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    This idea , in my ignorance , I half expected to find realized in the modern city , and when I found instead , just such houses as we had in the country , only bigger , and men and women just like my own father and mother , aha instead of a " quadriga" met a hackney-coach , I was naturally disgusted with the great capital , and looked upon her greatness and glory as nothing more than shams , exclaiming——" Is this the mighty city ? Is this all ? " - My father ' s circumstances led him to choose Islington as a residence , and we accordingly took up with the semi-gentility of that « suburban retrfeat northerly , " as Charles Lamb says . Islington is in my reminiscences the

    reverse of " merry , " The images which come crowding on my mind as look back to this period of my life , are those of dull squares , horribly resonant all the morning of London cries , and whose tedium for the rest of the dreary day ( and in fine weather they seemed to me , somehow , more dreary than ever ) was unbroken save by the rare entrance of an itinerant " Punch ; " more often deepened into mournfulness by the melancholy strains of the barrel-organ . Places , too , I recollect in that neighbourhood , that seemed to have been visited by all the blighting influences of a large city without enjoying any of its compensations;—small back streets , the abode evidently neither Of the absolutely poor , nor of the comfortable

    middleclass , but bearing an aspect of sordid , pinched and struggling meanness , more painful to contemplate than downright poverty , because unrelieved by that sort of recklessness which generally accompanies the latter ;—streets , the uniformity of whose dingy black house-fronts is only broken by an occasional gin-shop or shop-window displaying Sunday newspapers and " back-slum" periodicals—whose first-page , perchance , shows a wretched wood-cut of a masked cavalier , in slouched hat and cloak , threatening with up-lifted dagger a slim-waisted lady with long curls , who kneels and holds up a crucifix ; with the causes and catastrophe of the harrowing scene set forth in frowzy type beneath , and summed up in the title of "The Bloody

    Revenge . " The strong dislike of these streets which I then felt , and feel to this day , was increased to horror by a fearful tragedy which occurred in one of them not far from where we then lived . One night a German jeweller murdered his wife and three children , arid then committed suicide , and the bodies of the wretched man and his victims were first discovered by the servant , who lived out of the house , on her return to it in the morning . I recollect the trembling and breathless curiosity ^^ wifh * which , a few days afterwards , I walked down that street ,-taking care to keep on the opposite side of the wav , and the sickening dread with which I heard a description of the unhallowed and torch-lit burial of the murderer .

    Rises to memory also a vision of the long , dusty , populous " City Road , " with its never-ceasing stream of omnibuses , its shabby book-stalls , its green grocers' shops with their peeuliar fragrance , and occasionally , worse than al ] ^ —a crowded and pent-up graveyard . And here let me pause a moment to add my feeble voice to the cry of just indignation which has gone forth against the abominable practice of burying the dead amidst the haunts and homes of the living . I shall not here urge the great and conclusive argument against it—its fatal effects upon the health of the community . These have been demonstrated by abler pens than mine , and demonstrated so clearly and convincingly , that the practice is doomed—however long the

    opposition of its interested upholders and the apathy of the public may avert its doom . What I deprecate now , is the saddening and humiliating influences which crowded burial-grounds in the midst of the sights and sounds of bu _ sy life exert upon all sensitive minds , and more especially those of the young . To me there are few more shocking and depressing spectacles than the hurried funerals which are of daily occurrence in such places , in which the last words of peace and hope are drowned in the roar of the busy stream that goes whirling by , and the sacred emotions of the mourners are exposed to the stare of the idle nnd unfeeling who look on as at a show . This objection may perhaps be regarded as " sentimental" by those who are not much affected bv anything beyond the quantity and quality of their

    dinner and the state of the funds ; but it is one which I felt long before I was able either to analyze or express it , and I here record it on behalf of all , whether children or men , whose true instincts revolt against any outrage to the dignity and decency of the " last scene of all . " Another reminiscence of my suburban life is of walks in the fields , which then terminated the fast-encroaching streets and terraces of Pentonville , many of whose children they furnish with their only image of the country . How different they were from those to which I had been accustomed ! The very grass seemed ranker and less fresh , the stagnant pools and claypits contrasted sadly with the clear " streamlets of the West , " and amid the smoke of the great city , and the poisonous vapour of the brick-kilns , the milk-factories of the Cockney covv-kccpcrs seemed a mockery of the

    sweet barns and sheds , " Warm with the brcnth of kinc , " which I had left behind me in the lanes and fields of Somersetshire . But I have one pleasant recollection of this period to set off against these rather dismal ones , —a visit to Drury-lane Theatre . The first visit to the theatre is an event that stands out in the memory of most men , and its wonders and delights have been so admirably described by men of genius , that prudence bids me only say that to my imagination , depressed by my lonely wanderings , that visit whs an escape into a fairy-land of light , colour , and muaic , where a pent-up craving for beauty and merriment was revealed , and found a wny . Hero the vast crowd did not repel and drive

    inward this feeling , as in the streets , but all seemed fused together in the genial atmosphere of sympathetic delight . " A noble spectacle ! Noble in mirth-Nobler in sacred fellowship of tears ! IVe often asked myself what sight on earth Ib worth the fancying of our fellow-spheres ; And this is one—whole hosts in love with worth / , „ ' Judeino- the shapes of their own hopes and fears . " s ° Leigh Hunt .

