Such are the unceasing works of #CREATION#, constantly taking place on

this exterior surface of the earth; where, though less evident to the

senses and experience of man, matter apparently inert is in as

progressive a state of change from the operation of unceasing and

immutable causes, as in the visible generations of the animal and

vegetable kingdoms. Thus water, wind, and heat, the energies of which

#NEVER CEASE# to be exerted, are constantly producing new

combinations, changes, and creations; which, if they accord with the

harmony of the whole, are fit and "good;" but, if discordant, are

speedily re-organized or extinguished by contrary and opposing powers.

In a word, #WHATEVER IS, IS FIT; AND WHATEVER IS NOT FIT, IS NOT, OR

SOON CEASES TO BE!#--Such seems to be the governing principle of

Nature--the key of all her mysteries--the primary law of creation! All

things are the proximate effects of a balance of immutable

powers--those powers are results of a #PRIMORDIAL CAUSE#,--while that

#CAUSE# is inscrutable and incomprehensible to creatures possessing

but a relative being, who live only in #TIME# and #SPACE#, and who

feel and act merely by the #IMPULSE# of limited senses and powers.

A lane, in the north-west corner of the Common, brought me to Barnes'

Elms, where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a banker of London. The family

were not at home; but, on asking the servants if that was the house of

Mr. Tonson, they assured me, with great simplicity, that no such

gentleman lived there. I named the Kit-Cat Club, as accustomed to

assemble here; but the oddity of the name excited their ridicule; and

I was told that no such Club was held there; but, perhaps, said one to

the other, the gentleman means the Club that assembles at the

public-house on the Common. Knowing, however, that I was at the right

place, I could not avoid expressing my vexation, that the periodical

assemblage of the first men of their age, should be so entirely

forgotten by those who now reside on the spot--when one of them

exclaimed, "I should not wonder if the gentleman means the

philosopher's room."--"Aye," rejoined his comrade, "I remember

somebody coming once before to see something of this sort, and my

master sent him there." I requested then to be shewn to this room;

when I was conducted across a detached garden, and brought to a

handsome structure in the architectural style of the early part of the

last century--evidently the establishment of the Kit-Cat Club!

A walk covered with docks, thistles, nettles, and high grass, led from

the remains of a gate-way in the garden-wall, to the door which opened

into the building. Ah! thought I, along this desolate avenue the

finest geniuses in England gaily proceeded to meet their friends;--yet

within a century, how changed--how deserted--how revolting! A cold

chill seized me, as the man unfastened the decayed door of the

building, and as I beheld the once-elegant hall, filled with cobwebs,

a fallen ceiling, and accumulating rubbish. On the right, the present

proprietor had erected a copper, and converted one of the parlours

into a wash-house! The door on the left led to a spacious and once

superb staircase, now in ruins, filled with dense cobwebs, which hung

from the lofty ceiling, and seemed to be deserted even by the spiders!

The entire building, for want of ventilation, having become food for

the fungus, called dry-rot, the timber had lost its cohesive powers. I

ascended the staircase, therefore, with a feeling of danger, to which

the man would not expose himself;--but I was well requited for my

pains. Here I found the Kit-Cat Club-room, nearly as it existed in the

days of its glory. It is eighteen feet high, and forty feet long, by

twenty wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb

fashion of its age; but the whole was falling to pieces, from the

effects of the dry-rot.

My attention was chiefly attracted by the faded cloth-hanging of the

room, whose red colour once set off the famous portraits of the Club,

that hung around it. Their marks and sizes were still visible, and the

numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guidance of the

hanger! Thus was I, as it were, by these still legible names, brought

into personal contact with Addison, and Steele, and Congreve, and

Garth, and Dryden, and with many _hereditary_ nobles, remembered, only

because they were patrons of those _natural_ nobles!--I read their

names aloud!--I invoked their departed spirits!--I was appalled by the

echo of my own voice!--The holes in the floor, the forests of cobwebs

in the windows, and a swallow's nest in the corner of the ceiling,

proclaimed that I was viewing a vision of the dreamers of a past

age,--that I saw realized before me the speaking vanities of the

anxious career of man! The blood of the reader of sensibility will

thrill as mine thrilled! It was feeling without volition, and

therefore incapable of analysis!

I could not help lingering in a place so consecrated by the religion

of Nature; and, sitting down for a few minutes on some broken boards,

I involuntarily shed a tear of sympathy for the departed great--for

times gone by,--here brought before my eyes in so tangible a shape! I

yielded to the unsophisticated sentiments which I could not avoid

reading in this #VOLUME# of ruins; and felt, by irresistible association,

that every object of our affections--that our affections themselves--and

that all things that delight us, must soon pass away like this place and

its former inhabitants! #Beginning yesterday--flourishing to-day--ceasing

to-morrow!#--such is the sum of the history of all organized being!

Certain combinations excite, and the creative powers proceed with success,

till balanced by the inertia of the materials--a contest of maturity

arises, measured in length by the activity of the antagonist powers;--but

the _unceasing_ inertia finally prevails over the original excitement

and its accessary stimuli, and ultimately produces disorganization and

dissolution! Such is the abstract view of the physical laws which, in

the peculiar career of intellectual man, successively give rise to

#HOPE# in youth--#PRIDE# in manhood--#REFLECTION# in decay--and

#HUMILITY# in old age. He knows his fate to be inevitable--but every

day's care is an epitome of his course, and every night's sleep

affords an anticipation of its end!--He is thus taught to die--and, if

in spite of his vices or follies he should live till his world has

passed away before him, he will then contentedly await the termination

of that vital action which, creating no passion, affords no enjoyment.

Such, said I, is the scheme of #Benevolence#, which, by depriving the

prospect of death of its terrors, makes room, without suffering, for a

succession of new generations, to whose perceptions the world is ever

young. The only wise use therefore which men can make of scenes like

that before me, is to deduce from them a lesson of moderation and

humility;--for, such as are these dumb, though visible cares of that

generation--such will our own soon be!

On rejoining Mr. Hoare's man in the hall below, and expressing my

grief that so interesting a building should be suffered to go to decay

for want of attention, he told me that his master intended to pull it

down and unite it to an adjoining barn, so as to form of the two a

riding-house; and I learn that this design has since been executed!

The Kit-Cat pictures were painted early in the eighteenth century,

and, about the year 1710, were brought to this spot; but the room I

have been describing was not built till ten or fifteen years

afterwards. They were forty-two in number, and were presented by the

members to the elder Tonson, who died in 1736. He left them to his

great nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. They were

then removed from this building to the house of his brother, at

Water-Oakley, near Windsor; and, on his death, to the house of Mr.

Baker, of Hertingfordbury, where they now remain, and where I lately

saw them splendidly lodged and in fine preservation. It may be proper

to observe, that the house of Mr. Hoare was not the house of Mr.

Tonson, and that Mr. Tonson's house stood nearer to the Kit-Cat

Club-rooms, having a few years since been taken down. The situation is

certainly not a happy one, being on a level with the Thames, and the

adjacent grounds being deeply flooded at high tides. It is, however,

completely sequestered from vulgar approach, and on that account was,

perhaps, preferred as the retreat of a man of business.

At #Barnes' Elms# lived the virtuous minister of Elizabeth, Sir

#Francis Walsingham#, and here he once entertained that chivalrous

queen. #Cowley#, the poet, afterwards resided here; and, in a later

age #Heydegger#, the buffoon, who gave an eccentric entertainment to

the second Guelph, and contrived to gratify his listless mind by an

ingenious surprize, in at first making him believe that he was not

prepared to receive him, and then contriving a sudden burst of lights,

music, and gaiety.

In returning through the lane which led from the Kit-Cat Club-room to

Barnes Common, the keenest emotions of the human mind were excited by

an unforeseen cause. I was admiring the luxuriance and grandeur of the

vegetation, in trees which from the very ground expanded in immense

double trunks, and in the profusion of weeds and shrubs which covered

every part of the untrodden surface--when, on a sudden, I caught the

distant sound of a ring of #VILLAGE BELLS#. Nothing could be more in

accordance with the predispositions of my mind. All the melancholy

which is created by the recurrence of the same succession of tones,

instantly controlled and oppressed my feelings. I became the mere

patient of these sounds; and I sank, as it were, under the force of

gloomy impressions, which so completely lulled and seduced me, that I

suffered without being able to exert an effort to escape from their

magic spell. Seldom had the power of sound acquired a similar

ascendency over me. I seemed to be carried back by it to days and

events long passed away. My soul, so to speak, was absorbed; and I

leaned upon a gate, partly to indulge the reverie, partly as an effect

of lassitude, and partly to listen more attentively to the sounds

which caused so peculiar a train of feeling.

There were six bells; and they rang what might be designed for a merry

peal, to celebrate some village festival; or, perhaps, thought I, they

may be profaning a sanctuary of the religion of peace, and outraging a

land of freedom, to announce some bloody victory, gained by legions of

trained slaves, over patriots who have been asserting the liberties

and defending the independence of their country. Whichever might be

the purpose, (for, alas! the latter, among my degenerated countrymen,

is as likely as the former,) the recurring tones produced

corresponding vibrations on my nerves, and I felt myself played upon

like a concordant musical instrument. Presently, however, it occurred

to me, that I was not an entire stranger to the tones of those bells,

and that part of their fascination arose from an association between

them and some of the earliest and dearest objects in my remembrance.

"Surely," I exclaimed, "they are #Chiswick bells#!--the very bells

under the sound of which I received part of my early education, and,

as a school-boy, passed the happiest days of my life!--Well may their

tones vibrate to my inmost soul--and kindle uncommon sympathies!" I

now recollected that the winding of the river must have brought me

nearer to that simple and primitive village than the profusion of wood

had permitted me to perceive, and my nerves had been unconsciously

acted upon by tones which served as keys to all the associations

connected with these bells, their church, and the village of Chiswick!

