or prejudice fostered, has told the other way. Nothing has existed which
can be called a court or courtiers for the last two hundred years; and a
sort of feudal feeling still keeps our squires faithful to their halls.
Two exceptions only can be set down to our institutions. The distinction
of local courts obliges the English Bar to reside near Westminster; and
the duration of a modern session substitutes a house for the family of a
Member of Parliament, in the place of lodgings for himself. Under these
circumstances, as "the wen" has not been produced, so is it not likely
to be dispersed by any direct legislative application. To say the truth,
the grievance, in our opinion, is not in the _absolute_, but in the
_relative_ amount of the wealth, intelligence, and virtue, squeezed
together on those marvellous square miles upon which the capital stands.
We do not grudge it the pretty country which is hid under its basement
stories, any more than the social activity and happiness which live
along its crowded streets. We serve ejectments upon nobody. The only
question is, whether some would not do well to move of themselves. Among
the hopes and objects by whose influence 1,200,000 human beings are
collected on the same spot, a certain proportion will be found, which
have not been at all,--and more still, which have not been very
judiciously or magnanimously, considered. There are many in the higher
classes of its inhabitants especially, who, we suspect, on examining
into their principles and habits, will have some difficulty in
satisfying themselves that they have not chosen ill for their real
happiness; and, for all real usefulness, a great deal worse. But the
mistaken notion which most strips the country of its natural guardians,
is the fallacy, on the part of young and sanguine dispositions, of
believing that the motives and sphere of individual action rise in
proportion to the apparent magnitude of the scene. These are the
absentees most to be regretted. In the single line of professional
practice, and in its most successful instances, that may be the case.