INTRODUCTION". 7 



failures proceeded from an ignorance of facts, which 

 any body could have known, had they taken the 

 trouble of inquiring, of facts that stand boldly out, 

 and make themselves be felt the moment that the 

 parties come within the sphere of their operation. 



But while in business there has been no very per- 

 ceptible accession of general wisdom, there has not 

 been much improvement in what are supposed to con- 

 stitute the pleasures of the world. The theatre has 

 lost its intellectual character. The delineation of 

 human nature, even in its most ordinary aspects, is 

 abandoned ; genius pens not one line for even the great 

 national houses; the fashionable, when they are at- 

 tracted, are attracted by sight and sound, without 

 meaning or moral ; the crowd are drawn by buffoonery 

 and grimace ; and the calm part of the community, 

 they who ought to impart to it its character, must 

 attend to their vocations. The other public amuse- 

 ments are all little better than mere sights ; for be 

 it a collection of pictures, or plants, or animals, one 

 can only have an observation beyond the mere ex- 

 ternal beauty or deformity of the show. There is no 

 allusion to use ; not a word about nature or properties ; 

 not even a knocking at that door of information, by 

 the opening of which so wide a vista of instructive 

 associations might be seen. The eye is gratified for 

 a moment ; but the show stands insulated, suggesting 

 nothing, and leading to nothing ; except, perhaps, the 

 craving for another show, from the restlessness of that 

 mind, which fain would break out of the prison and 

 be free as thought, but is not permitted. 



In religion the case is perhaps still worse, as that is 