I listened again, and now discriminated the identical sounds which I

had not heard during a period of more than thirty years. I

distinguished the very words, in the successive tones, which the

school-boys and puerile imaginations at Chiswick used to combine with

them. In fancy, I became again a school-boy--"Yes," said I, "the six

bells repeat the village-legend, and tell me that "_my dun cow has

just calv'd_," exactly as they did above thirty years since!"--Did the

reader ever encounter a similar key-note, leading to a multitude of

early and vivid impressions; for in like manner these sympathetic

tones brought before my imagination numberless incidents and

personages, no longer important, or no longer in existence. My

scattered and once-loved school-mates, their characters, and their

various fortunes, passed in rapid review before me;--my school-master,

his wife, and all the gentry, and heads of families, whose orderly

attendance at Divine service on Sundays, while those well-remembered

bells were "chiming for church," (but now departed and mouldering in

the adjoining graves!) were rapidly presented to my recollection. With

what pomp and form they used to enter and depart from their house of

God!--I saw with the mind's eye the widow Hogarth and her maiden

relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle, dressed in their silken

sacks, their raised headdresses, their black calashes, their lace

ruffles, and their high crook'd canes, preceded by their aged servant,

Samuel; who, after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her

Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and opened and shut

the pew! There too was the portly Dr. Griffiths, of the Monthly

Review, with his literary wife in her neat and elevated wire-winged

cap! And oft-times the vivacious and angelic Duchess of Devonshire,

whose bloom had not then suffered from the canker-worm of pecuniary

distress, created by the luxury of charity! Nor could I forget the

humble distinction of the aged sexton Mortefee, whose skill in

psalmody enabled him to lead that wretched groupe of singers, whom

Hogarth so happily pourtrayed; whose performance with the tuning-fork

excited so much wonder in little boys; and whose gesticulations and

contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not

outdone, even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel! Yes,

simple and happy villagers! I remember scores of you;--how fortunately

ye had escaped the contagion of the metropolitan vices, though distant

but five miles; and how many of you have I conversed with, who, at an

adult age, had never beheld the degrading assemblage of its knaveries

and miseries!

I revelled in the melancholy pleasure of these recollections, yielding

my whole soul to that witchery of sensibility, which magnifies the

perception of being, till one of the bells was overset; when, the peal

stopping, I had leisure to reflect on the rapid advance of the day,

and on the consequent necessity of quickening my speed.

At the end of this lane I crossed a road, which I found led to

Chiswick Ferry. The opening gave increased effect to the renewed peal,

and I regretted that I could not then indulge in a nearer approach to

that beloved spot. I passed a farm-house and some neat villas, and

presently came to the unostentatious, but interestingly-ancient

structure of Barnes Church, situated on the Common, at the distance of

a quarter of a mile from the village. I essayed to enter the

church-yard to read some of the chronicles of mortality, particularly

as it invited attention by the unusual object of a display of elegant

_Roses_, which I afterwards learnt had been cultivated on the same

spot about 150 years, to indulge the conceit of a person of the name

of _Rose_, who was buried there, and left an acre of ground to the

parish to defray the expence; but I found the gate locked, and was

told it was never opened, except during service. I confess I was not

pleased with this regulation, because it appeared to sever the

affections of the living from their proper sympathy with the dead. I

have felt in the same manner in regard to the inclosed cemeteries of

the metropolis: they separate the dead too abruptly from surviving

friends and relatives. Grief seeks to indulge itself unobserved; it

desires to be unrestrained by forms and hours, and to vent itself in

perfect solitude. The afflicted wife longs to weep over the grave of

her husband; the husband to visit the grave of a beloved wife; and the

tender mother seeks the spot endeared by the remains of her child: but

they cannot submit to the formality of asking permission, or allow

their griefs to be intruded upon by strange attendants. Such tributes

to our unsophisticated feelings are, however, denied by the locks,

bolts, and walls, of the metropolitan cemeteries. The practised

grave-digger wonders at the indulgence of unavailing woe--the

unconscious tenants of his domain possess no peculiar claims on his

sympathy--he cannot conceive how any can be felt by others--and, if he

grant permission to enter, it must be for some cause more urgent, and

more apparent, than that of bewailing over a grave! Did it never

occur, however, to the clergymen who superintend these depositories of

mortality, that more respect is due to the feelings of survivors? Is

it necessary for any evident purpose, that the gates should be locked

at any time, or for more than a few hours in the night? And, if even

this privation be suffered merely from the fear of resurrection-men,

is it not due to the best feelings of our nature that the severest

punishment should attach to the crime of stealing dead bodies? What

can now be learnt of anatomy which cannot be found in books and

models, or be taught in the dissection of murderers? I would therefore

rather bury a detected resurrection-man alive with the body he might

be stealing, than shut out the living from all communion with the

dead, and from all the sympathies and lessons addressed to the heart

and understanding by their unrestricted intercourse.

#Barnes# consists of a few straggling houses opposite the Common, of a

mean street leading to the water-side, and of a row of elegant houses

facing the Thames, on a broad terrace nearly half a mile long. On the

opposite side of the river is a tract of new-made swampy ground,

shaped circularly by the winding of the river. The chord of this

circle extends from Chiswick to Strand-on-the-Green; and upon it is

seen the exquisitely beautiful villa of the Duke of Devonshire, where

Charles James Fox lately terminated his patriotic career; and on the

left are the house and extensive grounds long occupied by the amiable

Valentine Morris, esq. who, on his death-bed in Italy, in 1786,

bequeathed these premises and a competent annuity as a provision for

about thirty aged horses and dogs,--and here some of them survived

till within these seven years, dying, from the gradual decay of their

vital powers, at the ages of forty and fifty.

The beauty and seclusion of this terrace have long invited the

residence of persons of wealth and distinction. Many of those

Frenchmen who, from interested connexions, or the prejudices of

education, preferred exile and comparative poverty in foreign lands,

to the reign of liberty and reason at home, came to reside on this

spot. Here was acted the terrible tragedy of the #Count# and #Countess

D'Antraigues#. These famous intriguants, after traversing Europe to

enlist the vain prejudices of kings, and the sycophant spirit of

courtiers, against the unalterable principles of the rights of man,

settled themselves in a small house near the upper end of this

terrace. Here their establishment consisted only of a single Italian

footman, and two maid-servants. One day in every week they went to

London, in a hired coach, to confer with their partizans; and it was

on the morning of one of these excursions that these unhappy persons

were suddenly butchered by their Italian footman. The coach stood at

the door, and the Count and Countess had descended the stairs, when

the servant, rushing from the parlour, fired a pistol at the Count;

the ball of which struck, but did not injure him. It, however, so much

surprised him as to throw him off his guard, when the wretch struck

him with a stiletto between the shoulders. The Count at first reeled

on the step of the door, but instantly rushed up stairs, as is

supposed, to get arms from his bed-chamber, which he reached, but only

to fall dead on the floor. In the mean time, the Countess, who was two

or three paces in advance, and had reached the carriage-door, not

aware of the cause of the report of the pistol, and of the Count's

precipitate retreat, asked the man, peevishly, why he did not open the

door? He advanced as if to do it; but instantly stabbed her in the

breast to the hilt of his weapon: she shrieked, reeled a few yards,

and fell dead beside the post which adjoins the house to the West, on

the pavement near which her blood was lately visible. The villain

himself fled up-stairs to the room where his master lay weltering in

his blood, and then, with a razor, cut his own throat. I saw the

coachman, who told me that scarcely five minutes elapsed between the

time when he heard them approach the carriage and beheld them corpses!

The several acts were begun and over in an instant. At first he could

not conceive what was passing; and, though he leaped from the box to

the aid of the dying lady, he had then no suspicion of the fate of the

Count. I took pains to ascertain the assassin's motive for committing

such horrid deeds; but none can be traced beyond a feeling of revenge,

excited by a supposed intention of his master to discard him, and send

him out of the kingdom; a design which, it is said, he discovered by

listening on the stairs to the conversation of the Count and Countess,

while they were enjoying the water-scene by moon-light, on the

preceding evening, from their projecting windows. It was impossible to

view the spot where such a tragedy had been acted, without horror, and

without deep sympathy for the victims; yet it gratified me to find the

house already inhabited by a respectable family, because it thus

appeared that there are now dispersed through society many whose minds

are raised above the artifices of superstition,--which, in no distant

age, would have filled these premises with ghosts and hobgoblins, till

they had become a bye-word and a heap of ruins!

Nearly adjoining and behind the residence of Count d'Antraigues, stand

the premises and grounds long occupied by another distinguished

emigrant, the Marquis de Chabanes, a relation of the notorious and

versatile Talleyrand. This marquis here pursued two speculations, by

which, at the time, he attracted attention and applause. In the first

he undertook to give useful body and consistency to the dust of coals,

of which thousands of tons, before their application to gas-lights,

were annually wasted in the shipping and coal-wharfs; and for this

purpose he erected a manufactory; but, after much loss of labour and

property, found it necessary to abandon the project. In the second

speculation, he proposed to introduce various French improvements into

English horticulture, and undertook to supply the fruiterers of the

metropolis with tender and unseasonable fruits and vegetables, in

greater perfection, and at a lower rate, than they had heretofore been

supplied by the English gardeners. For this purpose he built large and

high walls, and very extensive hot-houses and conservatories; but,

being unable to contend against the fickleness of our climate, he

found it necessary to abandon this scheme also; when the glasses, the

frames, &c. were sold by auction; and no vestiges now remain of his

labours, but his vines and the ruins of his flues and foundation-walls.

