It is the nature of prosperous communities, and the fashion of modern
times, to centralize too much their numbers and their powers. But the
question of distribution and proportion is almost as important in
politics as that of production itself. Money and manure are not the only
things which are the better for being spread. London and the country
would both be gainers by transplanting bodily, a hundred miles off, some
dozens of its streets--inhabitants and all. There are whole counties
which we should like to colonize with the surplus talent of the
metropolis. That surplus talent comprises scores of men, waiting on
Providence, feeding on foolish speculations, hanging on the skirts of
some frivolous circle, doing nothing there, or worse than nothing,
spoiling and wasting daily, who, planted out into a sphere of more
favourable opportunities, are capable of being a blessing to a
neighbourhood. However, it is not a case for violent measures. We do not
propose that London should be compressed into _London proper_,--within
the bills of mortality; or that its clubs should be called out on
country service. Patriots, philosophers, and diners out, rusticating by
royal proclamation, and under the _surveillance_ of the police, would
not come with a temper very suitable to our purpose. An experiment of
that sort was made under more likely circumstance, and failed;--as all
experiments must, which seek to remove the symptoms, instead of trying
to act upon the cause. It was in vain that James I. pulled down the new
houses as fast as they were built; and that Charles I. ordered home the
country gentlemen.
Although there seems something artificial, and almost monstrous, in the
actual size of London, the means which have led to this result are
altogether natural. Indeed, whatever forcing has been at any time used,
or prejudice fostered, has told the other way. Nothing has existed which
can be called a court or courtiers for the last two hundred years; and a
sort of feudal feeling still keeps our squires faithful to their halls.
Two exceptions only can be set down to our institutions. The distinction
of local courts obliges the English Bar to reside near Westminster; and
the duration of a modern session substitutes a house for the family of a
Member of Parliament, in the place of lodgings for himself. Under these
circumstances, as "the wen" has not been produced, so is it not likely
to be dispersed by any direct legislative application. To say the truth,
the grievance, in our opinion, is not in the _absolute_, but in the
_relative_ amount of the wealth, intelligence, and virtue, squeezed
together on those marvellous square miles upon which the capital stands.
We do not grudge it the pretty country which is hid under its basement
stories, any more than the social activity and happiness which live
along its crowded streets. We serve ejectments upon nobody. The only
question is, whether some would not do well to move of themselves. Among
the hopes and objects by whose influence 1,200,000 human beings are
collected on the same spot, a certain proportion will be found, which
have not been at all,--and more still, which have not been very
judiciously or magnanimously, considered. There are many in the higher
classes of its inhabitants especially, who, we suspect, on examining
into their principles and habits, will have some difficulty in
satisfying themselves that they have not chosen ill for their real
happiness; and, for all real usefulness, a great deal worse. But the
mistaken notion which most strips the country of its natural guardians,
is the fallacy, on the part of young and sanguine dispositions, of
believing that the motives and sphere of individual action rise in
proportion to the apparent magnitude of the scene. These are the
absentees most to be regretted. In the single line of professional
practice, and in its most successful instances, that may be the case.
But in taking ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and in every other of
the varied departments of social duty, the sphere of useful action,
however nominally extended, will be found to be strictly and
substantially reduced.
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._
* * * * *