striking contrast with that hatred of the French which was so soon to settle over England under the Napoleonic régime. But, if many of the English people, weary of the increasing burdens which fell upon them, had their dreams of a good time coming, they, instead of following the mere glimmer of the will-o'-the-wisp, across the darkness of their lot, responded rather to signs of coming activities. Through the darkness they saw perhaps nothing very striking, but they felt occasionally the thrill of coming activities which were struggling for birth in that pregnant mother-night which seemed to be shrouding the sunset of the century—and they were saved from the immediate horrors of a revolution. Feudalism and the Pope had left our fathers obedience, en masse, and Luther had planted hope through the reformation of the individual. So the great wave of aspiration after a patent scheme of universal brotherhood passed over the people of these realms with only a wetting of the spray. Here and there was a weak reflection of the drama, in the calling of hard names, and the taunt of "Jacobin," thrown in the teeth of those who might have sympathised with the French in the earlier stages of the Revolution, was sometimes heard in the streets of Royston for many years after the circumstances which called it forth had passed away.

I have referred thus fully to what may seem a general rather than a local question, because the town of Royston, then full of aspirations after reform, was looked upon almost as a hot-bed of what were called "dangerous principles" by those attached to the old order of things, and because it may help us to understand something of the excitement occasioned by the free expression of opinions in the public debates which took place in Royston to be referred to hereafter.

But though the "era of hope," in the particular example of its application in France, failed miserably and deservedly of realising the great romantic dream-world of human happiness without parchments and formularies, it had at least this distinction, that it was in a sense the birth-hour of the individual with regard to civil life, just as Luther's bursting the bonds of Monasticism had been the birth-hour of the individual in religious life. The birth, however, was a feeble one, and in this respect, and for the social and domestic drawbacks of a trying time, it is interesting to look back and see how our fathers carried what to them were often felt to be heavy burdens, and how bravely and even blithely they travelled along what to us now seems like a weary pilgrimage towards the light we now enjoy. Carrying the tools of the pioneer which have ever become the hands of Englishmen so well, they worked, with such means as they had, for results rather than sentiment, and, cherishing that life-germ planted by Adam Smith, earned, not from the lips of Napoleon as is commonly supposed, but from one of the Revolutionary party—Bertrand Barrère in the National Assembly in 1794, when the tide of feeling had been turned by events the well-known taunt—"let Pitt then boast of his victory to a nation of shop-keepers." The instinct for persistent methodical plodding work which extracted this taunt, afterwards vanquished Napoleon at Waterloo, and enabled the English to pass what, when you come to gauge it by our present standard, was one of the darkest and most trying crises in our modern history. We who are on the light side of that great cloud which brooded over the death and birth of two centuries may possibly learn something by looking back along the pathway which our forefathers travelled, and by the condition of things and the actions of men in those trying times—learn something of the comparative advantages we now enjoy in our public, social, and domestic life, and the corresponding extent of our responsibilities.

In the following sketches it is proposed to give, not a chapter of local history, as history is generally understood, but what may perhaps best be described by the title adopted—glimpses of the condition of things which prevailed in Royston and its neighbourhood, in regard to the life, institutions, and character of its people, during the interesting period which is indicated at the head of this sketch—with some fragments illustrative of the general surroundings of public affairs, where the local materials may be insufficient to complete the picture. Imperfect these "glimpses" must necessarily be, but with the advantage of kindly help from those whose memories carry their minds back to earlier times, and his own researches amongst such materials, both local and general, as seemed to promise useful information, the writer is not without hope that they may be of interest. The interest of the sketches will necessarily vary according to the taste of the reader

From grave to gay,
From lively to severe.

The familiar words "When George III. was King," would, if strictly interpreted, limit the survey to the period from 1760 to 1820, but it may be necessary to extend these "glimpses" up to the commencement of the Victorian Era, and thus cover just that period which may be considered of too recent date to have hitherto found a place in local history, and yet too far away for many persons living to remember. Nor will the sketches be confined to Royston. In many respects it is hoped they may be made of equal interest to the district for many miles round. The first thing that strikes one in searching for materials for attempting such a survey, is the enormous gulf which in a few short years—almost bounded by the lifetime of the oldest individual—has been left between the old order and the new. There has been no other such transition period in all our history, and in some respects perhaps never may be again.

CHAPTER II.

GETTING ON WHEELS—OLD COACHES, ROADS AND
HIGHWAYMEN—THE ROMANCE OF THE ROAD.

It is worthy of notice how locomotion in all ages seems to have classified itself into what we now know as passenger and goods train, saloon and steerage. Away back in the 18th century when men were only dreaming of the wonders of the good time coming, when carriages were actually to "travel without horses," the goods train was simply a long line or cavalcade of Pack-horses. This was before the age of "fly waggons," distinguished for carrying goods, and sometimes passengers as well, at the giddy rate of two miles an hour under favourable circumstances! Fine strapping broad-chested Lincolnshire animals were these Pack-horses, bearing on either side their bursting packs of merchandise to the weight of half-a-ton. Twelve or fourteen in a line, they would thus travel the North Road, through Royston, from the North to the Metropolis, to return with other wares of a smarter kind from the London Market for the country people. The arrival of such caravans was the principal event which varied the life of Roystonians in the last century, for was not the Talbot a very caravansarai for Pack-horses! This old inn, kept at the time of which I am writing by Widow Dixon, as the Royston parish books show, then extended along the West side of the High Street, from Mrs. Beale's corner shop to Mr. Abbott's. The Talbot formed a rendez-vous for the Pack-horses known throughout the land, and in its stables at the back of the new Post Office, with an entrance from Melbourn Street, known as the Talbot Back-yard, there was accommodation for about a score of these Pack-horses.

Occasionally a rare sign-board at a way-side public-house bearing a picture of the Pack-horse may be seen, but it is only in this way, or in some old print, that a glimpse can now be obtained of a means of locomotion which has completely passed away from our midst. But besides the Pack-horses being a public institution, this was