it must be essentially ripe. Better that it should be a little faded; a little deserted; a little unpopular, and very unfashionable; than so dreadfully raw and new. It should have a flavour of old literature, old politics, and old art. If it is just a little obstructive and High Tory—inclined to stand upon the ancient ways—no sensible man of progress should blame it, but smile blandly and pass on. It will, at least, possess the merit, in his eyes, of being self-supporting; asking for, or obtaining no government aid. While Boards of Works are freely supplied with funds to construct the new, there is no board but unorganized sentiment to maintain the old.
This house and this neighbourhood should not be far from London—from the old centre of the old town. They should stand in Soho, or in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or in Westminster, like Queen's Square, near St. James's Park; or even in Lambeth, like the Archbishop's Palace. Better still if in the Strand, like Northumberland House; or in Fleet Street, like the Temple Gardens. What luxury would there be, almost equal to anything we read of in the Arabian Nights, in turning on one side from the busy crowd, unlocking a dingy door that promised to lead to nothing but a miserable court, and passing, at once, into a secret, secluded garden! What pleasures would be equal to those of hearing the splash of cool fountains; the sighing of the wind through lofty elms and broad beeches; of standing amongst the scent and colours of a hundred growing flowers; of sitting in an oaken room with a tiled fireplace, surrounded by old china in cabinets, old folios upon carved tables, old portraits of men and women in the costume of a bygone time, and looking out over a lawn of grass into a winding vista of trees, so contrived as to shut out all signs of city life, while the mellow hum of traffic came in at the open window, or through the walls, and you felt that you were within a stone's throw of Temple Bar!
In such a house, on such a spot, a man might live, and his life be something more than a weary round of food and sleep. His nature would become subdued to what it rested in: the clay would happily take the shape of the mould. I believe more in the influence of dwellings upon human character, than in the influence of authority on matters of opinion. The man may seek the house; or the house may form the man; but in either case the result is the same. A few yards of earth, even on this side of the grave, will make all the difference between life and death. If our dear old friend Charles Lamb was now alive (and we all must wish he was, if only that he might see how every day is bringing him nearer the crown that belongs only to the Prince of British Essayists), there would be something singularly jarring to the human nerves in finding him at Dalston; but not so jarring in finding him a little farther off, at Hackney. He would still have drawn nourishment in the Temple and in Covent Garden; but he must surely have perished if transplanted to New Tyburnia. I cannot imagine him living at Pentonville (I cannot, in my uninquiring ignorance, imagine who
