--ADVICE TO BACHELORS.
There is a sort of half-way between town and the country, which some
assert combines the advantages, others the defects, of each; and this is
a country-town. Here, indeed, a little money, a little learning, and a
little fashion, will go ten times as far as they will in London. Here, a
man who takes in the Quarterly or Edinburgh, is a literary character;
the lady who has one head-dress in the year from a Bond-street milliner,
becomes the oracle of fashion, "the observed of all observers;" here
dinners are talked of as excellent, at which neither French dishes nor
French wines were given, and a little raspberry ice would confer wide
celebrity on an evening party, and excite much animadversion and
surprise. Here, notwithstanding a pretty strong line of demarcation
between the different sets of society, every one appears to know every
body; the countenances and names of each are familiar; we want no slave,
who calls out the names; but are ready with a proper supply of
condescending nods, friendly greetings, and kind inquiries, to dispense
to each passenger according to his claims. Indeed, in calculating the
length of time requisite for arriving at a certain point, the inhabitant
of a country town should make due allowance for the necessary gossip
which must take place on the road, and for the frequent interchange of
bulletins of health, which is sure to occur; and after a residence of
any length in these sociable places, a sensation of solitude and
desertion is felt in those crowded streets of our metropolis, where the
full tide of population may roll past us for hours without bringing with
it a single glance of recognition or kindness.
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