"Near the church is a most magnificent oak, of which the men of Horsmonden are justly proud. The trunk is thirty feet in circumference at the roots, and retains a circumference of nearly twenty feet almost to the branches. I was told at the rectory that it is known to be at least three hundred years old, and how much older is not known. Our ancestor, in his boyhood, doubtless looked upon it often, and probably sat under its shade.

"Near the church is Rectory House,' the beautiful residence of the Rev. Mr. Marriott, the rector. The present net income of the living is £800. Mr. Marriott is a gentleman of large fortune. The gift of the living of Horsmonden is in his family; and he is both incumbent and patron, as was his grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Marriott, before him. He has the refined and polished manners of an educated English gentleman. He has treated me with much courtesy; and has not only given me ready access to the parish register, but (though I had no introduction to him) has also invited me to dinner, and shown me other attentions.

"The staple product of the parish is hops; though wheat, oats, and other crops, are also raised. The farmers,' who occupy and cultivate the land, have not a freehold estate in it. They occupy it as tenants under short leases; either leases from year to year, or for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. They pay an annual rent, from 15s. 6d. to 30s. sterling an acre; and often continue to occupy the same land, as tenants, from father to son.

"There are not fifty acres in Horsmonden the freehold of which is owned by men who either cultivate or superintend the cultivation. Below the farmers' there is a much more numerous class, the farm-laborers; of whom some farmers employ five, ten, or fifteen. They receive, for wages, 10s. a week. Whether married or single, their food is not furnished by their employers, but they board themselves. With the ten shillings the laborer must support himself and his wife, and six children if he has them, and that in a country where provisions are dear. They seldom taste meat oftener than once a week, and many of them not once a month. I regret that is no longer true of any part of Kent which was formerly said of the whole country, that every man is in a manner a freeholder, and has some land of his own to live upon.'

6

"The class of small proprietors in England has of late years very greatly diminished. But very little land in England is now occupied by the cultivator of the soil, not even in Kent."

The above description would probably answer well for a description of the general appearance of Horsmonden early in the seventeenth century. The venerable church has grown more venerable, and the old oak more ample in its proportions. But there is one melancholy change. The sturdy and bold yeomanry, who then held their lands in free tenure, owning the lands they cultivated, have disappeared from Horsmonden; while leaseholders and laborers have taken their place. Estates in that parish, as elsewhere in England, have been gradually accumulating in fewer hands, destructive to the weight and influence of the middle classes; nay, gradually diminishing these classes themselves.