It is right also that contemplative men, however far removed from the necessity of employment by the liberality of fortune, should communicate with mankind, not only in pleasures and amusements, but in real duties and active virtues, either conjugal, paternal, professional, official, or charitable. Something should be engaged in, with such obligations to performance, that an inclination to neglect should be overruled by legal compulsion, or the fear of certain loss and shame. The best method of avoiding the wretched state of not knowing what to do, is to involve oneself in such circumstances as shall force one to do something. The natural indolence of the human heart is found to escape every restraint but the iron arm of necessity. Such is our present condition, that we must be often chained down to our real happiness and our best enjoyments.

With respect to the prevention of indolence in an academical life, it would certainly be a happy circumstance if none were allowed to reside in a university above seven years, who were not actually engaged in the composition of a learned work, or in superintending the education of youth as Tutors, Professors, and Heads of Colleges. A Senior Fellow, without these employments, is one of the unhappiest and least useful members of the community.

No. CXXXI.

On the Manners of a Metropolis.

WHATEVER may be the political advantages of a very populous capital, and I believe they are of a very disputable nature, the moral and physical evils of it are evidently numerous, and destructive of the

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human race. This observation is, indeed, true of all cities, in which too great a proportion of the people is assembled; but I shall confine my present observations to the capital of the British empire.

The junction of Westminster with London, or of the Court with the City, is very justly supposed to have a pernicious influence on both; on those who are engaged in the employments of commerce, and on those who are invited from their paternal mansions by the court and the senate house. The Courtier communicates to the Citizen a love of pleasure, of dissipation, of vanity; and the Citizen to the Courtier, an idolatrous veneration for opulence. The Courtier introduces the vicissitudes of taste and fashion; the Citizen imitates them, and furnishes, in profusion, the means of their display and gratification. Thus are luxury, and all its consequent vices and miseries, advanced to as high a degree as they can reach, by the union of ingenuity to invent modes of indulgence, with wealth to supply the materials.

Lovers of pleasure in excess are always lovers of themselves in the same degree; and their love, with all the characteristical blindness of the passion, commonly injures its object. We shall therefore find selfishness prevailing in the metropolis, and producing all its natural effects of avarice, private gratifications, meanness, servility, and inhospitality. True patriotism and public spirit, though the very want of them will often cause the greatest pretensions to them, will seldom be found in the more numerous classes who inhabit the capital. Where money and pleasures are the sole objects of ardent pursuit, public virtue, and indeed all virtue will be exposed to sale whenever a purchaser can be found the price. pay Money, O ye Citizens!" says Horace, in a style of satirical irony, "is first to be

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sought; and it is time enough to think of virtue, when you have secured a fortune.'

The inhabitants of a great city will often be inhospitable and unneighbourly. Their attention is fixed on advancing and gratifying themselves, and they consider their neighbours as rivals, or at least as not worth cultivating, since they can always buy amusement at the numerous places of public resort and diversion. But in the country, mutual good offices take place, from a mutual desire and necessity of a friendly intercourse. The Londoner hardly knows the name of his next door neighbour; and, in accidents and distress, would as soon think of sending to Rome as to him, for comfort and assistance. But in any emergency in a village every hand is ready to afford relief. Hospitality to strangers still lingers in the distant country, but has long been banished from that region of avarice and selfish profusion, an overgrown city. Pay a visit in Sussex, in Devonshire, in Cornwall, in Wales, in the North, and compare your reception among strangers with that which you meet with in London and Westminster. Luxury, avarice, and vice have, indeed, a natural tendency to annihilate every generous principle, and to harden the heart against all connexions which do not promise to terminate in sensual pleasure or in lucrative advantage.

The secrecy with which crimes can be committed in a crowd is a powerful temptation. The Londoner may be involved in debauchery, and engaged in fraud, without being suspected at home, or in his neighbourhood. In the country, the fear of shame, and a principle of pride, often operate, when virtue, honour, and conscience would cease to restrain; for no one can there be guilty of an action remarkably dishonest or immoral without detection. gentleman who should devote himself to the arts

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of the swindler, or the practices of the profligate debauchee, in a village or country town, would soon be compelled, by the hisses of infamy, to desert the place, or to live there in solitude. But in a city, even men adorned with the robes of magistracy may proceed, with little notice, in the most scandalous conduct.

Weakness of body and weakness of understanding are often found to characterize the inhabitants of the capital. Luxury, want of air, want of sleep, excess in food and in sensual indulgence, have a natural tendency to debilitate. And if there were not continual supplies from the north, I know not whether the city would not exhibit the human race in a most lamentable condition of imbecility, folly, distortion, and deformity. Compare the limbs of the volunteer soldiers in the metropolis with those of the rustic militia or regulars; compare the conduct and understanding of him who was born within the sound of Bow Bell, with those of the hardy native of Yorkshire or Scotland.

The extremes of irreligion and enthusiasm mark the manners of the capital. These, indeed, are the natural consequences of some among the many bad dispositions already enumerated. Sunday is considered by the thrifty trader as a holiday, on which he may indulge without imprudence. It is therefore distinguished by many from the rest of the week, solely by excess, and by vicious indulgences. The parish churches are neglected; nor is there a great concourse to any place of worship, except where some enthusiast or hypocrite has opened a receptacle for those who labour under the symptoms of idiotism or insanity. The symptoms are often confirmed under this injudicious course, till they arrive at a degree of madness, real and most melancholy.

I have pointed out some peculiar evils in the man

ners of the metropolis with two intentions. One is, to prevent, in some degree, the prevailing practice of emigrating from the country, from the seats of health and comparative innocence, to that sink of sin, and that grave of the human race, a city too crowded with people, and overrun with every abomination. The other is, to suggest a hint which may alleviate that part of the evil which admits a remedy. The love of money, of distinction, of pleasure, will probably frustrate the former purpose; but the latter, in a day of national distress, or under other circumstances favourable to virtue, may possibly be accomplished.

To promote a reformation of manners, additional authority and efficiency must be given to the clergy and magistrates of London. Both of them are at this time looked upon by the vulgar, both high and low, with sovereign contempt. The churches are left to curates or poor incumbents, who, in a place where riches are idolized, hold a rank scarcely equal to the keeper of an alehouse or an oil shop. The justices of Middlesex have long been the standing objects of hatred and derision. Are the London clergy, who labour strenuously in their vocation, and on whom so much of the state of morals and Christianity depends, particularly countenanced by the ministry or the bishops? It is parliamentary interest which procures mitres, and stalls, and livings; and though a city curate or incumbent should convert millions from the error of their ways, he would still be suffered to elbow his way along Cheapside in his threadbare coat and tattered gown; pointed out and laughed at by every apprentice. The common people will not discriminate. They will despise religion and morals when they see the teachers of them poor, mean, and neglected.

Is it not a disgrace to the Defenders of the Faith,