has otherwise been very good to me, gave me a Protestant mind; and while therein exists no disposition to adore St. Botolph's toes, or to worship St. Pancras's well-preserved tibia, I am equally unenthusiastic about Pope's nightcap, I don't care a fig for Queen Anne's farthings, and I would not go round the corner to behold the site of the Chelsea bunhouse. There is little, after all, in bricks, bones, and the coffins of men; but a glimpse into the lives of men, or into the eyes of nature—that is another thing.
The one may always be had in London, the other never could be had, were it not for Holborn Hill. Circumstances permitting, every city ought to be built on a hill; for reasons of morality, and therefore for reasons of state. No doubt, there is a certain agreeable monotony in levels, gentle gradients, and a perspicuous network of streets; they may even impose a wholesome contrast upon the minds of well-to-do citizens, who go "out of town." But what of the ill-to-do citizen, who never leaves its walls? Not only do the bare hard streets present to him no natural thing, but with strait lines of brick on every side, a stony plane at his feet, and a flat dull roof over all, he gets no hint of a natural thing; and all that is artificial in him is hardened and encouraged. But suppose the city streets wind up and down and round about a hill? Then by no devices of brick or stone can you keep out the country. Then Nature defies your macadamization and your chimney stacks; it is impossible to forget her, or to escape her religious gaze.
When did it occur to any ordinary person walking Bond Street, that once there had been turf there, and a running about of beetles? On the other hand, what man of any kind looks over the little Fleet valley to where Holborn Hill rises on the other side, without wondering how the houses came there—without feeling that they are only another sort of tents, pitched upon the earth for a time? "They, too, have to be struck," says he, "and there is everywhere wandering away!"
The result is, then, that he hits upon a reflection, which is, I do not say profound, but at the bottom of all profundity, so far as we have plumbed it. This reflection is to be found in the sap, fibre, and fruit of all morality, all law, philosophy, and religion. There is nothing like it to move the hearts of men; the heart it cannot move belongs to an atheist (which creature, and not the ape, as some have supposed, is the link between brutes and men), the heart which it has not moved, to one quite unawakened. For instance, those who fill the gaols; the society of thieves; the scum of the population, as it is termed, fermenting in alleys and poisoning the state. We have reformatories for the young of this breed, whom we endeavour to reclaim by reading, writing, and arithmetic—attendance at chapel, and book-keeping by double entry. But when you have put the young reprobate through all these exercises, you have only succeeded in making gravel walks in a wilderness; and though from those trim avenues you may scatter good seed enough, it perishes on the soil, or withers in a tangle of weeds. After all our labour and seed-scattering, we still complain that it is so hard to reach the heart. Now here we have the