During my inquiries of the working gardener who has succeeded him on

the ground, I learnt some particulars in regard to the economy by

which the metropolis receives its vast supplies of fruits and fresh

vegetables. Mr. #Middleton#, in his philosophical Survey of Middlesex,

estimates the quantity of garden-ground, within ten miles of the

metropolis, at 15,000 acres, giving employment in the fruit-season to

60,000 labourers. The mode of conveying this vast produce to market

creates habits among this numerous class of people which are little

suspected by the rest of the community. A gardener's life appears to

be one of the most primitive and natural; but, passed near London, it

is as artificial and unnatural as any known to our forced state of

society. Covent-garden market is held three days in the week, and

other markets on the same or other days; and, as vegetables ought to

be eaten as soon as possible after they are gathered, it is the

business of the gardener to gather one day and sell the next; hence

the intervening night is the period of conveyance from the places of

growth to those of consumption. All the roads round London, therefore,

are covered with market-carts, and waggons during the night, so that

they may reach the markets by three, four, or five o'clock, when the

dealers attend; and these markets are over by six or seven. The shops

of retailers are then supplied by the aid of ill-paid Irish women, who

carry loads of a hundredweight to all parts of London on their heads,

to meet the demands of good house-wives, who, at ten or eleven, buy

their garden-stuff for the day. This rapid routine creates a

prodigious quantity of labour for men, women, and horses. Every

gardener has his market-cart or carts, which he loads at sun-set; and,

they depart at ten, eleven, twelve, or one o'clock, according to the

distance from London. Each cart is accompanied by a driver, and also

by a person to sell, generally the gardener's wife; who, having sold

the load, returns with the team by nine or ten o'clock in the morning;

and has thus finished the business of the day, before half the

inhabitants of London have risen from their beds. Such is the economy

of every gardener's family within ten miles of London,--of some every

night, and of others every other night, during at least six months in

the year. The high vegetable season in summer, as well as peculiar

crops at other times, call for exertions of labour, or rather of

slavery, scarcely paralleled by any other class of people. Thus, in

the strawberry season, hundreds of women are employed to carry that

delicate fruit to market on their heads; and their industry in

performing this task is as wonderful, as their remuneration is

unworthy of the opulent classes who derive enjoyment from their

labour. They consist, for the most part, of Shropshire and Welsh

girls, who walk to London at this season in droves, to perform this

drudgery, just as the Irish peasantry come to assist in the hay and

corn harvests. I learnt that these women carry upon their heads

baskets of strawberries, or raspberries, weighing from forty to fifty

pounds, and make two turns in the day, from Isleworth to market, a

distance of thirteen miles each way; three turns from Brentford, a

distance of nine miles; and four turns from Hammersmith; a distance of

six miles. For the most part, they find some conveyance back; but even

then these industrious creatures carry loads from twenty-four to

thirty miles a-day, besides walking back unladen some part of each

turn! Their remuneration for this unparalleled slavery is from 8_s._

to 9_s._ per day; each turn from the distance of Isleworth being 4_s._

or 4_s._ 6_d._; and from that of Hammersmith 2_s._ or 2_s._ 3_d._

Their diet is coarse and simple, their drink, tea and small-beer;

costing not above 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._ and their back-conveyance about

2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._; so that their net gains are about 5_s._ per day,

which, in the strawberry season, of forty days, amounts to 10_l._

After this period the same women find employment in gathering and

marketing vegetables, at lower wages, for other sixty days, netting

about 5_l._ more. With this poor pittance they return to their native

county, and it adds either to their humble comforts, or creates a

small dowry towards a rustic establishment for life. Can a more

interesting picture be drawn of virtuous exertion? Why have our poets

failed to colour and finish it? More virtue never existed in their

favourite Shepherdesses than in these Welsh and Shropshire girls! For

beauty, symmetry, and complexion, they are not inferior to the nymphs

of Arcadia, and they far outvie the pallid specimens of Circassia!

Their morals too are exemplary; and they often perform this labour to

support aged parents, or to keep their own children from the

workhouse! In keen suffering, they endure all that the imagination of

a poet could desire; they live hard, they sleep on straw in hovels and

barns, and they often burst an artery, or drop down dead from the

effect of heat and over-exertion! Yet, such is the state of one

portion of our female population, at a time when we are calling

ourselves the most polished nation on earth, and pretending to be so

wealthy that we give away millions a-year to foreigners unsolicited,

and for no intelligible purpose! And such too is their dire necessity,

that it would be most cruel to suggest or recommend any invention that

might serve as a substitute for their slavery, and thereby deprive

them of its wretched annual produce!

The transit from Barnes to Mortlake is but a few paces; a small elbow

in the road forming their point of separation. Both of them contain

some handsome villas, and they are pleasantly situated on the banks of

the Thames; yet they are less beautiful than they might be rendered,

by very slender attentions. There is no public taste, no love of natal

soil, no pride of emulation apparent, though the scite is one of the

finest in England. A few mansions of the opulent adorn both villages,

and the country fascinates in spite of the inhabitants; but the third

and fourth rate houses have a slovenly, and often a kind of pig-sty

character, disgusting to those who, in the beautiful towns and

villages of Essex, have seen what may be done, to improve the

habitations even of humble life. Lovely Witham, and Kelvedon, and

Coggeshall! what examples you set to all other towns in your neatly

painted and whitened houses--unostentatious, though cheerful--and

inviting, though chaste and modest! What a contrast do you present to

the towns and villages in Middlesex and Surrey, and even in Kent! If

poverty forbids a stuccoed or plastered wall, the cleanly and

oft-repeated whitewash proves the generous public spirit of the

occupant, while the outside seldom has occasion to blush for the

inside. A spirit of harmony runs through the whole, and a pure

habitation is indicative of pure inhabitants; thus, cleanliness in the

house leads to neatness of apparel--both require order, and out of

order grow moral habits, domestic happiness, and the social virtues.

Nor is this theory fanciful; Witham, Kelvedon, and Coggeshall, form a

district which is at once the most beautiful, the least vicious, and

the happiest, in the kingdom. One virtue is doubtless consequent on

another, and one good habit generates another; the result is the

harmonious triumph of virtue! If it be doubted whether the

white-washed exterior is more than "an outward and visible sign" of

the purity within, I reply--that virtue is so much the effect of

habit, that whatever improves the habits improves the character; and

that, if a house were frequently white-washed within and without, it

could scarcely fail to banish personal filth from the inmates; while

habits of cleanliness, which call for habits of industry, would

produce the rest. I have, indeed, often thought that it would be an

efficacious means of bettering the morals, as well as the health, of

the London poor, if St. Giles's, Hockly-in-the-hole, Fleet-lane,

Saffron-hill, and other dens of vice and misery, were by law

lime-washed inside and outside twice in every year. But, in whatever

degree this doctrine may be just, let me hope these observations will

meet the eye of some active philanthropists, who, being thus taught to

consider cleanliness as an auxiliary of morals and happiness, will be

induced so to paint and whiten our dusky-coloured villages and dirty

towns, as to render them worthy of virtuous residents, in the hope

that, by reciprocation, they may render themselves worthy of their

purified habitations.

I do not charge on Barnes and Mortlake exclusively the characteristics

of filth--they are not inferior to other villages within ten miles;

but the whole require improvement, and I recommend Witham, Kelvedon,

and other places in that district of Essex, to their imitation.

Mortlake church-yard and its ancient church stand pleasantly on the

north side of a large field, across which is a picturesque foot-path

to East Sheen. I inquired eagerly for the tomb of Partridge, the

almanack-maker and astrologer, and found it in the south-east corner,

in a tottering condition. Relics so famous would, it might have been

supposed, have extorted from the Parish Vestry a single hod of mortar,

and an hour's labour of a mason, to sustain it: yet thus it is, not

only at Mortlake, but every where. Nothing is conceded to public

feeling, and the most venerable monuments are suffered to fall to

decay for want of the most trifling repairs. The following inscription

is still legible on the slab of the tomb:--

#Johannes Partridge#, Astrologus et Medicinae Doctor, natus

est apud East-Sheen, in comitatu Surrey, 8º die Januarii,

anno 1644, et mortuus est Londini 24º die Junii, anno 1715.

Medicinam fecit duobus Regibus unique Reginae; Carolo scilicet

Secundo, Willielmo Tertio, Reginaeque Mariae. Creatus

Medicinae Doctor Lugduni Batavorum.

How many are the associations which grow out of this name of

#Partridge#! He was one of the last of the learned votaries of

Astrology, the mother of the sciences, though herself the daughter of

superstition. His works on genitures, and on the errors of his

favourite science, are specimens of acute reasoning, not exceeded by

the ablest disquisitions on more worthy subjects. Yet he was held up

by Swift as an impostor, though Swift himself lived by a show of faith

in other mysteries, for which his reverence is very doubtful. Not so

Partridge; he evidently believed sincerely that the stars were indices

of fate, and he wrote and acted in that belief, however much he may

have been deceived by appearances. He found, as all students in

astrology find, that every horoscope enabled him to foretel with

precision a certain number of events; and, if his prognostics failed

in some cases, he ascribed the failure to no defect of his celestial

intelligencers, but to the errors or short-sightedness of his art.

Good, and even wise men have, in all ages, been deceived by the same

appearances. They found that the planets foretold some events; they

thence inferred that the planets ruled those and all events; and, if

the science often disappointed them, they found an apology for it in

their own mistaken judgments, or in the errors introduced into it by

different authors. Astrologers were therefore not impostors, as they

are often described by the over-righteous, the hasty, or the ignorant.

They found a science reared on the observations and experience of the

remotest antiquity, and their prognostications were deduced from its

established laws. Its practices were directed by the unerring motions

of the earth, moon, and planets; and it possessed characteristics of

grandeur and sublimity, arising from the magnitude and solemnity of

its sources, and from the eternal laws which regulated them.

