CHOICE OF A RESIDENCE.—ADVICE TO BACHELORS.
There is a sort of half-way between town and the country, which some assert combines the advantages, others the defects, of each; and this is a country-town. Here, indeed, a little money, a little learning, and a little fashion, will go ten times as far as they will in London. Here, a man who takes in the Quarterly or Edinburgh, is a literary character; the lady who has one head-dress in the year from a Bond-street milliner, becomes the oracle of fashion, "the observed of all observers;" here dinners are talked of as excellent, at which neither French dishes nor French wines were given, and a little raspberry ice would confer wide celebrity on an evening party, and excite much animadversion and surprise. Here, notwithstanding a pretty strong line of demarcation between the different sets of society, every one appears to know every body; the countenances and names of each are familiar; we want no slave, who calls out the names; but are ready with a proper supply of condescending nods, friendly greetings, and kind inquiries, to dispense to each passenger according to his claims. Indeed, in calculating the length of time requisite for arriving at a certain point, the inhabitant of a country town should make due allowance for the necessary gossip which must take place on the road, and for the frequent interchange of bulletins of health, which is sure to occur; and after a residence of any length in these sociable places, a sensation of solitude and desertion is felt in those crowded streets of our metropolis, where the full tide of population may roll past us for hours without bringing with it a single glance of recognition or kindness. Here round games and Casino still find refuge and support amidst a steady band of faithful partizans; here old maids escape ridicule from being numerous, and old bachelors acquire importance from being scarce. It is, indeed, to this latter description of persons that I would especially recommend a residence in a country town; and, as Dr. Johnson said, that "wherever he might dine, he would wish to breakfast in Scotland;" so, wherever I may pass my youth, let my days of old bachelorship, if to such I am doomed, be spent in a country town. There the genteel male population forsake their birthplace at an early age; and since war no longer exists to supply their place with the irresistible military, the importance of a single man, however small his attractions, however advanced his age, is considerable; while a tolerably agreeable bachelor under sixty is the object of universal attention, the cynosure of every lady's eye. In the cathedral city, where I visited a friend some years since, there were forty-five single women, from sixteen to fifty, and only three marriageable men. Let any one imagine the delight of receiving the most flattering attentions from fifteen women at once, some of them extremely pretty and agreeable; or, I should rather say, from forty-five, since the three bachelors, politically avoiding all appearance of preference, were courted equally by nearly the whole phalanx of the sisterhood. One of the enviable men, being only just of age, was indeed too young to excite hopes in the more elderly ladies, but another more fortunate, if he knew his happiness, ("sua si bona norit"), was exposed to the attacks, more or less open, of every unmarried woman. Alas! he was insensible to his privileges; a steady man of fifty-five, a dignitary of the church, devoted to study, and shy in his habits, he seemed to shrink from the kind attentions he received, and to wish for a less favoured, a less glorious state of existence. His desires seemed limited to reading the Fathers, writing sermons, and doing his duty as a divine; and he appeared of opinion that no helpmate was required to fulfil them. But still the indefatigable phalanx of forty-five, with three or four widows as auxiliaries, continued their attacks, and his age, as I before observed, was fatally encouraging to the hopes of each. The youngest looked in their glasses and remembered the power of youth and beauty; the middle-aged calculated on the good sense and propriety of character of their object, and were "sure he would never marry a girl;" and the most elderly exaggerated his gravity, thought of his shovel hat, and seemed to suppose that every woman under fifty must be too giddy for its wearer. Meanwhile, what a life he led!—his opinions law; his wishes gospel; the cathedral crowded when he preached; churches attended; schools visited; waltzing calumniated; novels concealed; shoulders covered; petticoats lengthened—all to gain his approving eye. The fact is, his sphere of useful influence was much enlarged by his single state; as a married man, he could only have reformed his wife; as a bachelor, he exercised undisputed power over every spinster in his neighbourhood. He was, indeed, unconscious of, or ungratified by the deference and incense he received; but the generality of men are less insensible, and half the homage he so carefully rejected would have been sufficient to intoxicate with delight and self-complacency the greater part of his fraternity. What object in nature is more pitiable than a London old bachelor, of moderate fortune and moderate parts? whose conversational powers do not secure him invitations to dinners, when stiffness of limb and a growing formality have obliged him to retreat from quadrilles. The rich, we know, thrive everywhere, and at all seasons, safe from neglect, secure from ridicule. I speak of those less strongly fortified against the effects of time; those who, scarcely considered good speculations in their best days, are now utterly insignificant, concealed and jostled by a crowd of younger aspirants, overlooked by mammas, except when needed to execute some troublesome commission; and without a chance of receiving a single word or glance from their daughters unmarked by that provoking ease and compassionate familiarity, which tell them, better than words, that their day of influence has closed for ever. Let such unhappy men fly from the scenes of former pleasure and power, of former flirtation and gaiety, to the quieter and surer triumphs of a country town. Here crowds of young women, as certainly devoted to celibacy as the inmates of a nunnery, accustomed from necessity to make beaux out of the most unprecedented materials, and concoct flirtations in the most discouraging circumstances, will welcome him with open arms, underrate his age, overrate his merits, doubt if his hair is gray, deny that he wears false teeth, accept his proffered arm with an air of triumph, and even hint a wonder that he has given up dancing. To their innocent cheeks his glance will have the long-lost power of calling up a blush; eyes as bright as those which beamed upon his youth will sparkle at his approach; and tender hearts, excluded by fate from palpitations for a more suitable object, must per force beat quicker at his address. Here let him revel in the enjoyment of unbounded influence, preserve it by careful management to the latest possible moment, and at length gradually slide from the agreeable old beau into the interesting invalid, and secure for his days of gout, infirmity, and sickness, a host of attentive nurses, of that amiable sex which delights and excels in offices of pity and kindness; who will read him news, recount him gossip, play backgammon or cribbage, knit him comfortables, make him jellies, and repay by affectionate solicitude and unselfish attentions the unmeaning, heartless, worthless admiration which he bestowed upon them in his better days.—New Monthly Magazine.