There can be as little fear that London will ever want any of the elements of an enlightened and well-constituted community, as that it will not be large enough. It is very different with the provinces. The capital offers so many real, and still more, so many plausible attractions to all that is active and refined, as well as to all that is idle and selfish in human nature, that a long list of supernumaries and expectants is sure, in every case, always to be at hand. It is the lottery into which the credulous are eager to put in;—it is the theatre on whose stage ambition and vanity are impatient to appear;—it is the land of Cockayne, in whose crowded mazes the selfish escape from every duty, and reduce their intercourse with their fellow-creatures to the sympathies of visiting and of shopping. It is the seat also of liberal society, and independent existence, among the friends and occupations of one's choice. Lord Falkland, the love of his age, admitted, that quitting London was the only thing which he was not sufficiently master of himself ever to manage without a struggle. In this state of things, it is plain that nobody can be of such consequence there but that he is easily spared. The death of a town wit is handsomely celebrated, if it furnishes five minutes' conversation for the table where he dined the day before. He is replaced with the same regularity and indifference as fresh snuff is put into a snuff-box, or fresh flowers are set out upon the epergne. Nobody misses him. The machine goes on without perceiving that the blue-bottle or the gnat has fallen from its wheel.
The vastness and multiplicity and complexity of the organization by which the movements of the capital proceed, as it were mechanically, do not act merely by diminishing the general importance of individuals to the system. Except in the case of very happy, and universal, and flowing natures, or under the influence of accidental counteractions, a personal risk, between extreme vagueness and extreme narrowness of character, is incurred by the individual himself. In respect of employment, the division of intellectual labour is so complete, that most persons in such a situation are tempted to do their own piece of work, and no more;—to rest satisfied with manufacturing the pin's head which happens to have fallen to their share. Does a London life tend to quicken the moral pulse and expand the heart? The forms of society are thrown into too large a scale, and its pace is too rapid, to afford an opportunity for the sort of intercourse by which alone a real acquaintance with, understanding of, and affection for, each other can be obtained. No means exist of getting there at any thing further than talents in men, and beauty or accomplishments in women.
Qualities which can be exhibited as a show are discovered and appreciated accordingly. But wisdom and virtue, which are to the mind what breath is to the body, have no part assigned or assignable to them on such a stage. A man may pass a life in London without an occasion arising by which his neighbours can learn whether he is an honest fellow or a rogue. The consequence is, that a good deal of such a man's moral nature gets imperfectly developed, and dies away. The appropriate object is not brought sufficiently close and home to him to stimulate and call forth his latent powers. Charity is perhaps better off than most. By a satisfactory compromise, it falls into the hands of a mendicity society. But there are other virtues which do not admit of being compounded for, and their burden transferred to a committee, for two guineas a-year. In these cases the moral tax is too often evaded altogether. We are well aware that men of pleasure are far from being the only persons who have turned into a maxim of life the sentence which the Duke of Buckingham passed upon the dog which barked after him,—"Would to God you were married and settled in the country!" It is evident that the word provincial is often felt, by characters of a higher strain and object, to imply an imputation or admission of mediocrity. Now, greatly as nations differ, it is generally admitted that all capitals are pretty much alike. It follows therefore, that the characteristic spirit and principle of a nation do not appear there to most advantage. Enow worthy representatives of that spirit and principle are doubtless there; but they are there too much as though they were not. It is an atmosphere which no individual powers can penetrate, and where it needs more than an ordinary sun to make itself felt or seen. We are satisfied that, on a just estimate of the whole case, the provinces, as distinguished from the metropolis, would be found in many instances, perhaps in most, to be the home which a wise lover of himself, and a sincere lover of his kind, would do well to fix in;—not indeed as the scene of a brilliant or sybarite existence, but as the post of that salutary influence which sinks deepest; and of that usefulness and happiness which last the longest; as most visibly incorporated with, and represented by, our fellow-beings.—Edinburgh Review.
INFANCY.
(From the Feuilles d'Automne of Victor Hugo, translated in the Foreign Quarterly Review.)
In the dusky court,
Near the altar laid,
Sleeps the child in shadow,