The errors on which this science was reared, were not, however,

peculiar to astrologers. They were engendered by ignorance, and

nurtured by superstition and priestcraft. Every event happens in its

own way, and cannot happen in any other way than that in which it has

actually happened; or, in other words, an event cannot happen and not

happen, or a thing cannot be and not be. This necessary determination

of every event in a single manner, the consequence of commensurate

proximate causes, which it is often difficult to analyse, served as a

fruitful source of superstitious feeling, and as a handle for the

priests among the early nations of antiquity. In whatever way an event

happened, that was said to be its Fate, notwithstanding a slight

exercise of reason would have shewn that what has happened in one way

could not, at the same time, happen in another way. But, as it did

happen in one way rather than another, the way in which it did happen

was said to be predetermined; the kind of cause was not examined which

determined it to happen as it did happen; the effect was even said to

rule the causes; and all the causes, remote and proximate, were said

to be operative merely for the sake of producing the ultimate effect!

As every event must happen in the way an which it has happened, a

description of it, is but an expression of the _certainty_, that it

has happened in such or such a particular manner. If this result be

fortunate, then all the circumstances which led to it, however remote,

are deemed to have been _lucky_; though, if it prove unfortunate, the

same train of causes are then called _unlucky_. There was, however,

neither luck nor ill-luck in these trains, because the remote or

necessary physical causes did not determine the proximate and

fluctuating mental ones. There existed no _necessary_ connexion

between these trains, besides the necessity or certainty that some

result must be consequent on every train of events growing out of

human life and action. These trains must, in all cases, produce some

result, that is to say, a result of some kind, and not necessarily any

particular result.

In considering the curious enigma in regard to #FATALITY#, men err in

conceiving that all the remote causes which lead to an event, operate

and combine for the sake of some particular result, instead of

considering every personal or social event as the necessary single

effect of the proximate causes; and they also confound the species of

causes which produce events. There are two distinct sets of causes,

the one physical and the other mental. The _physical_ are determined

by fixed, and often by known laws, and hence we are enabled to

_foretel_ the places of the planets and the moment when eclipses of

the Sun and Moon will happen for a thousand years to come. The

_mental_ are governed by the varying experience, caprice, and

self-love, generated within animal minds; and, being therefore

measured by no fixed laws, produce results which cannot be

anticipated, except in their proximate operation. These mental causes,

so to speak, cross each other in every direction, and at one time may

accelerate, though at another time they may retard, or give novel

directions to physical causes; and, as they are generated in every

successive moment by the errors and passions of fallible beings, and

often have an extensive influence on the affairs of mankind, so they

constitute an infinite variety of original causes, which, as no law

creates them, no law leads to their effects; of course, therefore,

their effects are not necessary, and no knowledge can exist, enabling

men to anticipate that which is generated by no fixed laws, and which

therefore is not necessary.

I lately met a friend, who justly passes for a philosopher. He

mentioned the distress of a family which he had just been relieving;

"and, would you believe it," said he--"if I had not passed along a

street where I seldom go, and met a child of the family, I should have

known nothing of their situation? Was it not evidently pre-ordained,

therefore, that I should walk along that street, at that time, for the

purpose of relieving that family?" "So, then," said I, "you make the

consequence determine the cause, rather than take the trouble to

examine whether the causes were not equal to the effect, without being

themselves necessary or irresistible." "But then," he replied, "there

was such an aptness, such a coincidence, such a final purpose!"--"Ah!"

I rejoined, "you cheat yourself by not extending your vocabulary--why

not say there was sufficient affluence, guided by a benevolent

heart--and such distress, that they were called into prompt exertion?

Is it to be regarded as a miracle, that a benevolent heart proved the

sufficient cause of a good action, and that distress was an excitement

equivalent to the effect which you describe? The street was a medium

or stage of action, as capable of leading to evil as to good. You

could not be in two places at the same time; nor could the result be

and not be. Had you been in another place, some other family might

have been relieved from the collision of the same causes; and each

event would, in like manner, have appeared to have determined the

causes, instead of being a single consequence of the causes. Nor were

these causes more necessary than the result. Your feelings were

spontaneous, but you may in future change the result by hardening your

heart, like other rich men." "I will do neither," said he,

quickly.--"No," said I, "I know you won't--you will not violate your

habitual inclinations. In future, however, do them justice; and, when

you perform a kind action, do not make the consequence the cause."[5]

[5] As doctrines about fate and necessity involve a numerous

class of mischievous superstitions, and are the bases of the

success of endless impostures, it seems worth while to turn

aside for a moment from the high road of my narrative to

examine them. Some philosophers assert, that we are the

inert patients of necessary causes: others, that we do what

we list, without any cause, on the spontaneous impulse of

our will: while nine-tenths of the human race maintain that

we are governed by an unalterable fate, which is

predestined, and that all the events of life take place for

the sake of accomplishing some end! What is our real

condition? We exist on a globe which, by a balance of

mechanical powers, moves round a centre of gravity between

it and the centre of the sun; and also round its own centre

of gravity, communicating its aggregate motions to all the

particles that compose it, and thereby exciting them into

various modes of action, producing and sustaining all the

phenomena which we witness. The entire mass then is the

patient of these arrangements, and every thing on the earth

is physically subservient to them. But, in animal

organizations, we find a set of powers different from those

which characterize inert minerals or plants. An animal has

his own powers of loco-motion--he moves on his own centre of

gravity--and, though the earth is his stage and the place of

his origin, yet he is an independent Microcosm. To assist

his loco-motion, to enable him to determine his course, to

preserve his being, and to choose between what is good for

him, and what is evil to him; he is provided with senses,

with which he sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels; with

memory; and with powers of reasoning by analogy, or his

senses and his experience would be useless: and yet men say,

that such a creature is as much the patient of physical

causes, as a stone or a plant! On the contrary, is it not

evident, that an animal possesses peculiar powers of sense

and reason, in order that he may not be the patient and

victim of physical circumstances? But, say they, his actions

are determined by his motives, and these are governed by

causes over which he has no control; those causes are

necessary, and, therefore, his actions are necessary.

True--but these exterior causes (granting that they are

always necessary links of a chain,) operate on a man only

according to his estimate of them, which varies in different

men, and in the same men at different times. The causes, at

least as far as regards beings which are really their

patients, may be regarded as necessary, and they may govern

passive existences with absolute dominion; but in all

animals they have to encounter the principle of

individuality, the feeling of independence, the desire of

well-being, and the energies of self-love. These, so to

speak, enter into an argument with the causes--a process of

reasoning takes place--a decision of judgment is formed--and

that judgment it is which directs the will and the action.

In other words, an erroneous and varying judgment interposes

between the causes and the action; consequently, however

absolute and necessary may be the causes, the action

governed by an intervening imperfect judgment, and a varying

estimate of these causes, is not equally absolute and

necessary. Place ten men, or animals, in the same critical

situation, and their judgment of the circumstances will lead

each of them to act differently; though the necessary causes

which ought to have governed their actions were the same;

but their judgments, their knowledge, or their experience,

were different, and, therefore, their actions. If animals

were omniscient, they would have perfect judgments, which

would exactly accord with the exterior or necessary

circumstances, by which they might then be said to be

governed; or, if they were stones and plants, they might be

inert patients. But theirs is a mixed species of existence,

they are neither plants nor gods. They have powers which

plants have not, by which they can freely judge of the means

of averting many palpable dangers; though their powers of

judging are too limited to enable them to estimate all

circumstances correctly, and therefore to move in necessary

unison with the immutable physical laws that govern the

changes and the motions of inert matter.

I sat on the tomb of Partridge, and thought it a fit place in which to

ruminate on these involved points. Do the astrologers (said I)

consider the stars as mere indices of pretended fates, or as the

causes of the events which they are enabled to anticipate by the

anticipated motions of the stars? In nativities, they seem to consider

them as _indices_; but, in horary questions, as _causes_. They are

treated as indices in all cases wherein arbitrary numbers or measures,

or imaginary points are introduced; but deemed material causes when

particular events are said to be coincident with actual positions.

Both hypotheses cannot, however, be well founded; and his reason will

call on the astrologer to give up the doctrine of indices of fate, and

prefer that of secondary causes. Here then a still greater difficulty

presents itself; the causes are general, and they must operate on the

whole earth and all its inhabitants alike. A [Symbol: square] of

[Symbol: Mars] and [Symbol: Mercury], or a [Symbol: Triangle] of

[Symbol: Saturn] and [Symbol: Jupiter], (that is, a square aspect of

Mars and Mercury, or a trine of Saturn and Jupiter,) whenever they

happen, are alike applicable to all the inhabitants and regions of the

earth. It was plausible to talk of a planetary aspect as productive of

rain or wind, when the geography of the astrologer did not extend

beyond the plains of Chaldea, or the immediate banks of the Nile; but

our better knowledge of cosmography now teaches us, that, at the time

of every aspect, every variety of season and of weather is prevalent

in different parts of the world; and every contrariety of fortune is

happening to individuals in all countries. The doctrine that the

planets are secondary causes, is, therefore, not supported by the

circumstances of the phenomena.

But the astrologers are not content with natural positions, but, like

the eastern priests with their gods, they assign different parts of

the heavens, and different countries, to each planet; and then found

prognostics on these local positions of the planets. It is evident,

however, that the apparent position of a planet depends on the varying

position of the earth, and that an inferior planet may be in exactly

the same point of space, and yet be seen from the earth in every sign

of the zodiac; though, according to the astrologers, it would in that

same place have very different powers! This doctrine was admissible

when the earth was considered as the centre of the universe; when the

geocentric phenomena were considered as absolute; and when the

apparently quick and slow motions, the retrogradations, and the

stationary positions, were ascribed to caprices of the planets

themselves, or to motives of their prime mover, and therefore were

received as signs of corresponding events and fates!