    But dull and chilling though my outward world was for the most part , and meagre as were its interests , I had already begun to find rich enjoyments and bright scenes in the world of fiction , —that refuge of the lonely , that refreshment of the weary , and blessed cordial of the sad 5 and the want of companions and the absence of boyish pleasures mattered less to me now that I was able to wander at will "by the shores of old Romance , " through the glades of merrie England , or over the Scottish

    heath , or in any part of that wide region , which the Magician of the North " rules as his domain ; " now a lover of fair Margaret of Branksdme , and ready to do mortal combat for her , with Lord Cranstoun and Sir William of Deloraine , both at once ; now travelling , on foot , up to Lon ' on , with Jeannie Deans , to get her sister ' s pardon from the Queen ; now with Quentin Durward , escorting two high-born damsels , through the " pleasant land of France , " and occasionally getting a sweet stolen interview with the younger and fairer , his ladye-love and mine , at a turret-window , or behind a grating , or in some such tantalising situation . this the

    I should not like to read again my favourite books of periodnovels and poems of Sir Walter Scott , —although I am fully aware that I should find in them much of meaning and interest , which was then hidden from me , and , besides , should be able to form a more critical appreciation of their merits . Yet I would not , for all this , spoil the delicious first impression which remains upon my mind . Indeed , the stem experience or actual life , disqualifies a man for entering into and enjoying the highwrought scenes , and romantic incidents , which Scott drew with such a master-hand . The man reads adventures and romance , as one who looks on at a gorgeous pageant , which concerns him not , and coolly criticizes its arrangement , and the skill of its " getting-up . " _ The boy reads with an unconscious reference to his own future , with all its glorious possibilities , as yet undispelled by the cold touch of the actual , and his zest deepens

    "As he hears his days before him and the tumult of his life , Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years will yield . " Fortunately for me , our removal from London , and my being again sent to school , put an end , for awhile , to my days and nights of fiction-reading . I say fortunately , because , in spite of the great delight , and , in some respects , benefit , which I found in it , I regard it as too stimulating a food

    for the young mind , unless taken sparingly , especially in cases such as mine , where there was an undue tendency to introspection . The greater the enjoyment of fiction in the young , the greater is their danger from it ; and , one truth which I have purchased by experience , and which I am anxious to communicate , is , that there is an appropriate season for each of the powers of the mind and graces of the character , in all their degrees , and that the premature ripening of any one of these will be dearly paid for , sooner or later , by the equally unseasonable immaturity of some other .

    Therefore , I grieve , when " Boyhood invades the phantasies of youth , Rocked in imagination ' s golden arms , And leaves its own delights of healthy truth , For immature and visionary charms . "—R . M . MilnbS . The object of education , using that word in its most comprehensive sense , as including all the influences which can be brought to bear upon the young , is the harmonious culture of all the faculties of their nature * moral , intellectual , and physical . And , if it be said that genius is often only an excessive manifestation of some one mental power , I would reply that there must be a certain development of the other powers , of the whole character , in fact , as a basis for that genius to become efficacious , nnd not a mere torment to its possessor ; and , further , that genius , where it docs really exist , will manifest itself in greater strength and perfection , for the

    due cultivation of the whole nature . My recollections now carry me back again to the West , to a cathedral city , in which I spent the next ten years of my life . That place , wherever I may be , is always more interesting to me than any other . It is natuift for a man to regard , with strong and peculiar feeling , the scenes aniu which he grew up , from boyhood to manhood . Here , most of all , his character was formed . Hero he found himself , when ripened reflection » ra 1 1 i » 1 _ _!*__ l'X __ ^ -i . 1- * J *__ _ . n « r . ill 1 I I ? 'if **! UK " ht the of i with its responsibilities an

    broug sense personalty , accompanying resolves . Here the " sweet indefinite desires" of youth came , thronging thick upon him , and cast a glory on his path . Here his young ambit 10 first burned within hhn . Here he formed his first friendshi ps—friendship * such as he will never form again , with their complete and unsuspecting J , tcrchange of bosom thoughts and coniidcnccs . And here he looked up , boyish hero-worship , to his young superiors in boldness or cleverness , advantage , perchance , of u few seasons' seniority , with an admwa

    greater , if less discriminating , than he now pays to the objects o nation ' s applause . » But there are other reasons , why the place in which such years are sp should be more deeply remembered thaw any subsequent scene . Wo _ it more intimately . We make acquaintance with it , when our sense

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 13, 1853, page 788, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1999/page/20/