morals were low, and conversation was coarse. "You could no more suffer in a British drawing-room a fine gentleman or a fine lady of Queen Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an ancient Briton," says Thackeray, in words which apply equally to the early Hanoverian period.

Indeed, there was little to refine and elevate at this time. Religion was at a low ebb, reading at a discount, learning not compulsory. One is almost surprised to see that such new books as "Gulliver's Travels" and "Robinson Crusoe" could be bought for sixpence, "tastefully bound in flowered and gilt Dutch paper." Magazines, too, were increasing. The Gentleman's Magazine made its appearance in 1731, and was followed by the London Magazine, till in 1750 there were eight periodicals in circulation. But these were for the educated few. There was no national education as yet, and servants in town and country were peculiarly ignorant. They were taken for the most part from the farmer class,