| | 1 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Puritan and his daughter  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | In the reign of King Charles—courteously styled
the Martyr—there resided in an obscure corner of the
renowned kingdom of England, a certain obscure
country gentleman, claiming descent from a family
that flourished in great splendor under a Saxon monarch
whose name is forgotten. This ancient family,
like most others of great pretensions to antiquity, had
gone by as many names as certain persons who live in
the fear of the law, but finally settled down on that of
Habingdon, or Habingden, by which they were now
known. They were somewhat poor, but very proud,
and looked down with contempt on the posterity of the
upstart Normans who usurped the domains of their
ancestors. They had resided on the same spot for
more than eight hundred years, during which time,
not one of them had ever performed an act worthy of
being transmitted to posterity, with the single exception
of one Thurkill Habingdonne who flourished in
the reign of King John—of unblessed memory—and
who is recorded to have given one-third of a caracut of
land, and a wind-mill, to the priory of Monks Kirby,
“to the end,” as he expresses it, “that his obit should
be perpetually there observed, and his name written
in the Martyrologe.” It hath been a mooted point with that class of philosophical
inquirers, which so usefully occupies itself
with discussions that can never be brought to a conclusion,
whether the age gives the tone to literature,
or literature to the age. It is a knotty question, and
not being of the least consequence to any practical
purpose, it will be passed over with the single remark,
that it is quite useless for an author to write in good
taste if the public won't read, and equally idle for the
public to cherish a keen relish for polite literature, if
there are no authors to administer food to its appetite. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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