But the radical error of the art of prediction is more deeply seated

than we are commonly aware of. There is a chance, however difficult it

may be in all cases to reduce it to arithmetical precision, that any

possible event may happen to a particular person. No possible event

can indeed be conceived, that, with regard to a particular person, is

not within the range of arithmetical probability; while all the

probable events, such as predictors announce, are within very narrow

limits. As an example, I assume, that, of any hundred ordinary events

of human life, it may be an even chance that sixty of them will

happen, or not happen; and, of the other forty, it may be as 20 to 1

that 10 of them will happen; as 10 to 1 that other 10 will happen; as

1 to 10 that other 10 will happen; and as 1 to 20 that the other 10

will happen. Then, by averaging all these chances, it will be found

that it is an even chance that the whole will happen, or will not

happen; or, in other words, that half will happen, and that half will

not happen. If, therefore, a dextrous person foretel one hundred

events, by means of _any_ prognosticating key, or any index whose

powers are previously settled,--whether stars, cards, sediments of

tea, lines of the hand or forehead, entrails of animals, or dreams,

signs or omens,--by the doctrine of chances it is an even, or some

other fixed chance, that half, or some other portion, of such events

will come to pass. Superstition will triumph if only 1 in 5, or 1 in

10, happen as foretold; but, if 1 in 2 or 3 should happen by

neutralizing or generalizing the predictions, then the prophet is

accounted a favourite of Heaven, or a familiar of Satan! For this

purpose it signifies not what it is that constitutes the key of fate;

it will sufficiently deceive the practitioner, if it relieve him from

the responsibility of his announcements; and, if he prudently announce

none but events highly probable, he will himself be astonished at the

apparent verity of his art! In truth, he is all the while but the dupe

of arithmetic; and a cool examination would shew him that, for the

most part, it is an even chance that any predicted event will happen,

which has been foretold by any key, or sign, or token. The planets,

the signs of the zodiac, &c. serve as one set of these keys, or

indices--dreams serve as another--the entrails of animals have been

used as another--signs, noises, omens, tokens, sympathies, &c. are a

fruitful source--lines of the hand, forehead, wrist, &c. are

others--moles, marks, &c. furnish others--cards afford a rich

variety--and the sediments of teacups, and I know not what besides,

serve as means of announcing events by pre-arranged laws of

association. The half, or more than half, of such events, must however

necessarily happen by the averages of chances; and this unascertained

and unsuspected coincidence has from age to age countenanced and

confirmed the delusion.

All that a prophet or fortune-teller requires, therefore, is some set

of _indices_, to each of which he can assign particular powers and

significations, and then be able so to vary their order as to give

them new and endless combinations, representing the fortunes of all

mankind. When varied for a particular individual, he has merely to

apply to that person the probable events indicated by the new

combinations; and, according to the law of chances, he must

necessarily succeed in a certain proportion of his prognostics,

because it is within a certain numerical chance that any possible

event will happen to any individual. The prognosticator in these cases

is deceived, because he is solely directed by the order of his

indices. As he finds that he has been enabled to _foretel_ by their

means a certain number of events, he conceives either that these

indices must govern the fates; that the finger of Providence or the

agency of the Devil governed his indices; or, with many grave writers,

that there is a soul of the world which harmonizes all things,

producing an accordance between the #FORTUNES# of the #HUMAN RACE# and

the sediments of tea-cups, the arrangements of cards, the aspects and

positions of the planets, the lines in the hand or forehead, the

indications of dreams, and the entrails of animals! On the other hand,

the dupes of these prognostics, when fortunate, often direct their

best exertions to fulfil them; or, when unfortunate, they sink into a

feeling of despondency, which leads to their fulfilment. And, should

one in ten of the predicted events take place, they become firm

believers in the doctrines of fatality, necessity, and other

superstitions; "for," say they, "how could an event be foretold, if it

had not been irrevocably decreed that it must happen?" What a powerful

handle for priest-craft, state-craft, and all the crafts by which

mankind have been abused in every age of the world!

That this exposition of the true cause of the popular errors, in

regard to any supposed connexion between certain accidents of matter,

and unconnected future events, will not be without its uses, must be

evident from the known influence which some of the means of

prognostication possess over every rank of society. Such scenes as

that described in the Spectator, where so much unhappiness was created

by spilling the salt, are still realized every day in nearly every

family in Great Britain. All phenomena which cannot easily be

accounted for, and hundreds of trivial incidents, are considered by

the gravest as portentous signs of events to come. The coincidence of

any event and its prognostic, though it might have been ten to one

that it would happen, is received as evidence of their connexion,

which it would be impiety to laugh at! But need I quote a more

striking instance than the still prodigious annual sale of 300,000 of

Partridge's and Moore's Almanacks, whose recommendations are their

prognostications, and which a few years since lost most of their

patrons, because the Stationers' Company, in the edition of the year,

left out the predictions as an experiment on the public wisdom!

In returning from the tomb of Partridge, I beheld another, dear to

patriotism and civic glory, that of Alderman Barber, Lord-mayor of

London in 1733. His memory is still cherished among aged citizens, and

the cause is recorded in the following inscription:--

"Under this stone were laid the remains of #John Barber#, esq.

alderman of London, a constant benefactor to the poor, true to

his principles in church and state. He preserved his

integrity, and discharged the duty of an upright magistrate.

Zealous for the rights of his fellow citizens, he opposed all

attempts against them; and, being lord mayor in the year 1733,

he defeated a scheme of a general Excise, which, had it

succeeded, would have put an end to the liberties of his

country."

Virtuous citizen! Happy was it that thou didst not live to suffer the

mortification of seeing thy degraded country devoured by swarms of

excisemen, and the third of its population fattening on the taxes

collected from the other two-thirds. Too justly didst thou anticipate

that the terrors and corruptions growing out of such an inquisition as

the excise, would destroy that sturdy spirit of independence, which in

thy day constituted the chief glory of the English country-gentleman

and London merchant. Till it was broken or undermined by the evil

genius of Taxation, that spirit served as the basis of Britain's

prosperity; but now, alas! it seems to be extinguished for

ever.--Patriotic Lord-mayor of London! In thy day to watch with

jealousy the never-ceasing encroachments of the regal prerogatives,

and to render the ministers of the crown accountable at the bar of

public opinion, were paths of honour leading to the highest civic

distinctions! Many of the race that conducted to a wise end the

glorious revolution of 1688 then survived--the genius of liberty

continued to inspire the sons of Britain--the holy flame that punished

two kings for trespassing on the rights of their people, was not

entirely extinguished--the deadly paralysis of the Septennial Act had

not then produced its blighting effects on the whole body politic. But

London ceased to be influenced by the lost voice of #Barber#, and the

Excise system triumphed--the barriers of freedom were passed--trial by

jury was, in certain cases, either dispensed with, or nullified by

well-trained special juries--the public judgment was misled by venal

conductors of the public press--patriotism was deemed faction--liberty

was held up as another name for rebellion--and, in consequence,

#FORTY-FIVE YEARS OF FOREIGN WAR# have disgraced #SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS#

of our annals, though thirty years of foreign war served in the

preceding three hundred years to vindicate every British

interest!--Venerated name of #Barber#! Where is the monument to be

found in the public buildings of London, to record thy virtues for the

example of others? Would it not be a worthy companion to the statues

of Beckford and Chatham? And would it not keep in countenance the

honest exertions of the Waithmans--Woods--and Goodbeheres--who in our

days have trod in thy steps, and who, it may be hoped, will have a

long line of successors in the same honourable career?

Being anxious to view the inside of Mortlake church, a boy undertook

to fetch the key from the house of the sexton. In the mean time I

examined around me the humble monuments raised by affection to the

memory of the dead. Here were the pyramid, the obelisk, and the

tumulus, in their most diminutive forms. Here lay decomposed the

mineral parts of those ancestors from whom the contemporary generation

have sprung. Yes, said I, we truly are all of one nature, and one

family; and we suffer a common fate! We burst as germs into

organization, we swell by a common progress into maturity, and we

learn to measure by motion what we call Time, till, our motions and

our time ceasing, we are thus laid side by side, generation after

generation, serving as examples of a similar futurity to those who

spring from us, and succeed us.

I reflected that, as it is now more than four hundred years since this

ground became the depository of the dead, some of its earliest

occupants might, without an hyperbole, have been ancestors of the

whole cotemporary English nation. If we suppose that a man was buried

in this church-yard 420 years ago, who left six children, each of whom

had three children, who again had, on an average, the same number in

every generation of thirty years; then, in 420 years, or fourteen

generations, his descendants might be multiplied as under:

1st generation 6

2nd 18

3rd 54

4th 162

5th 486

6th 1458

7th 4374

8th 13122

9th 39366

10th 118098

11th 354274

12th 1062812

13th 3188436

14th 9565308

That is to say, #NINE MILLIONS AND A HALF# of persons; or, as nearly

as possible, the exact population of South Britain, might at this day

be descended in a direct line from any individual buried in this or

any other church-yard in the year 1395, who left six children, each of

whose descendants have had on the average three children! And, by the

same law, every individual who has six children may be the root of as

many descendants within 420 years, provided they increase on the low

average of only three in every branch. His descendants would represent

an inverted triangle, of which he would constitute the lower angle.

To place the same position in another point of view, I calculated also

that every individual now living must have had for his ancestor every

parent in Britain living in the year 1125, the age of Henry the First,

taking the population of that period at 8,000,000. Thus, as every

individual must have had a father and a mother, or two progenitors,

each of whom had a father and a mother, or four progenitors, each

generation would double its progenitors every thirty years. Every

person living may, therefore, be considered as the apex of a triangle,

of which the base would represent the whole population of a remote

age.

1815, Living individual 1

1785, His father and mother 2

1755, Their fathers and mothers 4

1725, ditto 8

1695, ditto 16

1665, ditto 32

1635, ditto 64

1605, ditto 128

1575, ditto 256

1545, ditto 512

1515, ditto 1024

1485, ditto 2048

1455, ditto 4096

1425, ditto 8192

1395, ditto 16384

1365, ditto 32768

1335, ditto 65536

1305, ditto 131072

1275, ditto 262144

1245, ditto 524288

1215, ditto 1048576

1185, ditto 2097152

1155, ditto 4194304

1125, ditto 8388608

That is to say, if there have been a regular co-mixture of marriages,

every individual of the living race must of necessity be descended

from parents who lived in Britain in 1125. Some districts or clans may

require a longer period for the co-mixture, and different

circumstances may cut off some families, and expand others; but, in

general, the lines of families would cross each other, and become

interwoven _like the lines of lattice-work_. A single inter-mixture,

however remote, would unite all the subsequent branches in common

ancestry, rendering the cotemporaries of every nation members of one

expanded family, after the lapse of an ascertainable number of

generations!

