ships excel those of our ancestors. The only objection is, that youth is forced, by competition, to an exertion injurious to health, and consequently to the ultimate and complete development of the intellectual powers. The MARCH of INTELLECT compels a competition in universities, colleges, public schools, and private seminaries of education, just as much as among individuals. Let us take, for example, the LONDON UNIVERSITY. The rigid, and I will say, the fair, honorable, and impartial system of examination into the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the adjudication of honours, leaves mediocrity of talent no chance of distinction, however assiduous may be the application. Emulation is so stimulated (encouragement is not a sufficiently strong term) that none but the higher order of spirits, in our age, can hope to bear off the prizes of merit-and then only when assisted by unremitted labour. Can this system be objected to?Certainly not. It is the necessary consequence of the unrestrained thirst after knowledge-the unshackled liberty of the press and of the people—the exuberance of population—and the universal consciousness that "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER." Still this tremendous competition and exertion of the intellect, at a period of life when Nature points to and demands exuberance of corporeal exercise, must have a deleterious influence on mind and body-and this injury, though acquired at first by external circumstances, will, in time, be propagated from parent to progeny hereditarily. There appears to be no remedy for the evil at present, except that of employing the holidays of youth in bodily exercise as much as possible in the open air in the country. Parents ought to look to this before the health of their offspring is undermined. FEMALE EDUCATION. Modern refinement appears to be doing more injury through the medium of female than of male education. In the latter, the study of ancient literature and modern science, must tend, if not carried to excess, to elevate the mind and strengthen the FEMALE EDUCATION. 17 intellectual faculties. But surely this cannot be expected from a system which constantly aims at the cultivation and indulgence of certain senses-as, for instance, those concerned in music and painting. From ample observation, I am satisfied that the degree of attention bestowed on these acquirements, or accomplishments, is incompatible with an adequate study of the more useful, not to say dignified branches of education, and a proper amount of bodily exercise. I am, indeed, prepared to maintain, and I do not hesitate to assert, that the present system of female education is a system of SENSUALITY, in the broadest I had nearly said the worst signification of the word! Few are acquainted, or capable of becoming acquainted with the baneful consequences of this system; but many are doomed to feel them. The poisoned arrow, in this case, leaves no wound; but the venom meanders slowly through the veins, and effects its destructive work unseen and unknown! What but evil can be expected from a system of education which enervates the mind and enfeebles the body-which polishes the external senses, and leaves the intellect a prey to rust and moth-which excites the imagination and obtunds the judgment—which, to speak out plainly, fosters mere ANIMAL FEELING and discourages MORAL SENSE! I speak of the abuse and not the use of music. If the " concord of sweet sounds" were made a rational and moderate recreation and relaxation from abstruser and severer studies, it would be all well. But MUSIC is now esteemed the prime accomplishment, and to make any figure in this, the young female must spend four or five hours of the day, and as many of the night, in thrumming the piano and straining her lungs. But this is not all. The musical mania engenders the desire, and indeed creates the necessity, for a constant round of concerts, operas, and festivals, by which the health of the body is enfeebled-the energies of the soul paralyzed-and the moral principle itself undermined! But as this piece of philosophy is not so likely to gain the female ear as D the note That pants or trembles through the eunuch's throat, I shall take leave of the subject altogether, and proceed to mat-ters of a very different complexion. THE ANTIDOTE TO WEAR AND TEAR. Having thus glanced at some of the more prominent features of the WEAR and TEAR of civilised, and especially of civic life, it is natural to inquire if there be any remedy or antidote. There is an ancient maxim which says-" contraria contrariis medentur"-that is evils or disorders are cured by their opposites. Thus the lassitude of exercise is removed by rest-the feelings of ENNUI are dissipated by employment-the effects of intemperance are overcome by abstemiousness-and, by a parity of reasoning, we should expect that the WEAR and TEAR of the London season, resulting from