If I were to enumerate all the great and venerable personages who indulge
in an extensive curiosity, I should never arrive at the end of my subject.
Lawyers and physicians are eternal questionists; the clergy are curious,
especially on agricultural affairs; the first nobles in the land take in
the "John Bull" and the "Age" to gratify the most prurient curiosity. The
gentlemen of the Stock Exchange live only from one story to another, and
are miserable if a "great man's butler looks grave," without their knowing
why. So general indeed is this passion, that one half of every Englishman's
time is spent in inquiring after the health of his acquaintance, and the
rest in asking "what news?" There is a very respectable knot of persons who
go up and down the country asking people their opinion of the pope's
infallibility, and what they think of the Virgin Mary; and when they do not
get an answer to their mind, they fall to shouting, "The Church is in
danger," like a parcel of lunatics. Another set, equally respectable, are
chiefly solicitous for your notions concerning the Apocalypse; and to
learn whether you read your Bible at all, or whether with or without note
or comment. Then again, a third set of the curious are to be seen, mounted
upon lamp-posts, and peeping into their neighbours' windows, to learn
whether they shave themselves, or employ a barber on a Sunday morning; and
a fourth, who cannot find time to go to church, in their anxiety to know
that their neighbours do not smoke pipes and drink ale in the time of
divine service. In short, society may be considered as one great system of
espionage; and the business of every man is not only with the actions, but
with the very thoughts of all his neighbours.

_New Monthly Magazine._

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