This principle is curious; and, though in one view it has been applied

to calculations of increasing population, yet I am not aware that it

has previously received the moral application which I draw from it, in

regard to the commixture of the human race. My ideas may be better

conceived, if any person draw two parallel lines to represent the

respective contemporary populations of two distinct epochs; and then

set up on the lower line an indefinite number of triangles. In this

scheme we shall have a just picture of the progressive generations of

every nation, and we may observe how necessarily, in spite of artifice

and pride, they must, by intermarriages, be blended as one family and

one flesh, owing to the individuals of each pair springing from a

different apex, and to every side being necessarily crossed by the

sides of other triangles. By a converse reasoning, or by tracing the

lines from the apex to the base, we may trace the descent as well as

the ascent; and, by a glance of the eye, ascertain not only that every

individual of a living generation must be descended from the whole of

the parents of some generation sufficiently remote, but that every

parent in such remote generation must necessarily have been the

ancestor of every individual of a contemporary generation.

If, during the Crusades, any of the English intermarried with Greeks,

or Syrians, or Italians, all of whom must, by intermingling, have been

descendants of the great men of antiquity, so all the English of this

age must be connected in blood with those intermarriages, and be

descended from the heroes of the classic ages. But let not pride

triumph in this consideration; for every malefactor in every age, who

left children, was equally an ancestor of the living race! The ancient

union of France and England, and of Belgium and Germany with England,

must have rendered those people near of kin; while each adjoining

nation, mixing with its neighbours, must have blended the whole human

race in one great family of remote common origin. This reasoning

explains the cause of national physiognomy and character, the

co-mixture of foreign nations being inconsiderable, and not sufficient

to effect general characteristic changes; while each nation becomes,

in the course of ages, one common and blended family, in physiognomy,

character, and genius. May so plain a demonstration of this great

truth be the means of promoting their concord, their love, the

interchange of mutual good offices, and their common happiness!

The messenger having brought the key, I was admitted into Mortlake

church, the first glance of whose venerable structure, carried my

imagination back through many distant ages, and generated a multitude

of interesting associations. Every part of the building bore an air of

antique simplicity; and it seemed truly worthy of being the place

where the inhabitants of a village ought to meet periodically to

receive lessons of moral instruction, and pour forth their

thanksgivings to the First Cause of the effects which daily operate on

them as so many blessings. Happy system!--so well adapted to the

actual condition of society, and so capable, when well directed, of

producing the most salutary effects on the temper and habits of the

people. Thrice happy man, that parish-priest, who feels the extent and

importance of his duties, and performs them for their own reward, not

as acts of drudgery, or to gratify selfish feelings! Enviable seat,

that pulpit, where power is conferred by law and by custom, of

teaching useful truths, and of conveying happiness, through the force

of principles, to the fire-sides of so many families! Delightful

picture!--what more, or what better, could wisdom contrive?--A day of

rest--a place sanctified for instruction--habits of attendance--a

teacher of worth and zeal--his precepts carried from the church to the

fire-side--and there regulating and governing all the actions and

relations of life!

Such, however, is the composition of the picture, only as seen on a

sunny day! Alas! the passions and weaknesses of men deny its frequent

realization! Authorised instructors cannot enjoy the reputation of

superior wisdom without being excited by vanity, and led to play the

fool--they cannot understand two or three dialects without becoming

coxcombs--they cannot wear a robe of office without being uplifted by

pride--and they cannot be appointed expounders of the simple elements

of morals, without fancying themselves in possession of _a second

sight_, and discovering a _double_ sense in every text of Scripture!

From this weakness of human nature arise most of the mysteries which

discredit religion,--hence the incomprehensible jargon of sects--hence

the substitution of the shadow of faith for the substance of good

works--hence the distraction of the people on theological

subjects--and hence, in fine, its too common inefficacy and

insufficiency in preserving public morals, evinced, among other bad

effects, in its tolerance of vindictive Christian wars.

I appeal, therefore, to conscientious teachers of the people, whether

it is not their duty to avoid discussions in the pulpit on mysteries

which never edify, because never understood; and to confine their

discourses to such topics as those indicated in _the Sermon of Jesus

on the Mount_. Such, at least, appears to be the proper duty of a

national establishment! Empirics may raise the fury of fanaticism

about mysteries with impunity--every absurdity may, for its season, be

embodied in particular congregations--and infidelity, of all kinds,

may be proclaimed at the corners of the streets without danger,

provided the #NATIONAL CHURCH# be founded on the broad principles of

virtue, and on the practice of those morals which are so beautifully

expounded in the New Testament; and provided the parochial clergy do

not mix themselves with those visionary topics which depend for

success more on zeal and credulity, than on argument or reason. Such a

church must flourish, as long as common sense, and a respect for

virtue, govern the majority. In this view, I lament, however, that a

revision has not taken place of those _articles of faith_ which were

promulgated in the sixteenth century, by men newly converted, and

perhaps but half converted, from the Romish faith, and taught to a

people then unprepared to receive all the changes which reason

demanded. As a friend, therefore, to that religion which preserves the

public morals, I hope to live to see many of those articles qualified

which treat of mysteries conceived in the dark ages of monkish

superstition, and countenanced by scholastic logic; considering that

such qualification would probably lead to greater concord in matters

of the highest importance to society, and serve to establish the

Anglican Church on the immoveable bases of reason and truth. It seems,

indeed, to be high time that Protestant churches, of all

denominations, should come to some agreement in regard to the full

extent of the errors which, during twelve centuries, were introduced

into the Christian religion by the craft or ignorance of the Church of

Rome. Did the early reformers detect the whole of them? And, if in the

opinion of discreet persons they did not, or, as is reasonable to

suppose, they could not, is it not important to examine conscientious

doubts, and to restore the religion of Christ, which we profess, to

its original purity, and to #THE ONLY STANDARD OF TRUTH#, which God

has given to man, #THE LIGHT OF HIS EXPERIENCE AND REASON#.

Such were the considerations that forced themselves upon me, as I

paced the aisles of this sanctuary of religion. Nor could I avoid

reflecting on the false associations which early prejudices attach to

such enclosures of four walls. By day, they are an object of

veneration; by night, an object of terror. Perhaps no person in

Mortlake would singly pass a long night in this solemn structure, for

the fee-simple of half the town! The objects of their fears none

could, or would, justify; yet the anticipated horrors of passing a

night in a church seems universal! Perhaps some expect, that the

common elementary principles which once composed the bodies of the

decomposed dead, would, for the occasion, be collected again from the

general storehouse of the atmosphere and earth, and would exhibit

themselves, on their re-organization, more hurtful than at first.

Perhaps others expect that some of those unembodied spirits, with

which mythology and priestcraft have in all ages deluded the

vulgar,--though no credible evidence or natural probability was ever

adduced of the existence or appearance of any such spirits,--would

without bodies appear to their visual organs, and torment or injure

them!--Yes--monstrous and absurd though it be--such are the prevalent

weaknesses created by superstition, and wickedly instilled into infant

minds in the nursery, so as to govern the feelings and conduct of

ninety-nine of every hundred persons in our comparatively enlightened

society.

It should now be well understood, that what is contrary to uniform

experience ought to be no object of faith--consequently what no man

ever saw, none need expect to see--and what never did harm, none need

fear! In this view our poets might aid the work of public education,

by dispensing with their machinery of ideal personages, as tending to

keep alive that superstition, which a #Wordsworth# has recently proved

to be unnecessary, in a poem that rivals the efforts of the

Rosicrucian school. Ought not the ghosts of Shakespeare to be

_supposed_ merely as the effects of diseased vision, or a guilty

imagination? Ought an enlightened audience to tolerate the mischievous

impressions produced on the minds of ignorance or youth by the gross

exhibitions which now disgrace our stage in Hamlet, Richard, and

Macbeth? We all know that fever of the brain produces successions of

spectres or images, the result of diseased organs; but no one ever

conceived that such melancholy effects of disease could be seen by

healthy by-standers, till our stage-managers availed themselves of

vulgar credulity, and dared to give substance to diseased ideas as a

means of gratifying their avarice? If Shakespeare intended to give

visible substance to his numerous ghosts, he merely conformed himself

to the state of knowledge in his day, when Demonology was sanctioned

by royal authority, and when the calendars at the assizes were filled

with victims of superstition, under charges of witchcraft! It is,

however, time that we banish such credulity from the minds even of the

lowest vulgar, as disgraceful to religion, education, morals, and

reason!

Humanly speaking, I exclaimed--Am I not in the House of God? Is not

this puny structure a tribute of man to the Architect of the Universe?

What a lesson for man's pride!--look at this building, and behold the

Universe! Man is but a point of infinite space, with intellectual

powers, bound in their sphere of action to his body, and subject with

it to the laws of motion and gravitation! For such a being this may

properly be the house of God; but it ought never to be forgotten, that

the only house of God is a universe as boundless as his powers, and as

eternal as his existence! In relation to man and man's pride, what a

sublime and overwhelming contrast is presented by the everlasting

#NOW#, and the universal #HERE#! Yet how can the creature of mere

relations, who exists by generating time, space, and other sensations,

conceive of the immutable #CAUSE OF CAUSES#, to whom his past and

future, and his above and below, are as a #SINGLE TOTALITY#! Wisest of

men is he who knows the most of such a Being; but, chained to a point,

and governed in all our reasonings by mere relative powers, we can

only conceive of _ubiquity_ by the contrast of our _locality_--of

_infinity_ by our _dimensions_--of _eternity_ by our _duration_--and

of _omniscience_ by our _reason_! Creatures of yesterday, surrounded

by blessings, it is natural we should inquire in regard to the origin

and cause of the novel state in which we find ourselves; but the

_finite_ cannot reason on the _infinite_--the _transient_ on the

_eternal_--or the _local_ on the _universal_; and on such subjects all

we can ascertain, is the utter inadequacy of our powers to perceive

them clearly. It seems, therefore, to be our duty to #ENJOY#, to

#WONDER#, and to #WORSHIP#.

