Nothing, he was accustomed to say, had
an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an
antique stone balustrade.
Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the
parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some
music of his selection. There was something extremely agreeable in the
cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little man; and I confess I had
been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who
certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned this
last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile
that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half
a dozen old authors, which the squire had put into his hands, and
which he read over and over, whenever he had a studious fit; as he
sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony
Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry; Markham's Country Contentments; the
Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir Thomas Cockayne, Knight; Izaac Walton's
Angler, and two or three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were
his standard authorities; and, like all men who know but a few
books, he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them
on all occasions. As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old
books in the squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were
popular among the choice spirits of the last century.
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