Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle онлайн

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The process, again, of antiquarian investigation is absorbing and recuperative, alike to man and matter, bringing to life, as it were, habits and customs long buried in the “limbo” of the past, re-clothing dry bones with flesh, uniting those no longer articulate; like the kilted warriors springing to their feet, on all sides, from the heather, at the signal of some Rhoderick Dhu. Here also, albeit, the recording MSS and folios may be “fusty,” knights of old are summoned up, as by a long forgotten roll-call, to fight their battles over again; or high-born dames and “ladyes fayre,” may unfold anew unknown romances.

With our span-new Rural, Urban and County Councils, we are apt to fancy that only now, in this twentieth century, is our little world awakening to real activity; but the antiquary, as by a magician’s wand, can conjure up scenes dispelling such illusions; and anyone, who reads the following pages, may see that the humblest of our rural villages may have had a past of stirring incident, which must be little short of a revelation to most of its present occupants, “not dreamt of in their simple philosophy.”