On every side of me I beheld records of the wrecks of man, deposited

here merely to increase the sympathy of the living for the place.

Perhaps I was even breathing some of the gaseous effluvia which once

composed their living bodies: but, the gas of a human body differing

in no respect from the gas generated in the great laboratory of the

earth's surface, which I breathe hourly; and being in itself innoxious

in quantity, if not in quality, I felt no qualms from my consciousness

of its source. The putrefactive process decomposes the bodies of all

animals, and returns their generic principles to the common reservoirs

of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen: through life, the same

process, varied in its proportions, is going forward; and the body is

constantly resolving itself into the generic principles of nature,

which generic principles again serve the purposes of respiration in

other animals, and renew other existences as suitably as though they

had never before been employed for the same purposes. Hence it is

probable that the identical atoms composing any of the elements of

nature, may have existed in hundreds of different animals in different

ages of the world; and hence we arrive at a principle of

metempsychosis, without entangling ourselves in the absurdities with

which priestcraft among the Eastern nations has clothed and disguised

it.

Various tablets placed around the walls record departed worth in many

persons of distinction. I could find no memorials of the impostor

#Dee#, whose aged remains were deposited here. He was one of the last

of the race of those men of science who made use of his knowledge to

induce the vulgar to believe him a conjuror, or one possessed of the

power of conversing with #SPIRITS#. His journals of this pretended

intercourse were published after his death, by one of the Casaubons,

in two folio volumes. Lilly's Memoirs record many of his impostures,

and there is no doubt but in his time the public mind was much

agitated by his extravagancies. The mob more than once destroyed his

house, for being familiar with their devil; and, what is more

extraordinary, he was often consulted, and even employed in

negociations, by Queen Elizabeth. He pretended to see spirits in a

small stone, lately preserved with his papers in the British Museum.

His spirits appear to have had bodies and garments thick enough to

reflect rays of light, though they passed freely in and out of his

stone, and through the walls of his room; and organs for articulation,

which they exercised within the glass! How slight an advance in

knowledge exposes all such impostures! In his spiritual visions, Dee

had a confederate of the name of Kelly, who, of course, confirmed all

the oracles of his master. Both, however, in spite of their spiritual

friends, died miserably--the man by leaping out of a window, and the

master in great poverty. Dee is the less excusable, because he was a

man of family and considerable learning, a fellow of Trinity-college,

Cambridge, and a good mathematician. But, in an age in which one Queen

imprisoned him for practising by enchantment against her life, and her

successor required him to name a lucky day for her coronation, is it

to be wondered that a mere man, like tens of thousands of our modern

religious fanatics, persuaded himself that he was possessed of

supernatural powers?

Beneath the same pavement, resolved into kindred elements, though when

in chemical union so different a totality, lie the remains of that

illustrious patriot, Sir John Barnard, who passed a long life in

opposing the encroachments on liberty of the ministers of the first

and second of the #Guelphs#. His statue in the Royal Exchange, London,

would attest his worth, if the same area was not disgraced by another,

of the infamous Charles the Second, thereby confounding virtue and

vice. Sir John, like Alderman Barber, acquired fame by his opposition

to the Excise Laws, and by other exertions in defence of public

liberty, I have been told by one who still remembers him, that he was

an active little man, adored by the Common Hall, and much respected by

various political parties for his long-tried worth.

On the south side of the Communion-table, I was so well pleased with

some verses lately placed on a marble tablet, to record the virtues of

the Viscountess Sidmouth, who died June 23, 1811, that I could not

refrain from copying them. The Viscount and his family have a pew in

the church, and, I am told, are constant attendants at the

morning-service on Sundays.

Not that to mortal eyes thy spotless life

Shew'd the best form of parent, child, and wife;

Not that thy vital current seem'd to glide,

Clear and unmix'd, through the world's troublous tide;

That grace and beauty, form'd each heart to win,

Seem'd but the casket to the gem within:

Not hence the fond presumption of our love,

Which lifts the spirit to the Saints above;

But that pure Piety's consoling pow'r

Thy life illum'd, and cheer'd thy parting hour;

That each best gift of charity was thine,

The liberal feeling and the grace divine;

And e'en thy virtues humbled in the dust,

In Heav'n's sure promise was thine only trust;

Sooth'd by that hope, Affection checks the sigh,

And hails the day-spring of eternity.

Whenever the remains of the lord of this amiable woman are deposited

on the same spot, I venture humbly and respectfully to suggest, that

the tablet to his memory should include a copy of the most eventful

document of his life and times. He was prime-minister when, in March

1803, the ever-to-be-lamented message charging the French with making

extensive military preparations in the ports of France and Holland,

was advised by the ministry to be sent to both Houses of Parliament.

During the past year he had obtained the glory of concluding a treaty

which restored tranquillity to a suffering world; and yet the

virulence of a contemptible Opposition, and the empirical pretensions

of an Ex-minister, led him and his colleagues tardily to execute the

article which was to restore Malta to its Knights. A demand that this

article should be executed, led to discussions since made public, but

which, in my opinion, have not justified the character given of them

in the message. Nor does it appear that the English ambassador at

Paris had inquired or remonstrated with the French Government on the

subject of the pretended military preparations. The flame, however,

was thus kindled, which spread in due time from kingdom to kingdom;

covering the whole earth with blood and desolation, wasting millions

of lives in battle, siege, imprisonment, or massacre; and transferring

all the rentals and industry of the people of England to the public

creditors, to pay the interest of loans and other consequent

obligations of the state!

Unhappily the #GENIUS# of #TRUTH# was hoodwinked at the time, by the

general corruption of the press; and the #SPIRIT# of #PATRIOTISM# was

overawed by the passionate clamours of a whole people to be avenged

for various alledged affronts! But at this distance of time these are

merely topics for the lamentation of history! It is now, I fear, too

late to institute legislative inquiries; but the case will remain as a

beacon to all people, who should be taught by it to consider ministers

of the Crown, though as amiable in private life as an #Addington#, as

fallible men, liable to be misled by intrigue or passion, and

therefore, in a public sense, not to be _credited_ without other

evidence than their own assertions. Let an exemplary #INSCRIPTION# on

the tomb of the minister of that day serve therefore to teach all

ministers, never wilfully to depart in the most indifferent act of

public policy from #THE TRUTH#; and warn them to pause before they

commit the extensive interests of nations, while they or the people

are under the influence of passion. Alas! what frightful mischiefs

might have been averted if these considerations had governed the

English people, or the English ministry, during the fatal discussions

of Lord Whitworth at Paris!

In charity, I hope the Ministry believed that this dispute might have

ended with a mere demonstration; and I admit that no man can foresee

all the consequences of an action: yet, as the feelings which excited

that message and directed those deliberations, continued to influence

the Ministry during twelve years warfare, and led to the rejection of

seven overtures for peace, made at different times by #Napoleon#; the

character of the age and the future security of the world against wars

of aggression, seem to require that the origin of the late war should

even yet become an object of solemn parliamentary inquiry. The Crown

may have the constitutional power of declaring war, but the ministers

of the Crown are responsible for the abuse of that power; and let it

be remembered, that the origin of every war is easily tried by tests

to be found in #Grotius#, #Puffendorf#, #Vattel#, or other authorities

on the laws of nations; and that, without the combination of justice

and necessity in its origin, no true glory can be acquired in its

progress or in its results.[6]

[6] While these pages were printing, the Common Council of

London, the second deliberative assembly in the empire, have

presented an address to the Throne, in which they describe

the late devastating Wars as "RASH AND RUINOUS, UNJUSTLY

COMMENCED, AND PERTINACIOUSLY PERSISTED IN, WHEN NO RATIONAL

OBJECT WAS TO BE OBTAINED;" and they add, that "IMMENSE

SUBSIDIES WERE GRANTED TO FOREIGN POWERS TO DEFEND THEIR OWN

TERRITORIES, OR TO COMMIT AGGRESSIONS ON THOSE OF THEIR

NEIGHBOURS." No friend of Truth could wish to see a more

correct historical record of these melancholy events; and,

whether the authors of them are allowed to drop into the

grave by the course of nature, or should expiate their

offences on a scaffold, there is not likely to be much

difference of opinion about them in the year #THREE THOUSAND

EIGHT HUNDRED# and #SIXTEEN#. Perhaps #FIVE MILLIONS# of

men, and as many women and children, have fallen victims, in

the space of twenty-five years, to attempts, as visionary as

wicked, to destroy by the sword the assertion of Principles

of Political Justice, which necessarily grew out of the

cultivation of reason, and which were corollaries of that

#INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY# of which #Bacon# laid the

foundation, and which has been matured by #Selden#, #Coke#,

#Milton#, #Sidney#, #Locke#, #Bolingbroke#, #Montesquieu#,

#Blackstone#, #Rousseau#, #D'alembert#, #Hume#, #De Lolme#,

#Mirabeau#, and #Fox#. Rights of social man derived from

such sources cannot be overwhelmed, though a divided people

may have been overpowered, though hated dynasties may have

been restored, and though Popery, the order of Jesuits, and

the Holy Inquisition, may for a season have resumed their

ascendency.

