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Untitled Article
Theire are no masses of rttatt ^ r , whatever be their fomis , that can compare with acres of human vitality , intelligence , and feeling . That is the true scenery for the eye of painter or of poet , of actor , preacher , oratof , or statesman . Individual man may be but & poor creature : there may be a want of dignity , nieaning , and power , in such collections of people as may be brought together in other localities of the empire ; but a London
multitude always partakes of the sublifrie , in church or theatre , in meeting , mart , or festival . With all the raggedness ana wretchedness , with all the ignorance and vice , which abound here , there is yet so much of intelligence generally diffused ; so much openness , in large assemblies especially , of heart and mind , to the great principles of truth and morals , as to render a London multitude the fittest means for conveyifig to the
imagination that mixed idea of majesty and dependence ; that mingled feeling which does reverence to the very abject that it is zealous to serve , which constitutes the inspiration of patriotism and philanthropy . None ever yet devoted themselves to the improvement of mankind , who did not reverence mankind . It is vain for us to talk of arneliorating the condition of the great
mass of the community without that vivid conception which is best produced by the presence of a multitude upon the senses , the imagination , and the feelings . Nor is this vacating of London by the distinguished few anything like so general as it is conventionally assumed to be . The exceptions would make in any other city a splendid generality . The gleanings of the forsaken field are richer than many harvests . There are always men in London , an hour of whom would be worth a journey from the
Antipodes . Did not John Milton abide in that small house in Bunhill-row , all through the hottest months ; and was it not there that he dictated his amaranthine verses ; and did he not declare that his poetical vein ever flowed most freely after the autumnal equinox ? Have not all great poets , moralists , and critics , been city men ? There have they studied and practised the essentials of their high vocation , gaining from the country
only its recreations and adornments . However addicted occasionally to a silent meditative ramble in the fields , yet habitually , now as of old , * Wisdom standeth and crieth aloud in the streets . ' Even a Lake poet that feeleth no inspiration in London is false to his allegiance , arid folloWelh not his leader . His owii mountain echoes never heard the sonorous voice of Wordsworth rolling out in richer melody than when its homage was chanted on that still
morning to the * fnighty heart' of London , in one of those everlasting sonnets which Milton himself might h&vfc dictated : to say nothing of many * stray gifts , ' benedictions on street ^ square , ana river , which tell of the bard ' s thereabout' in the vainly despised Mand df cockney . ' Why , then , should autumn be struck out from the list of Londori seasons ? The spirit rarely may rest and
Untitled Article
6 < £ 2 AutuvMi in Lbtiddn .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 662, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/14/
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