aware that men of pleasure are far from being the only persons who have
turned into a maxim of life the sentence which the Duke of Buckingham
passed upon the dog which barked after him,--"Would to God you were
married and settled in the country!" It is evident that the word
_provincial_ is often felt, by characters of a higher strain and object,
to imply an imputation or admission of mediocrity. Now, greatly as
nations differ, it is generally admitted that all capitals are pretty
much alike. It follows therefore, that the characteristic spirit and
principle of a nation do not appear there to most advantage. Enow worthy
representatives of that spirit and principle are doubtless there; but
they are there too much as though they were not. It is an atmosphere
which no individual powers can penetrate, and where it needs more than
an ordinary sun to make itself felt or seen. We are satisfied that, on a
just estimate of the whole case, the provinces, as distinguished from
the metropolis, would be found in many instances, perhaps in most, to be
the home which a wise lover of himself, and a sincere lover of his kind,
would do well to fix in;--not indeed as the scene of a brilliant or
sybarite existence, but as the post of that salutary influence which
sinks deepest; and of that usefulness and happiness which last the
longest; as most visibly incorporated with, and represented by, our
fellow-beings.--_Edinburgh Review._

* * * * *


INFANCY.

(_From the Feuilles d'Automne of Victor Hugo, translated in the Foreign
Quarterly Review._)