I learnt with regret that the improved Psalmody of #Gardiner# had not

yet been introduced into the service of this church, and that the

drawling-monkish tunes are preferred to those sublime passages of

Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, which that gentleman has so ingeniously

adapted to the Psalms of David. It might have been expected that every

church in the enlightened vicinage of the metropolis would, ere this,

have adopted a means of exalting the spirit of devotion, which has

received the high sanction of the Regent and the Archbishop of

Canterbury, and which exhibits among its patrons nearly the whole

bench of bishops. I suspect, indeed, that the _shops_ of the mere

trading Methodists attract as many auditors by their singing as by

their preaching; consequently, enlarged churches and improved psalmody

would serve to protect many of the people from becoming the dupes of

that #CANT# and #CRAFT# of #FANATICISM#, which is so disgraceful to

the age, so dangerous to religion, and so inimical to the progress of

truth and knowledge.

Viewing this church in a statistical point of view, I counted 85 pews,

capable of holding about 550 persons, and I learnt that about 100

charity-school and other children sit in the aisles. Hence, perhaps,

600 attend each service; and, if 300 attend in the afternoon who do

not in the morning, then we may calculate the attendants on the

church-service, in this parish, at about 900. The population is,

however, about 2100; from which, deducting 300 children, it will

appear that half the inhabitants are dissenters, methodists, or

indifferents. Of these, about 200 belong to a chapel for the

Independents, and perhaps others attend favourite preachers in the

vicinity. Such are the religious divisions of this parish; yet, as

there are no manufactories, and the clergyman is well respected, the

attendants on the Church may be considered as above even the general

average of the Establishment in other parishes.

I was induced to ascend into the belfry, where I found ropes for eight

bells--those musical tones, which extend the sphere of the Church's

influence, by associations of pleasure, devotion, or melancholy,

through the surrounding country. What an effective means of increasing

the sympathies of religion, and exciting them by the fire-sides, and

on the very pillows of the people! Who that, as bride or bridegroom,

has heard them, in conjunction with the first joys of wedded love,

does not feel the pleasurable associations of their lively peal on

other similar events? Who, that through a series of years has obeyed

their calling chime on the Sabbath morning, as the signal of placid

feelings towards his God, and his assembled neighbours, does not hear

their weekly monotony with devotion? And who is there that has

performed the last rites of friendship, or the melancholy duties of

son, daughter, husband, wife, father, mother, brother, or sister,

under the recurring tones of the awful Tenor, or more awful Dumb-peal,

and does not feel, at every recurrence of the same ceremony, a revival

of his keen, but unavailing, regrets for the mouldering dead? Thus

does art play with our ingenuous feelings; and thus is an importance

given to the established Church in the concords of man's nervous

system, which renders it unnecessary for its priesthood to be jealous

or invidious towards those who dissent from its doctrines for

conscience sake. In truth, such is the imposing attitude of the

national Church, that, if the members leave the Church to sit under

strange pulpits, the incumbent should suspect his doctrines, his zeal,

his talents, or his charity in the collection of his dues and tithes.

What but gross misconduct in the priest--what but doctrines

incompatible with the intelligence of an enlightened age--or what but

the odious impost of tithes-in-kind, can separate the people from the

building where they first heard the name of God, and which contains

the bones of their ancestors?

In conceding to the influence of bells so many services to the

establishment which monopolizes them, I must, however, not forget that

the power they possess over the nerves, however agreeable or

interesting in health, is pernicious, and often fatal, when the

excitability is increased by disease? What medicine can allay the

fever which is often exasperated by their clangor? What consoling hope

can he feel who, while gasping for breath, or fainting from debility,

hears a knell, in which he cannot but anticipate his own?--Hundreds

are thus murdered in great cities every year by noisy peals or

unseasonable knells. Sleep, the antidote of diseased action, is

destroyed by the one; and Hope, the first of cordials, is extinguished

by the other. The interesting sympathies and services of bells appear

to be, therefore, too dearly purchased. In all countries, death-knells

and funeral-tollings ought to be entirely abolished; and even the

ringing of peals should be liable to be interdicted, at the request of

any medical practitioner. Nor ought the sanctuaries of the professed

religion of peace and charity to be disgraced at any time, by

celebrations of those murderous conflicts between man and man, which

too often take place, to gratify the malice and pride of #WEAK

PRINCES#, or sustain the avarice and false calculations of their

#WICKED MINISTERS#. Even in justifiable wars of self-defence, such as

the resistance to the unprincipled invasion of William the Norman, or

of the English people against the tyrannical Charles, the church of

Christ ought only to mourn at the unhappy price of the most decisive

victory.

The solemn tick of the parish-clock reminding me of the progress of

the day, I hastened down the worn stairs, which indicated the busy

steps of generations long returned to their gazeous elements, into the

church-yard. The all-glorious sun, mocking the fate of mortals, still

shed a fascinating lustre on the southern fields, and reminded me,

that the village on my left was the eastern #Sheen#, so called from

the very effect which I witnessed. Several pretty mansions skirted the

fields, and the horizon was beautifully filled by the well-grown woods

of Richmond Park, the walls of which were but half a mile distant. The

path across the meadow would have tempted me to enjoy its rare beauty;

but my course lay westward, and I turned from this brilliant scenery

of Nature to the homely creations of man in the village street.

Contemptibly as I think of the morals of Dee, yet, as an able

mathematician and an extraordinary character, I could not resist my

curiosity to view the house in which he resided. It is now a Ladies'

boarding-school; and, on explaining the purpose of my visit, I was

politely shown through the principal rooms. In two hundred years, it

has of course undergone considerable alterations: yet parts of it

still exhibit the architecture of the sixteenth century. From the

front windows I was shown Dee's garden, on the other side of the road,

still attached to the house; down the central path of which, through

iron gates, yet standing, Queen Elizabeth used to walk from her

carriage in the Sheen road, to consult the wily conjurer on affairs of

love and war.

I found the gouvernante of this establishment perfectly intelligent on

the subject of her proper business. Her unaffected politeness induced

me to take a chair and recruit my strength with a glass of water and a

crust of bread. We talked on Education, and particularly on that of

females. She agreed that a female pedant is at best a ridiculous

character, and that retired graces, personal accomplishments, and

useful domestic acquirements, are best adapted to the destiny of

woman. We approved of dancing, because it affords social recreation

and wholesome exercise; and of music, for its own sake, and as a means

of relieving the monotony of the domestic circle in long evenings and

bad weather. She considered the study of a foreign language to be

partly necessary, as a means of acquiring exact ideas of the science

of language generally; and we agreed in preferring the French, for its

conversational powers and its universality as a living tongue. Nor did

we differ in our views of the necessity of making the future

companions of well-educated men intimately acquainted with the leading

facts of geography and history, and with the general principles of

natural philosophy and chemistry. I ventured to suggest, that the

great objection to female boarding-schools, the neglect of the arts of

housewifery might be obviated, by causing two of the pupils, of a

certain age, to assist in the management of the store-room and kitchen

for a week in rotation, during which they should fill up the items of

the house-keeper's account-book, and make purchases of the family

tradesmen. At this the good lady smiled--Ah, sir, (said she,) yours is

a plausible theory, but not one mother in ten would tolerate a

practice which they would consider as a degradation of their

daughters.--But, (said I,) is not household economy the chief pursuit

of nine of every ten of the sex; and is not the system of education

incomplete, if not a waste of time, which does not embrace that

pursuit as part of the plan? And just for that reason, (said she,)

that one in every ten may not have occasion to concern herself in

household affairs, the whole avoid them as degrading--each looks for

the prize in the lottery of fortune, and therefore all pitch

themselves too high--and it would be offensive to the pride and vanity

of parents, to suppose that their daughter might have occasion to know

any thing of the vulgar employments of the house and the kitchen.--It

is the parents, then, (said I, in conclusion,) who require instruction

as much as their children.--We agreed, however, in our estimate of the

superior advantages which children of both sexes enjoy in the present

day, from the improved and extended views of the authors of

school-books. She was warm in her praises of the Interrogative System

of some recent authors; and I found she was no stranger to the merits

of the Universal Preceptor, and of the elementary Grammars of

Geography, History, and Natural Philosophy.

As I continued my course towards the site of the ancient residence of

the Archbishops of Canterbury, which lies at the western extremity of

the village, I could not avoid asking myself, how, in a country

abounding in such means of instruction, political fraud has continued

so successful? Has education yet effected nothing for mankind, _owing

to its servility to power_? Is the press but a more effective engine

for promulgating sophistry, _owing to its ready corruption_? Is

religion in the pulpit but a plausible means of palliating the crimes

of statesmen, _owing to the ambition of its professors_? Would it now

be possible to poison Socrates, banish Aristides, and crucify Jesus,

for teaching truth and practising virtue? Alas! a respect for that

same truth compelled me to say, Yes!--Yes, said I, there never was a

country, nor an age, in which artful misrepresentation could be more

successfully practised than at this day in Britain! Can the _press_

effectually sustain truth, while no penal law prevents the purse and

patronage of ministers and magistrates from poisoning its channels of

communication with the people? Can the _pulpit_ be expected to

advocate political truth, while the patronage of the Church is in the

hands of the Administration of the day? Can _education_ itself be free

from the influence of corrupt patronage, or the force of numerous

prejudices, while an abject conformity to the opinions of each

previous age is the passport to all scholastic dignities? Does any

established or endowed school, and do any number even of private

schools, make it part of their professed course to teach their pupils

the value of freedom, the duties of freemen, and the free principles

of the British constitution? Is the system of the public schools,

where our statesmen and legislators are educated, addressed to the

#HEART# as well as the #HEAD#? Is poverty any where more degraded;

cruelty to the helpless animal creation any where more remorselessly

practised; or the pride of pedantry, and the vain-glory of human

learning, any where more vaunted? In short, are the vices of gluttony,

drunkenness, pugilism, and prodigality, any where more indulged? Yet,

may we not say, as in the days of William of Wykeham, that "_Manners

make the man!_"--and, on the subject of public duties, might we not

derive a lesson even from the ancient institutions of Lycurgus?