dissipation in the higher ranks, and avocation, mental anxiety, and a thousand moral and physical ills in all ranks, might be repaired, in some degree at least, by pure air, rural relaxation, and bodily exercise. What reasoning would predicate, experience confirms. Let any one, who has a month to spare in the Autumn, take his daily seat on the further extremity of the chain-pier at Brighton, and examine the features of the numerous faces which present themselves on the platform there. He must note the individual countenances. He will perceive these individuals, at first pale and sickly—gradually improve in their looks-and at length disappear—the chasms perpetually filled up by importations from MODERN BABYLON. From a "week at Margate" to a "tour among the Alps," or "travels in Italy," what an infinite variety of ways and means for the recovery of health or the pursuit of pleasure, are laid under contribution by the wealthy, the idle, the laborious, or the luxurious inhabitants of this great metropolis!! The valleys of Wales, the lakes of Cumberland, the lochs and mountains of Scotland, the green hills of Erin-all furnish their quota of health and recreation for the "EVERLASTING CITY" of the British Isles! ANTIDOTE TO WEAR AND TEAR. 19 And no people on the face of this earth more dearly earn, or more richly deserve this autumnal treat—or retreat, than the LONDON CITIZENS. Their proud aristocratic neighbours of WESTMINSTER are entitled to these indulgences by prescriptive right—and probably eye, with some degree of jealousy, the power which industry gives the inferior orders of society to participate in the luxury. Be that as it may, it is fortunate that the fury of politics, the pursuit of pleasure, the riot of dissipation, the madness of ambition, the thirst of gold, the struggles of competition, the cares of commerce-nay even the confinement of the counter, find one annual interval of relaxation beyond the smoke, and dust, and din of the metropolis. It is probably of little importance to what point of the compass the tourist steers his course. Health and recreation are not confined to North, South, East or West; but may be found in every intermediate radiation from the scene of exhaustion. Why the writer of this volume should direct his steps to the Alps or to the Apennines, for change of air or for health, the reader has no right to inquire ;-but why he should tax the public with a BOOK on this occasion, is a very legitimate query-much more easily asked than answered. It must be confessed that between the THAMES and the TIBER-between Ben Nevis and Mont Blanc, there is not a hill or a dale-a palace or a ruin—a city or a village—a cliff or a cataract—a river or a forest-a manner, custom, or character-scarcely an animal, mineral, or vegetable, that has not been minutely described over and over again. There remains, therefore, but one source of VARIETY, leaving ORIGINALITY out of the question. The objects of survey, animate and inanimate, continue the same, or nearly so-the impressions made on the mind by these objects, and the reflexions growing out of these impressions, are as various, and often as opposite, as the characters of the observers, or the features of their faces. Let us advert to one or two illustrations. How many hundred thousand people must have crossed London Bridge and ascended Fish-street Hill, eying the Monument as they passed, without hitting on such a pithy sentiment or reflexion as that with which it inspired Pope? "Where yon tall column towering to the skies, What a crowd of complex ideas is called forth by these two lines! The dreadful fire of London-the shocking insinuation resulting from political prejudice—the melancholy reflexion that a public monument should record a scandalous falsehood-the contempt and detestation of the Bully, &c. all flash on the mind in an instant, and furnish food for a long train of contemplation. Even the same or very similar objects strike the same class of people-for instance poets, in a very different manner. Thus the summits of the highest mountains in the old and new world -the ALPS and the ANDES, excited very dissimilar trains of thought in two cotemporary poets of first rate genius. BYRON Above me are the ALPS, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls Gather around these summits, as to shew How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave mean man below. CAMPBELL Afar, Where ANDES, Giant of the Western Star, With meteor standard, to the winds unfurl'd, Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world. This variety of impression from same or similar objects, is not peculiar to poets, but is found among writers of every class. Camper wrote a very amusing and interesting essay on the 'shape of a shoe"-Cowper on the pleasures of a sofa-and every one knows how much Sterne made of a short trip to Paris. But without aiming at either poetry or sentimentality, I may be. |